Jock Tamson's Bairns, by Catriona

I'm not answering the question this week, because I've got a book coming out next week and every writer gets a free pass for a bit of BSP when that happens.

First, isn't it pretty?

Details here

As you see, Dandy Gilver is in another heecher of a coat (I really should write "replica coat" into my contract) even if Alec Osborne looks a bit of a prat in his plus-fours.

Here's what it's about:

May 1939. As war hovers on the horizon, aristocratic sleuth, Dandy Gilver, wants nothing more than to keep her friends and family close, when a call in the night places Daisy Esslemont, her oldest pal, at the centre of a murder investigation. With her friend's future on the line, Dandy and her fellow detective Alec Osborne must race to prove her innocence.

But, when they reach the idyllic Scottish village of Dirleton, residents confirm that a woman was seen at the crime scene - the ancient and mystical "leap-over stone", right there on the village green and still spattered with the victim's blood. The longer the detectives spend in Dirleton the more they question Daisy's involvement. They're not getting the answers they need, but are they asking the right questions . . . ?

I called it Jock Tamson's Bairns, while I was writing. It's a Scottish phrase alluding to the idea that we are all God's children, but adhering to the superstition about naming God - or the devil, as it goes. I have no idea why Jock Tamson (John Thompson) is a good pseudonym for the deity. 

But then cluelessness is a crucial bit of my process. 

As ever, there's a line I've half-forgotten between what dastardly suff I made up about poor wee Dirleton, and what stuff is true (if unlikely), but I know that the louping stane is real, because I fell over it.

Did the villagers once put stinging nettles on the top and all jump over it to check that they had no devilry in them, before they went out to collect the harvest? Did I create that story? No clue.

The castle is real:

And I didn't make up the terrible thing that happened there in the 17th century, but I can't say any more about it because SPOILERS.

Also, the church is as pretty, the school as quaint, the schoolhouse as desirable, and the manse as grand as the ones in the book:

Overall, you can hardly blame Dandy for thinking it's all so charming it's almost English, but she probably shouldn't have said it. I probably shouldn't have written it. I'll get emails . . . 

But come on. Scottish villages don't look like that as a rule. 

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