The Professor of Truth by James Robertson

In The Professor of Truth James Robertson again proves himself to be one of Scotland’s best writers and one of the best writers in the world at exploring the traumas, upheavals, and political currents that form modern Scotland. His last novel, And the Land Lay Still was a magisterial sweep of the growing wave of Scottish nationalism in the second half of the twentieth-century. The Professor marks a shift from macrocosmic concerns to the microcosmic as the legacy of a terrorist attack is explored through the pain and suffering of one man, Dr Alan Tealing, a university lecturer whose wife and daughter were killed in the attack.

The attack in question is a fictionalisation of the Lockerbie bombing, and as with Lockerbie, there are still lingering questions of justice over the trial of the man who was ultimately found guilty of perpetrating the attack. Alan Tealing is the most vocal critic of the trial and the novel follows his unceasing investigation and Sisyphean opposition to a case the whole world has decided is closed. The sudden appearance of a stranger provides the novel’s propulsion and what follows is an intensely moving and engaging descent into the uncomfortable world where justice is cast aside for political expediency.