John Splendid: The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn

The year is 1644, and the Scottish Highlands bleed. Colin Elrigmore has ridden home from foreign wars and Glasgow College, dreaming of peace among his native hills, but the Argyll heartlands lie devastated by Montrose's campaigns. He finds corpses hanging from gallows, lawlessness in the streets, and his mother dead. Into his grief comes John Splendid, a magnificent rogue and soldier of fortune, whose reckless courage draws the melancholy Elrigmore into the clan wars between Campbells and MacLachlans. Together they navigate a landscape of breathtaking beauty and unspeakable violence, where the old Highland world is dying and something new and terrible is being born. Munro writes with savage poetry about the collision between a dreamer's soul and a fighter's blade, about what it means to come home when home no longer exists.