“Am I no’ a bonny fighter?” demands the irrepressibly vain and proudly loyal Alan Breck Stewart in Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous “boy’s book” Kidnapped. To my mind, none of Stevenson’s characters is more memorable than the proud highlander who criss-crossed the highlands collecting gold for the Cause after the Jacobite disaster of Prestonpans in 1745. Stevenson has him meet up with David Balfour on the ship taking the shanghaied boy to the plantations, an exile arranged by dastardly Uncle Ebenezer. The ship is wrecked, both escape, but a worse fate threatens when the hated head of the Clan Campbell is assassinated close to where they lurk in the heather. I bit my nails to the quick when I read the book; listening to David Rintoul narrate this new recording with appropriate Scots braggadocio is intensely enjoyable.

In 1751, after the untimely deaths of his parents, Scotsman David Balfour, the 17-year-old protagonist and narrator of Stevenson’s classic adventure yarn, travels to his father’s childhood home to meet with his uncle, Ebenezer. Instead of a warm welcome, Ebenezer pays the captain of a pirate ship to kidnap his nephew and transport him to America. On board, David meets dashing Highlander Alan Breck Stewart, and together they manage to take over the ship, beginning a friendship that continues through several land-based adventures. One of these involves witness (and escaping blame for) a murder. Scottish actor Rintoul does an amazing job of delivering a bouquet of brogues – including David’s mild-mannered narration, his uncle’s croaky, angry snarl, and Alan Stewart’s almost musical, supremely confident pronouncements.