“The Dead Shall Inherit by Raye Anderson is a Scottish mystery feast! Elspeth Laird, who lives in Winnipeg, is notified she’s inherited a cottage from her famous aunt, Scottish mystery-writer Deirdre MacPhail.

This house is located on Sulla, a fairly remote place, part of the Hebridean islands, “that Deirdre made famous”. A location her aunt made popular as a setting in her mystery novels which were responsible for plenty of tourism to the island. Elspeth and her aunt were not close and Elspeth is rather in need of money. She has been subjected to a downturn in her theatre prop company, that has suffered the effects of the pandemic, and is slow to return to a money-making position. Elspeth is eager and curious to head to Scotland, her birthplace, to revisit the area she hasn’t seen in many years, and to reap a financial reward in the offering.

Once Elspeth arrives on Sulla, she encounters a colourful cast of characters who have as many opinions as secrets. Not everyone loved her aunt, making Elspeth question how her aunt really died, why the police case was closed so quickly, and what do the islanders know that she doesn’t.

Author Raye Anderson, a Scots Canadian, creates a wonderful escape to Scotland and this mystery wraps around the beauty and vibrancy of Scottish culture and the island as a distinct location. The setting is a character itself, a living, breathing entity, central to the story. I felt as though I had been transported to this location, with the people, the scenic descriptions, and tone of the story.

There is much to discover and uncover for Elspeth about her aunt, the place she lived, and those who lived with her. Anderson throws in twists and turns, and with events taking place during Elspeth’s stay, making it apparent there is a murderer nearby, further complicating idyllic life on the island.

If you love a good mystery set in a great Scottish location, filled with characters you can’t help but get attached to, then The Dead Shall Inherit is the book for you! I did find the number of actors in this story to be plentiful, so the cast of characters list at the beginning of the book was helpful to keep them all straight. I’m looking forward to more from Raye Anderson. The book cover says this is ‘An Elspeth Laird Mystery’, so in book two we can perhaps meet up again with this motley crew! Pick up a copy of The Dead Shall Inherit by Raye Anderson and be transported into a cozy mystery with a bit of teeth and at least one dead fish.”

— Carrie Stanton Miramichi Reader

Read the full review at Miramichi Reader

“The Dead Shall Inherit is the first in what I am assuming is going to be a series—The Elspeth Laird Mystery series.

I learned a new term from this: Tartan Noir. So it is a mystery that takes place on a tiny isolated island off the coast of Scotland—which is absolutely my jam. That is where I wish I could live right now, in a crofter’s house in the middle of the Scottish Atlantic Ocean.

Elspeth Laird is a Canadian from Winnipeg. She is a theatre set designer who has been out of work since the pandemic. Elspeth is kind of chugging along when she gets an inheritance from an aunt that she didn’t know well—an aunt who wrote mysteries set on this island. And she’s inherited not only the crofter house on the island but also the rights to her aunt’s books, which are about to be made into a Netflix series. So this is the answer to Elspeth’s financial problems, but as she arrives on the island, a tight-knit Scottish island, she is under a lot of suspicion. 

Her aunt died falling down the stairs, but did she really, or did someone push her? The island is kind of divided into people who loved her aunt for bringing in tourism, people wanted to come visit the island where these murder-mysteries were set, and then the other half of the island hated the aunt for bringing in tourists.

So there are a million people who could have done it, but I really enjoyed it. Cozy is the right word for it. As is the case a lot of good mysteries, the geography is part of the character—the rugged beautiful island, the Gaelic accents, the traditions—and so Elspeth is navigating not only her aunt’s death (and the bodies that start to pile up on the island) but also the culture of the island, the gossip, the tight-knit older people on the island who were high school kids together—she’s navigating a real hot bed gossip, and everybody is related.

I’m going to say it was fun. The mystery makes sense. I liked it. I would read more. I’m not a mystery person, so they need to be in a good setting like Louise Penny. I love that setting in that small Quebec town, and I need to like the characters. There were some fun, deeply Scottish characters in this book.

And at the end, will she stay living on this island? I hope so, because if it were me who got that inheritance, I would be living there in a heartbeat.”

— Joanne Kelly CBC The Morning Show