100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock 🇳🇿

Enjoy overnight NZ-wide delivery from our NZ-owned independent bookstore! 🎉

Columba's Bones

Darkland Tales
Series: Darkland Tales
4.19 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 415 ratings, 61 reviews)
Brief Description
The Isle of Iona, 825. In a bloody, brutal raid, Abbot Blathmac is slain on the steps of his monastery for refusing to give away the location of the sacred relics of St Columba, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Scotland. Following a night of... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK Please add to wishlist to be notified when back in stock

Sorry, we're currently out of stock of Columba's Bones. Please add to your Wishlist and we'll send you an email as soon as it's back in stock.

The first ever novel by award-winning Scottish playwright David Greig,Columba's Bonesrecasts ninth century Scotland as the setting for a Scandi-noir-style thriller. Utterly unique,Columba's Bonesexplores early Christianity and paganism, philosophy, redemption and shame, violence and love, transcendence and reality.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The Isle of Iona, 825.

In a bloody, brutal raid, Abbot Blathmac is slain on the steps of his monastery for refusing to give away the location of the sacred relics of St Columba, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Scotland. Following a night of rampage and mayhem, one Viking wakes up the next morning to find himself alone, hungover, and abandoned by his crew mates. He can't swim, there are no boats, and the only surviving monk on the island has taken his sword. With only his wits, he must survive long enough not only to rejoin his Viking comrades, but also to find the location of the elusive relics that brought him here in the first place.

Rooted in the real history of Iona and its early monks, Columba's Bones is an utterly unique and thrilling read, exploring the clash of early Christianity and paganism, and expanding into a sharp, witty meditation on philosophy, redemption, shame, violence, love, transcendence and reality.

Shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize and the Bookmark Book Festival Book of the Year

'As violent as a Tarantino movie... echoes of the Norse Sagas in all their ferocious and poetic intensity' — Allan Massie, The Scotsman

Series: Darkland Tales

View all
  • Columba's Bones
    The Isle of Iona, 825. In a bloody, brutal raid, Abbot Blathmac is slain on the steps of his monastery for refusing to give away the location of the sacred relics of St Columba, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Scotland. Following a night of rampage and mayhem, one Viking wakes up the next morning to find himself alone,...
    Hardback
    $2999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Hex
    IT'S THE 4TH OF DECEMBER 1591. On this, the last night of her life, in a prison cell several floors below Edinburgh's High Street, convicted witch Geillis Duncan receives a mysterious visitor, Iris, who says she comes from a future where women are still persecuted for who they are and what they believe. As the hours pass and dawn approaches,...
    Paperback
    $4100
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • Nothing Left to Fear from Hell
    A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure.... In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He had come to the...
    Hardback
    $4400
    Available
    Ships in 2-3 weeks
  • Columba's Bones
    The Isle of Iona, 825. In a bloody, brutal raid, Abbot Blathmac is slain on the steps of his monastery for refusing to give away the location of the sacred relics of St Columba, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Scotland. Following a night of rampage and mayhem, one Viking wakes up the next morning to find himself alone,...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Queen Macbeth
    Shakespeare fed us the myth of the Macbeths as murderous conspirators. But now Val McDermid drags the truth out of the shadows, exposing the patriarchal prejudices of history. A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions: a healer, a weaver, and a seer. The men hunting her will kill...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Queen Macbeth
    A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three bosom companions: a healer, a weaver, and a seer. If the men hunting her find them, they will kill her because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first...
    Hardback
    Sold Out
  • Nothing Left to Fear from Hell
    Shortlisted for The Winston Graham Historical Prize A battle lost. A daring escape. A long walk into obscurity. The ultimate failure... In the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Culloden, a lonely figure takes flight with a small band of companions through the islands and mountains of the Hebrides. His name is Charles Edward Stuart: better known today as Bonnie...
    Paperback
    Sold Out
  • Rizzio
    'a tour de force work of art' The Wall Street Journal, Best Books of the Year It's Saturday evening, 9 March 1566, and Mary, Queen of Scots, is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party, secure in her private chambers. She doesn't know that her Palace is surrounded and that, right now, an army of men is creeping upstairs...
    Hardback
    Sold Out
  • Rizzio
    It's Saturday evening, 9 March 1566, and Mary, Queen of Scots, is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party, secure in her private chambers. She doesn't know that her Palace is surrounded—right now, an army of men is creeping upstairs to her chamber. They're coming to murder David Rizzio, her friend and secretary, the handsome Italian man who is...
    Paperback
    Sold Out

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781846976735

Publisher: Birlinn General

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 03 October 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited

Edition: New in Paperback

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 8.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 185g

Pages: 192

About the Author

David Greigis a Scottish playwright who studied Drama and English at Bristol University. Since setting up the Suspect Culture theatre company in the 1990s, his plays have been performed widely in Scotland and around the world, includingMidsummer,The Events, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Local Hero,and The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. He is currently the Artistic Director at Edinburgh's Lyceum Theatre.Columba's Bones is his first book.

