Whispers of Ghosts is the tale of a Hebridean fishing family at the start of the new millennium, when the old ways clash with the modern world. Old Maddie, the patriarchal grandmother of the family, is struggling to come to terms with the loss of her husband in a fishing boat accident thirty years before. Her loss colours the experiences of the whole family, which consists of her son – also a fisherman – his wife, who is an off-islander, and three grandchildren. Her eldest grandson, sixteen-year-old Jon T, will become the one to rescue her, and the family, from the grip of the fear-filled depression that has been their hallmark. In dramatic and unexpected ways, when history appears to be repeating itself, a great winter storm ushers in the new millennium, and, when his father’s life is threatened by the coming weather, Jon T’s purity of heart stretches to its fullest potential to navigate the family’s way through the most difficult four days of their life. This novel became the first in the Purple Country Trilogy.

The second in the trilogy, Plato’s Child, was published in 2005, also by Be Write Books. This is the coming of age story of the eldest grandchild in the family, who finishes school, and attends university in Edinburgh, studying Physics. It is a tale of changes, as this shy, sensitive boy emerges from the shadow of his island home, into the guarded greatness of adulthood. Facing the relative sophistry of Scotland’s capital city, Jon T stands alone, and, against the terrors of the school bully, begins to transform his own life. As he graduates from school, and moves on to university, he discovers that true friendship may often hold unseen threats, and that love may come in different guises. As Jon T’s awareness begins to embrace the sexual ambivalence of his young life, the startling results threaten to destroy him. Although set in Edinburgh, this is also a story of the sea, as it is here that Jon T discovers his love for sailing and the ocean.

Hebridean, the third in the trilogy, is currently being proofed, and will be published later this year. It is the love story of the second grandchild, Madeleine. Her hobby is writing, and her mind is set on becoming a novelist. She meets young Ruaraidh, at the tender age of fourteen, when he comes to the island on holiday. Due to her father’s death, the family move to Edinburgh, where the protection of her maternal grandfather will set the scene for huge upheaval. Maddie, usually always calm, manages well this transformation. However, she can’t manage her own nature, as she falls in love with her publisher, a certain Lucien Blanchard, of Gunn and Gates, a long-established Scottish publishing firm. As an act of revenge, Ruaraidh takes a job in New York City, where he begins another love affair. Will the initial impulse that brought them together in the romantic setting of the Hebridean home, eventually prove to be a force too strong?. This story, although set in the grand metropolitan complexes of Edinburgh and New York, is also a narrative of the sea. This proves to be a theme which most Hebrideans can never escape.

The Saviour, first a brief word on research.

Work on Ron’s fourth novel, The Saviour, was completed in May 2007. This philosophically unusual story represents a departure into completely new ground for the author. The story is based on three years of research into biblical literature, and scripture, including recently discovered papyri from the Holy Lands, as well as from Egypt. The Infancy Gospels of Thomas, the Gnostic Gospels, the Secret Books of Thomas, Philip, Barnabus, Judas – even the almost unknown gospel of Jesus Christ, the so-called Fifteenth Scroll, as well as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Berlin Codex, and the ancient Pistis Sophia, together with new archaeological finds, form the factual basis of this novel. Many secrets of the Freemasons were also researched, with the author interviewing high-ranking Masons, to provide the understanding for this ground-breaking work, which will surprise many in the western world with its revelations regarding the state of Christianity at the beginning of the twenty-first Century.
This is a novel of bold irreverence, as it poses some of the most uncomfortable questions for the Christian world. Was Christ really crucified? Was Mary a virgin? Were miracles possible two thousand years ago? What was Jesus’ sexuality? Was Jesus a carpenter, or one of ten thousand stonemason priests rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem? Or was he a terrorist, in modern parlance? Was the Kingdom of Heaven, actually a complete Jewish homeland, and not a global concern? Was Jesus a Stonemason priest, a healer, an exorcist? The revelations in this novel may astound many readers, and will rock the very foundations of western culture. It may be the Christian equivalent of Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses.'
The secret scrolls will reveal the answers to these, and many other, questions.

Short Synopses of The Saviour

The setting for this contemporary novel is in the dark world of lost and ancient writings, many of which have been hidden for centuries by the Catholic Church. It is a race against time, when the protagonist is chased by people with sinister, often murderous intent, as the unexpected reality of the Second Coming of Christ is gradually revealed.

However, it is not the Jesus of popular narrative that we see walking upon the Earth. Rather it is a young boy, Jeffrey. Members of a Masonic group, P1, have been looking for this new messiah, who, due to physical and mental abuse, has run away from home. Like Jesus, he has a step-parent, but this woman is nothing like the gentle Joseph, Mary’s husband of biblical myth. Jeffrey’s stepmother is a deranged individual, with extreme neurotic tendencies, who has driven away both Jeffrey, and his brother Jamie, from the family home. These experiences have left the young messiah with a complex set of characteristics.

We first see Jeffrey at the age of twelve. Unconsciously chasing his spiritual lineage, he has travelled alone, to the South of France, to Rousillon, near Avignon. Here he meets Juliana, a doctoral student researching sacred architecture at the Sorbonne. Neither of them realizes it immediately, but she is the woman he is destined to love.
The story is narrated by an angel, who is able to manifest in a variety of bodies, in order to guide Jeffrey. The angel’s first appearance is as Roald, a mature grey-haired man, and then later as Tomas Alfred Oscarson, or Tao for short, who is a sixteen-year-old boy. Jeffrey and Tao strike up a friendship when Jeffrey is living rough in the French countryside. Here Jeffrey talks of his own growing sexuality, and confesses to having had a gay love relationship which occurred before he left his home.

The narrative moves forward in time, to when Jeffrey is twenty-years old, and has become a navigator in the merchant navy.
Gradually the members of P1 are being killed off by unknown assassins sent by P2 (a factual black Masonic lodge which was implicated in the murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro.) Here, in the city of Glasgow, a freelance feature writer on religious affairs is trying to meet the young man P1 is certain is second messiah. However, Jeffrey has become interested mainly in drinking, and, in fact, has become an alcoholic. He proves to be illusive to questioning, and is unwilling to believe the assumptions of P1, even after he survives an attempt on his life whilst studying in Glasgow.

On trading routes around the Arabian Gulf, and the African coast, matters come to a head in Alexandria when Jeffrey and his young lover are attacked in their hotel room, by henchmen of P2. With P1 members, he escapes south to Oxyrynchus, the place where the Gospel of Thomas was found. The P1 members think that this lost gospel is none other than Q, the hypothetical source text for the canonical gospels. Travelling on to the palace of Osiris, Jeffrey meets an intense spiritualist, Omm Sety (a factual character, who, although now deceased, lived and worked at the palace of Sety I.)

In dreams, she tells him to return to France where he will find lost fragments of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. She instructs him to then travel on, to the stone circles of Kilmartin, in Scotland, to discover the remaining parts of the lost secrets. The angel finally reveals the true meaning of the Second Coming. This wisdom is foreshadowed in the forbidden Gospel of Mary Magdalene.