Chris Henshall wrote:There's always the popular "Last Hillwalker" and "Bothy Tales" by John Burns but how about "The Return of John MacNab" by Andrew Greig? It's a bit more palatable than Buchan's original and the pages keep turning...
Buchan's John MacNab is a superb book. It is flavoured by the attitudes of the time but it has a real sense of location, tells a gripping tale and provides a picture of highland social structuring, even if the view is from above.
Greig's book is turgid and over-written and the character development is far from credible, even if you manage to stay inerested in it. It's years since I read it, but I remember finding the scrambling sequence incoherent. Buchan was a keen climber, and in books like The Three Hostages he succeeds in getting the thrill across.