The Scottish writer Philip Miller has a lot on his mind. Over the course of three books, he’s built a view of post-Brexit, post-coronavirus Great Britain through the investigative journalism of his heroine, Shona Sandison, that’s gotten darker and more apocalyptic each time. They’ve all been prescient, but his latest, The Diary of Lies, is the most full-throated warning yet.
Miller has been compared to fellow tartan-noir writers and Mick Herron (of Slow Horses fame) for his jaundiced attitude toward the British government and intelligence services, but where Herron mocks their absurdity and incompetence, Miller is chilling and doom-laden in his furiously poetic depiction of a once great civilization going off the rails. This green and pleasant land is headed for the dumper, politically, environmentally, and morally, as the shadow of Fascism looms. Addressing this through the framework of crime fiction—laced with surreal doses of Old English and Celtic folklore—produces a fascinating hybrid that is Miller’s alone.
