The Blessing of Burntisland

Description

This is a story of buried mysteries and fears, of distrust and betrayal. It explores our relationship with the past. It's also about love and confusion, taking as its central character a man who is in some ways at the margin of our society, but who possesses a special gift, which neither he nor those around him fully trust.Joe Fairlie is a dowser with an ability to find historical treasure. As the novel opens, he is on the most important mission of his career, helping to locate The Blessing of Burntisland, a sunken seventeenth-century treasure barge in the Firth of Forth. At what should be a moment of triumph, he is assailed by the first of a series of waking dreams, which plunge him into the life of one of the wreck's survivors. This court doctor, Thomas Newbolt, is the antithesis of Joe. The other survivor is the “magical boy”, Robbie, who resembles a younger, more innocent version of Joe.Wrestling with these visions of the past, Joe launches on a quixotic journey, collecting odd companions along the way. In his quest to discover what it is about the wreck that gives him such a strong sense of dread, he revisits the site of the wreck, on the Firth of Forth, as well as the castle where King Charles I last used the treasure.Here, he turns away, both from his quest and from a relationship that is beginning to flourish. What attracts him is the boy, the mirror of his former self. He becomes obsessed with an instrument that he believes will enable him to contact Robbie and reject Newbolt. The outcome of his efforts is very different from what he wished for.In this picaresque novel of possession, the past is both very vivid and also essentially unknowable. If there are messages in Joe's waking dreams, they are not what he is seeking, just as the messages that Robbie provided for the King were ones that he was unwilling to hear. Joe has a chance of realizing his errors, but not before he has passed through fire.