I’ve now got my hands on Louise Welsh’s new novel from Canongate, Naming the bones and am intrigued by the opening scenes of the thriller – set here in our very own National Library of Scotland .
Welsh’s academic scholar of a hero is researching a dead Scottish poet of the 1970s and naturally enough is discovering the treasures available in the manuscript collections at NLS. The opening chapters feature a “senior librarian” with “a jolly, monkish cast” and a “head bookfinder” with a “saggy cardigan.” The bookfinder is soon drinking coffee with the academic across George IV Bridge inThe Elephant House and seems to be providing enigmatic clues for our hero’s search. Welsh is a clever writer, and the world of books served her well in her first big success The cutting room, so it will be interesting to discover how she gets her man from the Reading Room in NLS to the promised muddy denoument in a Lismore burial ground.