Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet (1967) is a Scottish novelist. His first work, the psychological thriller The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (2013), was already received warmly. The title refers to the central problem of the book: the disappearance of a sullen but attractive waitress working in the local bistro in the town of Saint-Louis in France. Burnet’s second novel, His Bloody Project (2016), is a true story about 17-year-old Roderick Macrae, who committed a triple murder in 1869. The crime leads to the justified question: why? Burnet skillfully uses the written materials related to the case: the memoirs of the defendant, police documents, medical reports and newspaper articles covering the trial. The work is dreamlike and brutal at the same time and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Macrae’s newest novel Case Study was published in 2021, and it is an intriguing exploration of sanity and the perception of truth. The book is set in the 1960s, with events set in motion by notebooks sent to a writer who shares initials with the author. The notebooks are written by a woman who believes she has discovered the real cause of her older sister’s suicide – the psychiatrist who treated her. GMB happens to research the same controversial psychiatrist himself.

• Official site
• Booker Prize – Graeme Macrae Burnet
• Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet review – unstable identities (The Guardian)
• Did an Unorthodox Therapist Drive a Woman to Suicide? (The New York Times)
• When charlatans lead us to truth (Times Literary Supplement)
• His Bloody Project review by Graeme Macrae Burnet – murder in the Highlands (The Guardian)
• Book review: Case Study, by Graeme Macrae Burnet (The Scotsman)
• Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet — shrink rapping (Financial Times)
• Graeme Macrae Burnet | 'In order to immerse yourself in a novel I think you have to feel that it is real' (The Bookseller)
• British Council – Graeme Macrae Burnet
• What to read next: A tale of identity and Brett’s political writings (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet review — sexual repression, suicide and a Sixties psychologist (The Times)
• Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet review: a brilliant, bamboozling tale of secrets, suicide and madness (The Telegraph)