This morning I finished The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Anne Scarborough, a pseudo-historical mystery/fantasy with Sir Walter Scott as the main character.

It seems popular these days to write fantasy books that combine historical figures with new stories. Some, like Tim Powers, try to be careful to stick to actual historical events while taking advantage of gaps in the historical record to establish a secret or hidden history. Others, like Elizabeth Anne Scarborough, just take a historical character as a starting point and create an alternate history.

In the alternate history of The Lady in the Loch, Sir Walter Scott became sheriff of Edinburgh instead of Selkirk and magic and ghosts are well known and commonplace. Scott gets involved in a series of murders involving a band of Travellers and Dr. Frankenstein-ish serial killer.

It's not a bad book but the mystery isn't particularly interesting and the phonetically spelled Scottish English of many of the characters starts out tiresome and gets more irritating from there.

Amazon Link: The Lady in the Loch