Also by David Greig

View all
  • Columba's Bones
    The Isle of Iona, 825. In a bloody, brutal raid, Abbot Blathmac is slain on the steps of his monastery for refusing to give away the location of the sacred relics of St Columba, the missionary who first brought Christianity to Scotland. Following a night of rampage and mayhem, one Viking wakes up the next morning to find himself alone,...
    Hardback
    $2999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Dunsinane
    Late at night in a foreign land, an English army sweeps through the landscape under cover of darkness and takes the seat of power. Struggling to contain his men and the ambitions of his superiors, the commanding officer attempts to negotiate the unspoken rules of this alien country. He seeks to restore peace to a country ravaged by war. This...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

More from Crime & Thriller

View all
  • New Release
    Dying Days
    Award-winning writer delivers a pulse-pounding espionage thriller. Missing soldiers, MI6 secrets and European partisans collide in a deadly game where the lines between lies and reality are fast disintegrating. In the dying days of the Second World War, a new conflict is about to ignite. May, 1945: After fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis, Tito's Yugoslav Army and Allied...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Country Road Murders
    New Release
    The Country Road Murders
    From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a pulse-pounding thriller about justice, vengeance and the roads that lead us home. No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what Jim has, in spades — LEE CHILD Cross Rivers is the kind of small town where everyone knows your name – and your secrets. Silas Tucker...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Every Lake
    Scary stories are fun... until your life becomes one. When Alice was fifteen, her father killed Mia Heywood in their lakefront cottage before vanishing into the trees. At least that's what the locals think happened. Over a decade later, Alice has lost her job as a journalist, she's going through an expensive divorce and she desperately needs to sell the...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Nautilus
    New Release
    Nautilus
    The follow-up to the bestselling novel The Turing Protocol. Nautilus is a machine with the astonishing power to send messages eight weeks back in time. Its users must follow a set of protocols established by its inventor, Alan Turing, including that it can only be used by a descendant of his family, and only to avert global disasters. But what...
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Cold River
    New Release
    Cold River
    The sensational new novel from the author of the bestselling thriller, The Creeper, winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction 2025. Deep in the mountains, secrets grow deadly... Detective Constable Sally White knows how easily hikers can go missing in Victoria's high country. But there's something about the disappearance of Louis Taylor, a young man lost up...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    It Could Have Been Her
    PREPARE TO BE HOOKED: The no. 1 Sunday Times and MULTI-million-copy bestselling author is back with a brand-new spine tingling thriller. It was the night she almost died. Jane Trevally, newly divorced and feeling a little lost, agrees to accompany a man she doesn't know to his house in the darkest corner of Hampstead Heath. She's offered a drink, goes in, and...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • 26 Beauties
    The twenty-sixth thrilling novel in the globally bestselling Women's Murder Club series. Beautiful young women are disappearing by the dozen. A celebration is cut short when a concerned father crashes Detective Inspector Lindsay Boxer's party. His daughter is missing - and she's not the only one. DI Lindsay Boxer has been tracking a chilling pattern: a Jane Doe washed ashore,...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Secrets We Hide
    The stunning new North Falls thriller by the bestselling author of We Are All Guilty Here 'Quite simply, Karin Slaughter is the best of us' Dervla McTiernan Welcome back to North Falls -- a small town with big secrets. The house at 1601 Iris Drive looks like any other in the quiet, residential street. But rumours are rife about the Vickery...
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Parkwood Murders
    They came for an escape, but can they escape a killer? Detective Nicola Bridge returns in another gripping and immersive mystery For its loyal guests, Parkwood Holiday Village in west Dorset is a haven- woodland walks, a tranquil lake, service around the clock. Until, just after midsummer, a body is found floating in the swimming pool. Detective Nicola Bridge, exhausted...
    Paperback
    $3000
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Hope Rises
    'BALDACCI IS STILL PEERLESS' - THE SUNDAY TIMES REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD . . . Walter Nash, working under the alias of Dillon Hope, is on the road to revenge after becoming an informant for the FBI against a global criminal operation headed up by Victoria Steers. Steers has ripped everything Nash held dear away from him....
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Slash
    A year after a brutal shootout left her lover dead, ex-police sergeant Honey Chalmers is a hot mess, drinking too much and eating too little, working casual gigs for a shady firm of private investigators — while holding conversations with a ghost. A desperate father asks her to investigate his missing son — a double-murder suspect last seen during the...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • A River Red With Blood
    The players call it the Game, and its aim is simple: to abduct and kill a stranger without getting caught. They're very good at it. They've been playing it for a long time. And they can keep playing as long as everyone sticks to the rules: No Killing Close to Home and No Killing Outside the Game. But those rules...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.