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loudly. “What prompted you to read those books anyway?”
    I shrugged and shook my head, although I knew perfectly well. I had started flirting with atheism more than a year ago, around the same time I had started an affair with a certain lovely Profiling Coordinator in Washington, D.C., where I had been given a temporary duty assignment. Ruth had chosen to remain behind with Danny. The Profiling Coordinator’s name was Nancy Graham, and she and I had met after a debate at Georgetown University—the subject of the debate was “There’s No Point in Praying,” and the two antagonists were the British journalist and antitheist Peter Ekman (for the motion) and the former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Mocatta (against the motion). Ruth knew about the Profiling Coordinator because I had stupidly told her and, for that very same reason, I hardly wanted to bring up the subject of Washington and the TDA again.
    Ruth never ever mentioned Nancy Graham. But I knew the affair had hurt her deeply, and instead of seeking out a divorce lawyer as another woman might have done, Ruth had taken refuge in her religious faith. The affair was over, and I was deeply sorry for what had happened, and Ruth said that she had forgiven me for it, but I knew that the pain of my having had an affair was never far from my wife’s thoughts.

    You might think that Texans are violent. Not a bit of it. The high incidence of gun ownership gives people some useful pause for thought. Most Texans are friendly, well-adjusted folk, endlessly hospitable and always polite. By contrast, the Scots are preternaturally aggressive. Many would pick a fight with a brick wall, which happens more than you might think. Scotland is the most violent place I’ve ever been. There’s something in the air, perhaps, that makes Scotland one massive fight club. If gun ownership was as easy in Scotland as it is in Texas, the population would soon be decimated.
    When my family left Scotland in 1990, the country was in one respect not much different from the Scotland of 1590 because it was divided by religion into two bellicose and bigoted camps—Protestant and Roman Catholic. In this ancient feud it always mattered more what you were than who you were and, at the sharp end of the divide, things were every bit as bitter as anything in Northern Ireland. But while religious hatred was as deep as in that other conflict, the violence in Scotland was usually limited to the fierce tribal rivalries that continue to exist between Scotland’s largest football teams—both of them based in Glasgow—Rangers and Celtic. At “Old Firm” matches between these two teams the strictly segregated fans now hurl insults at one another where once they hurled rocks and bottles. But God forbid that you should be a Rangers fan who finds himself astray in Celtic territory or vice versa; and in such circumstances murder is not uncommon. For many decades sectarian football violence has been Scotland’s dirty secret and few of the tourists visiting there ever have any idea of the horrors that lurk underneath my home country’s threadbare and bloody kilt. I exaggerate, of course, but only a little. Then again, I am completely and utterly biased. And now let me explain why.
    My father, Robert, is an orthopedic surgeon and, until his retirement last year, was a professor of orthopedic surgery at Tufts Medical Center. Prior to this, he was a surgeon at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and perhaps the leading Scottish specialist in the field of sports injuries. In 1988, when I was twelve years old, my father—a fairly prominent Roman Catholic—treated a famous footballer named Peter Paisley for a chronic knee injury that threatened to end his career. Paisley, a Protestant, played for Rangers Football Club. Following several operations, Paisley returned to the team and helped Rangers win the Scottish Football League title for four years in a row; but not before my father had received death threats from aggrieved