Douglas will join forced with fellow historical fiction author Douglas Jackson in September.
They’ll be appearing in Waterstones Perth on Wednesday September 24 to discuss their new books – Blood Vengeance, the third instalment in Douglas Jackson’s Warsaw Quartet, and Ship of Thieves, the fifth Jonas Flynt novel by Douglas Skelton.
If you’re in the area, why not come along.
Douglas will be in Waterstones Kirkcaldy on Tuesday October 7 to talk about the fifth Jonas Flynt historical thriller SHIP OF THIEVES – and no doubt his other books.
We really can’t keep him to stay on topic, to be honest.
If you live in the area, why not come say hello?
Personally speaking, (and it’s my website so I’m allowed) 2022 was a year of incredible highs and devastating lows.
But that’s life, ain’t it? Ups and downs, peaks and troughs, swing and roundabouts. All that jazz. As John Lennon said, life is what happens while you’re making other plans.
As Dickens wrote, it was the best times; it was the worst of times.
So, what was it all about, 2022?
Well, I was on the telly – three times! Four, you could say, because one was a two-parter. I think I was on screen even more than ‘The Heroes of Telemark’ this year, and that’s quite a feat.
First there was a documentary I presented on the Crime + Investigation Channel. Although I’ve appeared on the box many times over the years, it was the first time I’d ever actually fronted a full show and it was an interesting experience. It was filmed in 2021 but didn’t go out until earlier this year, as part of a strand called Once Upon a True Crime, which saw some top crime writers (and me) outline a case that inspired their writing. The other authors were Denise Mina, Mark Billingham and Peter James.
Mine, of course, was about the Ice Cream Wars in 1983/84 Glasgow. I’ve never used them directly in my fiction but I did co-author the true crime account of the case and what I learned during that period has informed most of my stories.
I had to drive a Ford Capri of the period. No power steering. No ABS. After driving it round and round in order to get the take the director wanted I had shoulders like Big Arnie and I had to start hitting the brakes a half mile before I wanted to stop.
Mr Billingham and I even launched the series at a special event in The British Library in London.
Later in the year I was one of the contributors to a BBC Scotland two-part investigation of the case. Reports tell me that the programme makers did a great job, but I still haven’t watched it because I really hate seeing myself.
Those two documentaries will be my last word on the tragic case.
This year I also made my second appearance on David Wilson’s Crime Files. Being interviewed by the professor is always daunting as I feel he is picking up on every bit of body language and psycho-analysing me. In fact, he probably is!
He’s a lovely guy and it was good of him to have me back.
We were talking about the Sandy Drummond case, an unsolved murder from Fife, which I find fascinating. I wrote about it in one of my true crime books many years ago, back when Caxton was still working his press.
When I walked into the studio I was greeted by the face and beard of an old friend – Stan Leech. Now a cameraman, he was part of the crew for the series. Amazingly, in a previous life, he played Sandy Drummond in a Crimewatch re-enactment. It’s a small world, right enough, but as someone once quipped, I wouldn’t like to paint it.
I had two books published – the fourth Rebecca Connolly thriller WHERE DEMONS HIDE (Polygon) and the first Jonas Flynt historical adventure AN HONOURABLE THIEF (Canelo).
It’s a thrill to have one book published, let alone two in a year, and I am grateful to the publishers and my agent, Jo Bell, for making it happen. Also to Denzil Meyrick for more or less forcing me to begin writing the Jonas Flynt tales. But that’s a story you should all know by now. And if you don’t, I tell it in the author’s note at the end of the book.
Yes, that’s an unashamed attempt at selling!
The two-book thing will be repeated in 2023, by the way, with another Rebecca, CHILDREN OF THE MIST, and another Jonas, A THIEF’S JUSTICE.
Another high spot of the year was when the third Rebecca Connolly A RATTLE OF BONES was longlisted for the McIlvanney Award.
That’s the third time I’ve made that prestigious list. Let’s hope it won’t be the last!
I had a busy year at festivals, appearing in Paisley, Aye Write, Bute, Stewarton, Bloody Scotland in Stirling, Grantown, even a stint hosting a table at one of the dinners in Harrogate. Not sure I’ll be as fortunate in 2023.
Author pal Gordon Brown and I teamed up for a double act to promote out new titles at a few venues, including Stewarton and Glasgow. It turned out to be a sort of Two Blokes in Search of a Plot. Or, given my advancing years, in search of a pot.
They were all fun and thank you to the bookstores and venues who hosted us.
Book Week Scotland was another busy period and I’m grateful for the libraries in Dundee, Motherwell, Musselburgh and Saltcoats for inviting me. I was crossing central Scotland like a bank robber on the lam.
That leaves the lows.
Ah, the lows.
Charles Dickens again, or maybe it was just Kermit the Frog – life is full of meetings and partings. I experienced both.
There’s a Hollywood adage for romantic comedies that breaks them down into the three-act structure of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. I’ve had the first two but the third is unlikely. Perhaps even impossible. But, as I said above, that’s life/other plans etc. I wish it wasn’t, but there we go.
