Polygon Books

“A strong collection showing a highly skilled poet on top of her craft, using language and imagery in a sensitive but candid way.” —Brian McCabe Vividly evoking the landscape of Scotland, particularly the brooding presences of the Scottish islands and Sutherland, these poems also touch on personal love and loss—combining nature with human themes in a collection that is both intimate and celebratory. Presented in English and Gaelic, the poems build on Meg Bateman’s established flair for uniting intense emotion and feeling with a classic, restrained control and structure that harkens back to Gaelic song-poetry and the beauty in a poem’s inevitability.“The poems have the strength and simplicity of art made for a community rather than an elite, though they are far from artless.” —The Guardian“The end result of this beautifully constructed and paced collection is a universal evocation of commonalities fused by human consideration . . . The title Transparencies hints at ephemeral moments caught. The poet suggests she aspires to a ‘palimpsest’ of emotions recalled and now renewed upon the page. She succeeds.” —The Herald “Meg Bateman’s embrace of Gaelic has awakened her poetry to a noble passionate candor rare in today’s over-ironical English.” —Les Murray

'Confidently-written, warm and accessible… a fun and pacey book' — The Herald 'This is a laugh-out-loud, feel-good story which demands a follow-up *****' — News of the World It's 1975 and Britain is a country in political flux. In Glasgow the dirty old Victorian slums have been razed to the ground, replaced with brand new slums twenty storeys high. Chips are a health food and the very mention of filet mignon would spark a riot on the Govan Road. As its citizens struggle to adapt to their changing world, they wonder what will replace the steel mills and the shipyards, whether they look stupid in flares and what the lyrics of the Bay City Rollers' 'Shang-A-Lang' actually mean? Ten-year-old Steve Duff longs to be poor and neglected like his friend Wally, whose parents are incapable drunks. Frustratingly for Steve, he's saddled with a conventional, stable and middle-class family. Then, over the course of a year, his father has a fling with a barmaid and leaves home, his mother's response is to start a psychology degree, his sister is arrested for demanding money with menaces and his brother gets a girl pregnant.As if the normal indignities of growing up weren't bad enough…This is a funny touching and heart-warming debut novel that will strike a chord with anyone who has been an awkward kid at least once in their life.

A serving girl vanishes in this mystery story set in sixteenth-century Scotland . . .Elspet, a serving girl at the harbor inn, has been told for years by the inn’s owner, Walter Bone, that she is ugly and that no man will ever want her. Then, after years of being shut away from the world, she unexpectedly catches the attention of a young laborer and realizes she has been lied to all these years. She meets her lover in secret at the Lammas day fair, but her dalliances do not go unnoticed . . .Now Hew Cullan finds himself retained by a man with a mind for murder. Walter Bone makes clear his intent to kill Elspet’s lover, and seeks Hew’s help to ensure his will is upheld when he is inevitably hanged for the act. But his jealousy has unexpected consequences. When Elspet disappears without a trace, several innocent fair-goers and patrons are dragged into a web of suspicion, rumor, and accusation. It falls to Hew to unravel the twisted threads and figure out the truth of the matter.“McKay is to be congratulated for the continued quality and inventiveness of her tales.” —The National

A collection of poetry from “the patron saint of literary street urchins” (The New York Times).The Dead Queen of Bohemia is a journey through a life lived on the edge. With a poetic style influenced by Gertrude Stein and William Burroughs, this collection is woven with surrealistic imagery that is both unflinching and dislocating. Jenni Fagan’s poetry is raw and tough yet beautiful and tender, and with themes of loss and recovery, hope and defiance, represents a clarion call from a self-taught poet who started writing at the age of seven and so far has not stopped. “Full of desire and guitars and witches” (Sunday Herald), The Dead Queen of Bohemia documents the progression of a voice and a life written over the last twenty years, opening with Fagan’s most recent work and including her previous two collections.

A short story in the historical mystery series featuring a sleuthing lawyer in sixteenth-century St. Andrews, Scotland.When a regent of St. Salvator’s appears to lose his wits, it falls to physician Giles Locke and lawyer Hew Cullan to discern the cause—and to defend the college from the King’s commissioners—in this darkly comic mystery tale in the acclaimed series set in sixteenth-century Scotland.“McKay is to be congratulated for the continued quality and inventiveness of her tales.” —The National

