The Hiring Fair

The compelling second novel in the Stalker Trilogy, which began with The Spoiled Earth and continues with The Dark Pasture, set in the Lanarkshire mining village of Blacklaw in the bleak 1870s.

In Edinburgh, Drew Stalker studies law, determined never to return to the grinding poverty of his childhood.

Mirrin, the most restless and vital of them all, takes to the road and begins her journey, from tinker''s camp to hiring fair, to a glittering future on the music-hall stage.

And the Stalkers who remain in Blacklaw join a violent and bloody riot when the mine-owner Houston Lamont pushes them, at last, too far.

The Stalker Trilogy: ''Family ties, family strengths and weaknesses, ambition, greed loyalty and love . . . the story is compelling.'' Daily Telegraph

''I would strongly recommend it to anyone with a taste for family sagas.'' Scotsman