The Rough Collier by Pat McIntosh

Gil Cunningham is teaching his new wife swordplay when he is summoned by a group of Peat-Cutters who have found a dead body in the midst of the peat. They are even sure of the identity of the body, a man named Thomas Murray, who left on a trip to sell coal for the coal Heugh he works for and collect the money for the owner. However, what was supposed to take only a week has now lasted five, and he still hasn't returned. A Priest named David Fleming is certain his death is due to witchcraft by a woman named Beatrice Lithgo, an herb-woman who keeps the folk hereabouts healthy, but Gil isn't so sure.

Firstly because there is no sign that the peat above the body has ever been disturbed, second because no one but the priest seems to think that the man actually looks like Thomas Murray, and third, because David Fleming has recently read Malleus Maleficarum and seems to see witchcraft and witches everywhere he looks now.

Still, Thomas Murray *has* been missing for a long time, so Gil undertakes to look for him and see if he is still alive to prove the charges of murder wrong. But he also tries to find the identity of the dead body, which has been killed three times over, by strangulation, a slit throat and a blow to the head.

As the investigation continues, David Fleming continues to agitate for Beatrice Lithgo's being a witch, and for Gil, or someone else in power, taking her in and putting her to the test. He also returns to drinking, a problem he has had in the past and drinks hard when it is obvious that Gil doesn't believe she is responsible either for the dead body in the peat or the disappearance of Thomas Murray.

But when the real Thomas Murray is found dead by poison in the arms of his catamite lover, and Beatrice Lithgo confesses to the crime to shield someone else, can Gil and his lovely wife find the true murderer before one of them comes to harm from a murderer with way too much to hide?

This was a good book, though I did find the constant transliterating of the Scottish accent a bit annoying to read constantly. On the plus side, not everyone speaks in such an accent, but only the more rural, less literate and learned characters speak that way. On the other side, there are an awful lot of characters that fall under that particular heading, so when Gil is questioning workers at the coal heugh, you get to "hear" it a lot.

I liked the mystery of the body in the peat, and it was interesting if frustrating to see them peg him as "a man of Noah's day" when we in the present know it was a sacrifice made in the time of the druids. In the end, the body is dealt with in a very medieval Christian fashion, turned into a town saint and made into a relic. I will say that I suspected the person who turned out to truly be the murderer right off, so the ending, while nice, made me feel like I already knew what it would be, and for the reader of a mystery, that may feel nice, like you're smarter than the protagonist, it also turns the book into something of a grind. You know the solution, but watching the characters creak and grind their way to the same conclusion you made can be bloody annoying!

So, this book gets a mixed review from me. Interesting plot, lots of characters who speak annoyingly and an ending that telegraphed itself to me far too early in the book. Admittedly, you might not have the same experience, but that was my feeling towards the book. And if you read as many mysteries as I do, you might be able to figure out the true criminal as quickly as I did.