John Ferguson is a principled man. But when, in 1843, those principles drive him to break from the established Church of Scotland, the evangelical minister soon finds himself a poor man, too. Stripped of his income, worried how he'll provide for his wife, he puts scruples aside and agrees to a lucrative but dubious mission: to sail north—armed with a pistol—and "clear" Ivar, the last remaining tenant of a forgotten island halfway between Shetland and Norway.

Ivar has lived alone for decades; the Highland Clearances (see Beyond the Book), a series of mass evictions that began a century earlier, have already forced his family from the land. But if Scottish history would have him for another victim, Clear deftly upends the usual narrative. Soon after arrival, John slips on the craggy coastline; Ivar, discovering his unconscious body, takes it upon himself to patch the ...