Blood Hunt

’Unquestionably one of his most perfect as story and myth’ – Francis Hart, biographer of Neil Gunn

After a lifetime at sea, old Sandy returns to the land of his fathers to live out his remaining years in the peaceful isolation of a Highland croft. His companions are his dog Queenie, a temperamental cow Nancy, a few hens and his precious books. He befriends the local village boys who come to trust him. When one of these boys, Allan, seeks his helps after killing the man who has seduced his girlfriend, Sandy takes his side, warding off suspicious enquiries from the village policeman, the dead man’s brother. Allan’s girlfriend also comes to seek refuge with Sandy and eventually gives birth to her baby there.

A moving and satisfying blend of tragedy and comedy, Blood Hunt has a powerful message - the triumph of love over anger and of the unending renewal of nature. It is a masterly novel by a writer in full maturity. It was Gunn’s second last novel.

Neil M. Gunn was born in Dunbeath, Caithness in 1891, the seventh of nine children. His father James was a fisherman, and his mother Isabella was a domestic servant. Gunn left the Highlands to live with his sister and her family, and was educated privately, passing his Civil Service exams in 1907. He published short stories throughout the 1920’s and his first novel The Grey Coast in 1926. He wrote several other novels, including The Green Isle of the Deep (1944), The Silver Darlings (1941) and his autobiography, The Atom of Delight, in 1956. He died in 1973.