The Raiders

Crockett’s ‘breakthrough’ and most famous novel, first published in 1894, this is part of a loose trilogy of smugglers and gypsies stories featuring the Herons, the Maxwells and the Faas. Stevensonesque in style, it is unique in its descriptions of Galloway’s coast and hills and still thrills a modern audience. ‘'The Raiders ' vibrates with sufficient dramatic action for a dozen ordinary novels. We are swept breathlessly on from one exciting situation to another; while throughout the story runs a vein of heedlessness and reckless daring that intensifies the boldness of the effect. Mr Crockett is himself a raider; far into the heart of the country of romance he penetrates, daring much, and proving his right and his might on its highways. He has written a story of really absorbing interest.’ Crockett’s best known novel immerses the reader in a world of gypsies, smugglers and free traders. Set in early 18th Century Galloway, the young ‘bonnet laird’ Patrick Heron is an ‘ordinary’ hero who is driven to extraordinary acts very much in the Stevensonian tradition of adventure romance. Crockett uses history and adds the alchemy of the romancer to take natural description, historical events and local folklore and weave them into spellbinding stories. ‘The Raiders’ is a fine example of his skill and just as gripping a story today as it was a century ago.