My 2024

That’ll be 2024, then. Its tea’s oot and its pie’s cauld, as we say in Scotland. It’s been an eventful year for your present narrator. I published three books and...

The Third Verdict

Controversy has dogged Scotland’s Not Proven verdict for decades. Douglas Skelton looks at the history of the ‘Bastard Verdict’ HERE’S a wee legal riddle: When can a man be cleared...

Recent reads

I do a lot of reading, all writers do – or at least should. Reading all kinds of genres is the best learning resource I know. If you want to...

Sparking up some TV memories

Being a child of the 60s – yes, I know you all thought I was only in my 30s – it’s surprising that I have never smoked. Back then smoking...

A taste of poison

Nine years following the Castle Toward case, a woman who poisoned her neighbour and a lodger caused something a fashion sensation – for the tartan she wore was subsequently shunned...

Tipping the Doctor

POISON, they say, is a woman’s weapon, the perception being that there is something decidedly unmanly in slipping a victim a noxious substance rather than facing up to him with...

The glamorous life of an author

My latest book, A GRAVE FOR A THIEF, is published on Thursday (you’ll find it in all good bookshops, as well as on-line) so I thought I’d talk you though...

Weir Tales: Witch trials pt 3.

I recently chaired in the Book Nook, Stewarton, author Craig Robertson whose new book ‘The Trials of Marjorie Crowe’ is a crime story that features accusations of witchcraft and a...

To the devil, a doctor: Witch trials pt 2

I recently chaired in the Book Nook, Stewarton, author Craig Robertson whose new book ‘The Trials of Marjorie Crowe’ is a crime story that features accusations of witchcraft and a...

Hammering the witches: Witch trials pt 1

I recently chaired in the Book Nook, Stewarton, author Craig Robertson whose new book ‘The Trials of Marjorie Crowe’ is a crime story that features accusations of witchcraft and a...