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FAQs
Q: Who's the father?
If you re-read the prologue the first clue is there …
Q: Why did you choose to write about the 1920s?
I wanted to write what I loved to read — the golden-age detective fiction of the 20s and 30s, following (humbly) in the footsteps of writers like Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Josephine Tey. I started Dandy off in 1922 — rather early — because I wanted to be able to write about her for a good long time before WWII came along and swept her world away.
Q: What are your favourite crime novels?
My favourites of all time today would be different if you asked me tomorrow, but
- A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh
- The Franchise Affair
by Josephine Tey
- The Tiger in the Smoke
- The Moving Finger
- The Nine Tailors
- A Presumption of Death
- Fingersmith
- Appleby’s End
are books I greatly admire and return to again and again. If you would call Kiss Mommy Goodbye and See Jane Run by Joy Fielding
Q: Who is your favourite writer?
Even harder than the last question. If "favourite" means "have read every word they've ever written and would buy their new books in hardback on the day of publication" then:
Joyce Carol Oates
*We can dream. I agree with whoever it was who said that the discovery of a new, complete, mature novel by Jane Austen would cause more genuine delight in the world than anything else imaginable, even a new play by Shakespeare.
Q: Are any of the characters in your books based on real people?
Yes, several. In different ways. In The Burry Man’s Day I had my beloved and sadly missed Auntie Doreen winning the 1923 bonny baby competition at the age of six weeks.
In Bury Her Deep, Mrs Martineau is based on a real Mrs Moyra Martineau who became a character as a competition prize. I was pleased that I had finished the book before Moyra won the competition because it's such a fabulous name, she might have taken over the plot completely.
In The Winter Ground, Nurse Susan Currie is named after another competition winner. It's always a worry that someone called Keanu or Kylie will win but I was very lucky with Susan. The character was originally called Nurse Sally Berry.
Each of my two of my modern, Catriona McCloud novels has a real person disguised as a character. Mr Matheson, the inspirational English teacher in Growing Up Again, is based on Stuart Campbell who was my inspirational English teacher at high school. Mr Campbell came along to the launch of the book and didn’t seem to mind. In Straight Up the character of Bradley (Honey) is based on the desk clerk of a hotel I stayed in in America one time. He doesn’t know he's in the book, though, so I'm not going to mention the hotel by name.
As well as all that, I often see people in the street or in restaurants and store them up to use as characters, making notes about them so I remember their faces. And photographs can be very fruitful for minor characters too. Sometimes whole personalities seem to shine out of these old black and white snaps.
Q: Why do you write crime and why do you think people like to read it?
A: Some people are very suspicious of and uneasy about story — they call it plot and curl their lips; they sneer at tied-up endings and profess to be interested only in character or language or an exploration of themes. Hmm. I am unashamedly interested in story and in a crime novel there is a story waiting to be told. Also, puzzles are naturally irresistible. As well as these two factors, there's the point that real life is long and messy and unfair, but in crime novels problems begin and then end. Jill Paton Walsh put it beautifully when she talked about detective stories depicting “a dream of justice.”
Q: Is the Burry Man really real?
Yes, he's really really real. The current Burry Man — for ten years now — is John Nicol, the graphic designer for Hibs Football Club, who was born in Queensferry and whose parents still live there. He does the Burry Man walk on the second Friday in August, the day before the Ferry Fair, starting at 9 am, with the burrs, flowers, whisky… everything, and all we Ferry Folk are enormously grateful to him. The Burry Man means a lot to us and it's certainly not easy.
Q: Do you have your own Dalmatian?
A: No — I don't have a dog and have never had one. What I do have is two black cats, Dennis Buggitt and Rachel, who were preceded by Spud (cat of my life), Poppy, Carrie, Clive, Maggie, Arthur and Tabitha, starting when I was about three and a half. The fact that Dandy is a dog lover and I'm a cat lover is what usually convinces people once and for all that's she's not me. The Dalmatian standing beside me in the picture on this site is the delightful Lucy Templeton, dog of Aline Templeton, a fellow crimewriter.