A candlemaker’s life is extinguished in this short story of murder and intrigue featuring the sixteenth-century Scottish lawyer Hew Cullan.On Candlemas eve, an apprentice candle maker finds his master, John Blair, dead in his workshop, and the evidence points to the surgeon Sam Sturrock. Lawyer Hew Cullan finds himself, together with his friend, the physician Giles Locke, drawn into the investigation when they are enlisted by Sturrock’s desperate apprentice. At first it seems like Blair’s death is the result of reckless surgical practice, but as Hew delves deeper into the life of the candle maker he discovers a web of extortion. It seems John Blair was a man with many enemies . . .“McKay is to be congratulated for the continued quality and inventiveness of her tales.” —The National

For an eleven-year-old boy, living with his widowed mother and younger brother in a remote seaside village on one of the Western Isles of Scotland, growing up has its difficulties, as well as its idyllic pleasures. Iain Crichton Smith's vivid evocation is loosely based on memories of his own childhood on Lewis. There are so many discoveries to be made, along the shore and on the moor. Crossing a field under snow has its perils; exploring an empty cottage has its imaginative terrors; you might be humiliated by a village woman when your mother has sent you to a neighbour to borrow half-a-crown until her pension comes through: or playing along the shore with Pauline, a visitor from London with her wider knowledge of the world, you might find your own certainties called into question. There is poverty and richness; and eventually the war casts its shadows across your world. Iain Crichton Smith has brought to life a gallery of distinctly memorable figures: the sure-footed Blinder with his amazing sense of the island terrain; Stork with his wooden leg; Speedy, the reluctant footballer; Jim returned after twenty years in America with such stories… The author's own sense of the terrain, and of the characters who inhabit it, is equally sure and beautifully precise; his book will evoke for all ages the inner-emotions of growing up, as well as the outward sights and scents of an island experience.

Tom and Vera Mallow, who are in only their early thirties, might indeed be said to be in the autumn of their lives already, they are school teachers, both of them, but without any strong feeling for children, and without nay children of their own. Their outlook is wary; they hold themselves apart. When they invite Tom's mother to share their home, they do so from a sense of duty rather than love. But after autumn, we find, comes summer; and it is the mothers — Tom's and, later Vera's — who in surprising ways reverse the march of the seasons: Mrs Mallow as irritant, with her incongruous friendship with Mrs Murphy, a Catholic and of a lower social class; and then Angela, the vivacious ex-actress, from the a different world, to provide catharsis. Here is a sympathetic and unusual study of a marriage that, surprisingly and against the odds, takes the right turning; though lest anyone should feel that Crichton Smith is succumbing to sentiment, the novel's last page echoes the veiled foreboding of it first. Once again he reminds us, with oblique irony, of the poet lurking behind the novelist,

The titular Mr Dixon is not the novel's main character but the creation of the novel's main character, Tom Spence. Spence describes himself as “an embryo novelist”; he has had the odd job — for example, delivering mail — but is largely without skills and has bet all on his career as a writer. Unfortunately he has “never brought a novel to a successful conclusion” never mind had one published, and, unable to live the dream, has instead dreamed it through his protagonist, Drew Dixon. His novel has ground to a halt because he has decided Dixon will “meet a girl of twenty-five or thereabouts whose entry into his world was to change his life” but has no idea how to write it. Fortuitously he meets a young woman, Ann, and, as their relationship develops we begin to sense that it will be Spence's life that is changed rather than Dixon's. As Spence's isolation ends he revisits his past, attempting to contact the mother he hasn't seen in years and returning to his old school to see the English teacher who he believes encouraged him to write. Increasingly his admiration for Dixon turns to hatred and Spence is forced to choose between life and art.

While the army of the Goths makes war, the Romans may live in peace!' AD 468. With the last Roman emperor of the West deposed, the Empire is in ruins — a plaything for the barbarian armies that rampage across it. This extraordinary story spans Europe, from the intrigues of Constantinople to the battlefields of the future France, North Africa and the Balkans, tracing the rise of Theoderic the Goth to a pinnacle of power and wealth. Ross Laidlaw was born in Aberdeen and educated at Cambridge University. He has worked and travelled extensively in Southern Africa and currently lives in East Lothian.

A classic which should be on every bookshelf,' — Scotland on Sunday Glasgow, 'the dear green place', is the setting for Archie Hind's acclaimed novel. Mat Craig is a young Glaswegian working-class hero and would-be novelist, whose desire to define himself as an artist creates social and family tensions. Set in 1960s Glasgow, The Dear Green Place is an absorbing and moving story, the whole book is invested with strong and sombre descriptions of the city around Mat.

Abdul Wahab, an Afghan science teacher, is eagerly anticipating the arrival of his British fiancee, Laura Johnstone, in the capital of his home country. Having met while Abdul was a student at Manchester University, the couple are eager to settle down in Isban. However, Abdul is not the only one interested in Miss Johnstone's arrival. Prince Naim, one of the sons of the king, sees the marriage as a symbol of a successful union between East and West, and in his hurry to cement this union, promotes Abdul into a position of power he is far from ready for. Meanwhile, the employees at The British Embassy are in turmoil at this new arrival and all the disaster they are sure this mixed marriage will bring.

