September 1939, and war is declared. For Bob and Annie Kelty, life will never be the same again, not least because they are forced to foster 12-year-old Ellen Laing, an evacuee from Finnieston in Glasgow. Amid growing tensions between the Glasgow evacuees and the residents of the sleepy village of Crieff, the feisty and quick-tempered […]
Burials and Other Stories by Rob McInroy
Burials and Other Stories is a short story collection rooted in Scotland and, in particular, Perthshire, detailing its physical beauty, its history, its people. Ranging from 1832 to the present day, these 20 intertwined stories offer a study of community and kinship, the need to belong and the pain of disconnection, revealing the complexities of lives […]
The Moot at Monzie: international friendship in the shadow of the Second World War
To mark this week’s 85th anniversary of the 1939 International Rover Scout Moot at Monzie, Rob McInroy, whose latest novel is set against this huge gathering, looks back on a celebration of worldwide friendship just weeks before the Second World War broke out — causing many of these young men to end up fighting on […]
Moot by Rob McInroy
Now settled in Crieff with his wife Annie, Bob Kelty is busy preparing for the Rover Scout Moot, which will see thousands of Rover Scouts from all over the world pitch tents on the Monzie Estate in Perthshire. Murder is the last thing on his mind. That is, until a burnt-out tent is discovered on […]
Barossa Street by Rob McInroy
20th January 1936, and King George V is dying. On the same day, Bob Kelty accompanies a friend to the house of a local recluse. There they find Hugh Smithson brutally murdered. Horror turns to nightmare as Bob’s friend, Richard Hamill, comes under suspicion of the murder and Bob reluctantly becomes embroiled, once more, in […]