Product Description

A motorcyclist with a stolen ring walks into Rothiemurchus Forest until he finds a quiet place to die. A woman with an eventful past has signed the Official Secrets Act and gone to Dumfries to forget a man and keep out of trouble. In comfortable Crieff, a retired historian publishes an obscure article on the survival of the Stone of Destiny then has his throat cut. A man with a long blade in a tan holster under his suit, a fondness for bird-watching, and memories of his short-lived Punk band Anger Management, has taken a commission to retrieve an object so valuable and mythic it might not exist. A rugby-playing half-Maori named Leo Nagotoa stands in the sleet by Romanno Bridge in the Scottish Borders, trying to thumb a lift when his Destiny slithers up alongside him.The hunt for the crowning stone of the Dalriadic kings, the Stone of Scone - is worth enough to make life cheap for some and dear to others - has begun. Some of the cast of "The Return of John Macnab" are back, but the times and the mood have changed. "Romanno Bridge" is a wintry thriller, an entertainment, a quest and an exploration of contemporary themes of fakes, frauds, copies, and a struggle to find the Real Thing, wherever and whatever it might be.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178647 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
"Buchan with bells on" Scottish Review of Books. "Greig...writes beautifully and the story gallops along" Sunday Times.

Scotland on Sunday
this romp is hugely enjoyable

From the Inside Flap
"Where are you heading?" Leo replied.
"Where do you need to go?"
He got in, wondering how she knew about the loss, then they drove into the night and whatever was waiting there.
A rugby-playing half-Maori named Leo Nagotoa stands in the sleet by Romanno Bridge in the Scottish Borders, trying to thumb a lift when his Destiny slithers up alongside him.
A motorcyclist with a stolen ring walks into Rothiemurchus Forest until he finds a quiet place to die.
A woman with an eventful past has signed the Official Secrets Act and gone to Dumfries to forget a man and keep out of trouble.
In comfortable Crieff, a retired historian publishes an obscure article on the survival of Columba's Pillow - the Stone of Destiny - then has his throat cut.
A man with a long blade in a tan holster under his suit, a fondness for bird-watching, and memories of his short-lived Punk band Anger Management, has taken a commission to retrieve an object so valuable and mythic it might not exist.
The hunt for the crowning stone of the Dalriadic kings, St Columba's travelling altar, Jacob's Pillow, the Stone of Scone - whatever it is, it is worth enough to make life cheap for some and dear to others - has begun.

Customer Reviews

A Gentle, Lyrical Thriller
'Romanno Bridge', is a thriller based around various legends relating to the Stone of Scone, Britain's coronation stone. The stone has been the subject of conspiracy, controversy and rumour for hundreds of years and Greig uses this uncertainty to weave a satisfying yarn. Instead of choosing to write a Hi-Octane 'Da Vinci Code' clone, Greig's tale is considerably more measured, and he deserves credit for keeping the blood spatters and body count to a minimum.

Greig is first and foremost a poet, and this shows in his writing. There are some beautiful meditations on the power of song and his descriptions of Norway's busking scene are highly evocative. Unfortunately his poetic style makes his story somewhat nebulous; there is very little meat on the bones of this interesting and well researched premise.

More frustrating are the characters. For a start, there are too many involved in tracking down the stones; a reuinted a group of friends from a previous novel (The Return of John MacNab). I had no idea of this earlier chapter's existence until a hundred or so pages into 'Romanno Bridge', and there were too many allusions, in this novel, to events that had gone before. As a result, characters were poorly introduced, and remained two-dimensional and elusive. There seemed no real imperative for most of the characters to risk life and limb on a rather improbable wild goose chase. An exception to this was the psychopathic villain Adamson, who is well drawn, very scary and made all the more menacing for the restraint of Greig's writing. A definite case of less being more.

There is a lot about Scotland and the Scottish in this novel, which having never lived north of Birmingham, was probably completely lost on me; perhaps if I'd been a Scot, the novel would have sneaked a fourth star. I found it refreshing to read a thriller that doesn't try to shock or outrage with gratuitous violence, but that said, the book was a little slow in places, and needed more urgency. Overall I enjoyed 'Romanno Bridge.', but with so many books waiting to be read, I'm not sure I'd feel the need to read a further instalment.

A fun romp!
A well written and fast paced romp around Scotland and bits of Norway. Greig has a gift for describing the landscapes, creating believable and lovable characters and keeps the plot speeding along at thriller pace all the while poking fun at the genre.

Greig loses the plot
Having previously been swept away by Andrew Greig's Electric Brae and In Another Light, and enjoyed his WW2-set That Summer, I bought this without a second thought. I was quickly disappointed.
I've given it two stars mainly on the strength of Greig's thoughtful, descriptive prose ('the heads and shoulders of hills slump together like vast slumbering squaddies', 'sun spreading butter-yellow all down Loch Fyne'). The plot, however, is a ludicrous Da Vinci Code-style chase that sees the characters dashing about Scotland and at one point to Norway (perhaps Greig has just been there on holiday?) in search of the 'stone of destiny' and a set of mysterious 'Moon Runner' rings engraved with a secret code, all the while pursued by a pantomime villain and his bumbling henchmen.
For me, Greig's previous novels stand out for their complex characters and meaningful relationships. But in Romanno Bridge we're introduced to a sprawling cast of tenuously linked figures, hastily sketched out and then pushed aside before we have time to bond with them. Lazy stereotypes abound - Kirsty the feisty redhead, Inga the Norwegian ice-queen who reads Ibsen for fun, Shonagh the short-haired lesbian and Leo the outdoorsy New Zealander, whose dialogue seems stolen from a particularly rubbish episode of Home and Away ('Let's rack off down to the hall of history'?).
All in all, not AG's finest hour - while it's brave of him to experiment with a different genre, I hope he's soon back to what he does best.