Alan Gillespie – The Mash House

‘The Mash House’ by Alan Gillespie is a noir thriller set in the North West Highlands in Scotland. Dark is very much the word of the day with this story.

Cullrothes is a place that is so far isolated from the mainland it relies on itself for most of its needs. Okay, mainly the distillery for the economy and community. This distillery is quite a flexible company. It fulfils more than one need, Donald the owner uses it as a front to store and distribute drugs. His son, Bobby goes missing and simultaneously an American businessman is after buying his business, Donald begins to feel like he is losing his grip.

This is a place in which almost every resident is bad in some way. The only people I could say I liked were Jessie and her Grandpa. The beginning of the book is a shocking one – actually more than that, but it does give you the flavour of the place. The pure evil here is echoed in the people and if it wasn’t for Jessie’s loving and kind nature that we witness with her Grandpa we would be overbalanced with a dark place and bad characters too.

A character-driven story that gives us a view of life and how everything is connected. This feels like it is mainly the dark side of life to me, with a few glimmers of hope throughout. Alan Gillespie has created such defined characters that they have created a story that, for me, is a memorable one.

Thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours and Unbound Digital for my copy of this noir thriller.