Review of The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon

The Scottish Prisoner is Gabaldon’s latest book in her extended family of books set in 18th century England/Scotland/Ireland. If you are one of the handful of people who haven’t read her bestselling books, I’ll give a brief overview so you’ll know where this most recent falls in place. Gabaldon says you can read any of her books as stand alones, but even she admits you’ll get what’s going on better if you read in order. Her main series encompasses the Outlander books in which one of the main characters, Claire Randall, steps through an ancient stone circle and passes from 1945 to 1743 and into the middle of war torn Scotland. There she meets James Fraser, along with a great deal of trouble, and eventually they admit they like each other. But she’s married to someone else in 1945, so it’s complicated. There are now seven books in this main series: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone. The Scottish Prisoner is part of a related series, the Lord John Grey books, which don’t have Claire in them, but include Jamie Fraser along with his sometime nemesis, Lord John Grey, as the primary focus. The Lord John books fall, chronologically speaking, in the middle of the events of Voyager, but don’t influence the plot line of the Outlander series, although they are definitely related.

The Scottish Prisoner has Gabaldon’s usual focus on character development and plot twists. Still a prisoner at Helwater, Jamie is made an offer by Lord John’s brother he has little choice but to accept. It involves traveling to Ireland with Lord John—and neither man wants to spend any time with the other. Trying to insert themselves into this unwanted journey, are even more unwanted people and ideas from Jamie’s past as a Scottish rebel. And, of course, a couple women do their best to help or deceive Jamie also, although the woman Jamie really wants haunts only his dreams. Gabaldon opens the book vividly with one such dream and its effects on Jamie. Lord John continues to be an intriguing person of conflicting loyalties and passions. He’s devoted to his regiment and the code of honor he will uphold at all costs—which is what sends him to Ireland more or less—but he is also gay, a capital offense, and his view of life does not always conform comfortably with the conventions of his time. Part of the pleasure of this book is the way in which Gabaldon manages to build a friendship between these two men quite against their will.

A significant piece of the plot in The Scottish Prisoner turns on the issue of language, which I very much enjoyed. Amongst a series of damning documents, there is one that Lord John cannot figure out at all. Is it a code? No, a Celtic language, Erse, as it turns out, which both Jamie and some other ex- or not so ex-Jacobite rebels know. How accurate will their translations be for Lord John? The way in which access to a given language affects events, the “cueing” that occurs through a bit of Erse poetry, the whole notion of ancient folk traditions in Celtic and, we might say, the abuse of this folk tradition by characters provide a fascinating layer to this novel. Gabaldon has been ably assisted with the various pieces of Celtic language she interweaves into her plot by a group of experts who clearly love the revival of interest in this ancient language that her book provides. As anyone who knows me will realize, I’m always on the side of ancient languages!