Reflections on Glencoe and the Laws of Hospitality in The Seminar Murders

I was in Scotland when The Seminar Murders was published on 28th April, visiting Glencoe in fact, and feeling the eerie quality of the silence there: very brooding, very oppressive. Of course, it helped that it wads a brooding day, dark and wet, which reinforced the menace. It made me think about the massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells and the consequent betrayal of the laws of hospitality and that of course, led to me to speculate what laws of hospitality would be broken these days. What taboos do we put up around social occasions or obligatory tending to others? Would it even constitute betrayal these days? Well, it might if murder accompanies the hospitality, and the massacre is what makes the occasion memorable. Equally inevitably, I started to think about modern setting for the old story, and that may well appear in time. Meanwhile, coping with the reaction to The Seminar Murders is taking up lots of my time, especially in replying to readers' questions!
Will

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