Andrew Greig recounts in poetic sequence the tale of his open dinghy voyage from Stromness in Scapa Flow and an overnight stay on Cava (an island formerly inhabited for over twenty years by two unusual women) in poetic sequence. In sailing small boats in scary open waters Andrew Greg found a new activity and a new metaphor for life. Written in six weeks, Found at Sea is a 'very wee epic' about sailing, male friendship and a voyage. Bon voyage!

“The wit and swagger” of this collection by the celebrated Scottish poet “belie a skill as a technician that she shares with the greats” (Scotsman, UK).This poetry collection by Liz Lochhead features never before published work along with poems written during her time as Scots Makar—Scotland’s national poet. They from commissioned works, such as ‘Connecting Cultures’, written for the Commonwealth Games in 2014 to more personal works, such as ‘Favourite Place’, about holidays in the west coast with her late husband.Throughout her career, Lochhead has been described variously as a poet, feminist-playwright, translator and broadcaster but has said that ‘when somebody asks me what I do I usually say writer. The most precious thing to me is to be a poet. If I were a playwright, I’d like to be a poet in the theatre.’

A delight to find something new … funny, moving, horrifying and compelling' — Times Literary Supplement 'FitzGerald … is adept at arresting openings, tense cliffhangers and tumultuous climaxes' — The Herald 'Bloody Women is delicious, ingenious, inventive and mordantly funny. Helen FitzGerald has a real skill for making the totally absurd and goofy, thoroughly logical and reasonable' — Big Beat from Badsville Returning to Scotland to organise her wedding, Catriona is overcome with the jitters. She decides to tie up loose ends before settling permanently in Tuscany, and seeks out her ex-boyfriends. Only problem is, they all end up dead and Catriona is the prime suspect.

During a trip to China, Paul and Christine experience the nightmare of every parent: their four year old son is threatened with kidnap. The only safe place for the family is the US embassy in Beijing, but they are two thousand miles away, with the police searching frantically for them, and all airports, train stations and major roads under surveillance. They’ll have no chance without help from strangers, but who will be willing to risk their lives for them?Suspenseful and rife with the page-turning storytelling that has come to define Sendker’s work, Far Side of the Night  is a brilliant and timely thriller that offers a penetrating look into contemporary China.

Ben Martin is charming and successful: an academic who has raised money for children’s charities and worked with women’s agencies in sub-Saharan Africa, a devoted husband. But when his brother Francois, an artist based in Lisbon, finds out about Ben’s affair with a student, Rita Kalungal, he finds himself feeling responsible both for his brother’s actions as well as Rita; and Rita begins to realise that her involvement with Ben has far-reaching consequences on herself and her family, and others.

Journalist and statesman Tom Johnston (1881–1965) was considered by many as the greatest Scotsman of his time.In founding the popular Glasgow-based newspaper, Forward, in 1906, he created a platform for lively socialist and nationalist debate in Scotland for over half a century. Johnston moved into active politics in 1922 to become one of the Clydeside group of MPs, rising to become one of the great Secretaries of State for Scotland in the wartime coalition under Churchill. After 1945 he was chairman of a number of public organizations, including the Scottish Tourist Board, the Scottish National Forestry Commission and the North of Scotland Hydro-Electricity Board (1946–59), and oversaw the monumental hydro-electric schemes which revolutionised Scottish power supply.This is the story of a remarkable and much-loved politician and a deeply principled and respected man.

Two Men at Once' is one of Norman MacCaig best known poems. He was indeed two men at once: Edinburgh, the city where he was bornand lived as a teacher and poet, was his home, but no other place shaped his poetry more than Assynt in Sutherland. It is here that he wouldspend many a summer on family holidays, walking the hills and fishing the lochs. MacCaig’s fresh eye saw remarkable newness even in theeveryday and each poem is a tiny revelation, a new look at an old friend. This collection celebrates, renews, and rediscovers Norman MacCaig’sAssynt.

For investigative journalist Carl Shewan, the Scottish coastal village of Inverlair is a picturesque cage. Imprisoned in this remote refuge by a technological catastrophe for which he feels partly responsible, Carl struggles to adapt to impending fatherhood and to a harsh new existence in an ancient landscape, until a childless gamekeeper offers him an alternative to guilt and alienation. Set in the near future, Lie of the Land examines the claustrophobia of small-town life and questions how far the state will go to preserve an orderly society, one in which ubiquitous surveillance has reduced human life to a virtual experience.