There’s a particular feeling you get standing at Dunnottar Castle on the edge of Stonehaven.
It isn’t just the height, or the wind, or the sheer drop into the North Sea. It’s something quieter than that. A sense that this is a place where things have happened – and been kept.
That feeling became the starting point for The Crimson Keep.
The central belief in the novel is fictional. But it didn’t come from nowhere.
A Place Shaped by Judgement
Dunnottar Castle isn’t a romantic ruin once you look past the postcard version. It’s a fortress built for defence, siege, and imprisonment. People were held here. Decisions were made here about who deserved punishment, and who didn’t.
That idea – of a community deciding what is acceptable, and what isn’t – sits at the heart of the book.
Because while we like to think we’ve moved on, that instinct hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just quieter now. More subtle. More dangerous, in some ways.
The Stories We Tell to Make Sense of Fear
Scotland has a long history of explaining the unexplainable through story. Witch trials, second sight, warnings carried through generations – not because people were foolish, but because they were trying to impose order on something uncertain.
Coastal communities, in particular, have always lived with that uncertainty.
The sea gives, and the sea takes. Bodies are lost, and sometimes returned. And when something doesn’t make sense, people look for meaning wherever they can find it.
Not always in the right place.
Fire, Ritual, and What We Carry Forward
Every year, the town gathers for the Stonehaven Fireballs Ceremony at Hogmanay – a tradition rooted in cleansing, protection, and leaving something behind.
We don’t always think of it that way anymore. It’s celebration. Spectacle. Community.
But rituals don’t survive for centuries without a reason.
They speak to something deeper. The need to mark endings. To control what feels uncontrollable. To believe we can keep danger at bay if we just follow the right steps.
The Line Between Truth and Fiction
In The Crimson Keep, I took those ideas – judgement, fear, ritual – and built something fictional around them.
Not because I wanted to write about folklore, but because I’m interested in what people will justify when they believe they’re right.
The danger isn’t in the legend itself.
It’s in the people who choose to believe it.
If You Like Crime Fiction Set in Scotland…
Stonehaven isn’t just a backdrop in the novel. It shapes the investigation, the people, and the choices they make.
If you’re drawn to crime fiction where setting matters – where landscape, history, and community all play a role – you can start reading The Crimson Keep here:
Not Ready for a Full Novel?
If you’d prefer to try something shorter first, try a free exclusive short story set in Scotland instead:
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