Gordon MacLeod – ‘Silicon Glen’

Gordon MacLeod’s debut novel is an affectionate but sometimes bittersweet tale of life in the Scottish islands.  It is 1979, the dawn of the Thatcher years.  While the winter of discontent is gripping Britain with inconvenience, the ferry strike has rendered the island of Arran a community under blockade.

Murdoch is a young and impressionable islander.  As well as the hardships brought on by the political turmoil, he is having to endure the familiar teenage debacles of unrequited love, and idiotic authority figures.


Ironic humour and sympathetic characterisation, set against a backdrop of Arran’s beautifully rugged terrain, provide a heartwarming 21st century take on Whisky Galore.