Overview

In Errant Blood, we meet Eamon Ansgar as he returns to Duncul Castle in the Scottish Highlands after time in Afghanistan and a failed attempt at city life. He wants to disappear into the old house and its rules. Instead, a refugee child is found murdered in the village, and the people circling the case do not feel like ordinary police work. A local man is arrested, the boy’s mother becomes a question no one wants answered, and Eamon learns how much of the village sits inside his estate. As he starts pulling at the threads, he is watched, threatened, and dragged into a plot that stretches from local drug dealing to trafficking and bigger forces that treat Duncul as useful ground.

Writing & Voice

We found Peterson’s writing fast and blunt. The book moves with real urgency, and the winter Highlands weather is not scenery. It is pressure. We also liked the way the story keeps Eamon off balance, because he is not a clean hero. He is tired, avoidant, and still learning what he owns and what it costs.

Content & Perspective

We stay close to Eamon as a reluctant laird who cannot hide behind the castle walls for long. We also move through the village and its estate edges, where class, money, and fear shape what people will say out loud. A carved stone and strange markings under the castle pull the investigation into older secrets, while the present day danger keeps tightening around the same question: who benefits from the child’s death, and who is being moved and used in the dark.

Themes

The novel takes aim at power, ownership, and the stories we tell to keep our hands clean. We see how a grand house can hide rot, and how public institutions can be bypassed when someone richer wants it that way. We also see how violence travels through borders and ends up in small places, where people pretend it cannot happen.

What Worked

• A strong Highland atmosphere that makes isolation feel real.
• A driving central mystery that keeps pulling us deeper into Duncul.
• High stakes crime plotting that links local life to wider harm.

Minor Quibbles

• Some strands arrive quickly, and we had to work to keep track as the scope widens.
• A few scenes move at such speed that we wanted a little more space for aftermath.

Final Thoughts

We liked how it refuses a cosy Highlands myth and insists that harm can live next door, even under a castle roof.

Rating: ★★★★ / 5