The Orkney Scroll

February 27, 2006
In Hamilton's entertaining 10th archeological mystery featuring Canadian antiques dealer Lara McClintoch (after 2005's The Moai Murders
), one of Lara's colleagues, Trevor Wylie, sells a local collector a supposedly authentic Charles Rennie Mackintosh writing cabinet. After the cabinet is revealed to be a fake, Trevor turns up dead. Lara's determination to find out who knocked off Trevor—and who's getting rich knocking off forged antiques—leads her to Scotland's Orkney Islands. What begins as a simple case of furniture fraud gets endlessly more complicated. For starters, Lara keeps running into people she knows from back home, like Trevor's girlfriend, who is bereft not because of heartbreak but because Trevor died owing her money. In a plot that verges on being overly complex, Lara has to contend with ancient treasure maps, a Viking legend, drug-running, money laundering and another murder. Still, Hamilton is a funny writer. Lara's culture shock in super-friendly Orkney is especially humorous.