Throwing myself with dramatic abandon into a slough of despond, I found myself once again grateful for my friends. They rallied round when my wife died three years ago and they did so again when this relationship died. I have some wonderful friends and if they read this – you know who you are, I won’t embarrass you – then I want them to know how much I appreciate them.
I also lost an old friend, who had been ill, on Christmas Day.
Stephen Wilkie was the most knowledgeable person regarding Scottish crime I have ever met. The consummate tabloid reporter, he was the guy I turned to whenever I needed to know something. If he didn’t know about it, it didn’t happen, simple as that. I often urged him to write a book but he never did.
I have many regrets in life. One of them is not being a better friend to him.
RIP, big guy. If there’s a news desk in the afterlife, I’ll lay odds you’re showing them how it’s done.
After two years of cancelled or digital events, 2022 sees the calendar get back to some semblance of normal.
I’ll be back at Glasgow’s book festival Aye Write this year, in the fabulous Mitchell Theatre, sharing the stage with fellow crime writer Alex Gray to discuss our latest books, both set in the Highlands of Scotland.
Full details here:
Neil Broadfoot, GJ Brown, Mark Leggatt and myself will be in Dundee on Wednesday April 14 for the first date of our world tour of Scotland.
Well, parts of Scotland, at least.
The venue is the Steps Theatre in the city’s Central Library.
Sounds posh!
We’ll be talking crime, writing and writing crime. We may even play a game of impromptu plotting.
That’ll be a laugh….
Come along and join in.
More details here:
Picture above by Daniel Morrison.
For those who missed the theatrical experience of a lifetime in Waterstones Argyle Street on Friday April 8, I’ll be back in the company of Caro Ramsay and Theresa Talbot for a special panel of crime chat later this month.
There’ll be no histrionics this time – although you never know with Theresa (she’s BBC, after all). However, a stern look from Caro will keep her in check. A stern look from Caro keeps us all in check. She can kill you with her pinkie.
Anyway, we’ll be in the Avenue Shopping Centre in Newton Mearns for an event organised by Waterstones at Primavera’s on Wednesday April 27.
If you didn’t manage to buy a copy of OPEN WOUNDS at the sell-out play/launch (did I mention we sold out? No? We sold out!) then you’ll get one, or more, here. And I’ll sign it at no extra charge.
Caro will be launching her new book RAT RUN, which promises to be an absolute belter, while Theresa will have brand new, hot off the presses copies of her terrific crime book PENANCE.
Caro and Theresa are great at this sort of thing and you won’t be disappointed by their chat. I’ll try my best to keep up.
Please come and joins us. Call the store on 0141 616 3933 to reserve a space.
More details here:
Caro Ramsay, Neil Broadfoot and I seem to be taking a question very seriously during last year’s Death in Grantown festival. Matt Bendoris, far right, has a twinkly in his eye though. Something cheeky was coming I think.
Three years ago, if you’d asked me to stand in front of an audience and talk, I’d’ve died with my feet in the air.
Now, when I go to the fridge and the light comes on, I do a ten minute bit.
I wanted to be an actor when I was a slip of a lad (the lad in question being my father, the slip being me – thank you ‘Round the Horne’). I was never that outgoing – didn’t much like parties or socialising – but get me in front of an audience and I was off.
As I grew older I lost that ability to perform. It simply vanished. During my true crime years I made a number of TV radio appearances – still do – but that’s not the same as being up there with real people looking at you.
Then I had my first novel, ‘Blood City’, published and – gulp – I was expected to perform.
The first occasion was an event thrown by my publisher during the Edinburgh Festival and I was one of a number of authors asked to give a reading. I was one of the last called and the nervous sweat could’ve refloated the Titanic. The book was as yet unreleased so I was reading from a somewhat soggy typewritten sheet. It didn’t help that I’d forgotten my reading glasses.
I worked a little from memory and I think I may even have rewritten a section as I went along. At one point I found myself in a verbal tangle and paraphrased Harrison Ford to George Lucas when shooting the first Star Wars film – you can type this stuff, but you can’t say it. The audience laughed. They were on my side. I liked it.
Now whenever I do an event, as Donald O’Connor once sang, I like to make ‘em laugh.
Caro, Matt and myself celebrate a second great win the titanic East v West play-offs. The East Coast writers, including Neil Broadfoot, Doug Johnston and Frank TF Muir, lost despite having a home advantage and an greement ahead of time they were going to win. Craig Robertson was the impeccably fair chair.
Yes, my books can be dark but that doesn’t mean I have to be, at least in public. I do try to follow the sage advice of a seasoned bookseller to be windswept and interesting but my motto is take the work seriously but not myself.
I’m still no good at socialising, though, and in festival bars I’m usually the one trying to merge with the background.
Next up, though, is Carry on Sleuthing. What’s that? It’s a comedy-mystery radio play to be performed by four crime writers in a bookshop. Don’t say we don’t push the envelope.
You may have noticed it being mentioned on Facebook, Twitter and even this very site you are currently perusing. But in case you’ve been exploring regions of the Amazonian rain forest where the hand of man has never set foot, let me fill you in.
It’ll feature Caro Ramsay as amateur detective Letitia Luvibod who is asked to solve a perplexing mystery on board the SS Naughty Nigel.
Odious lawyer Hiram Grabbitt has been foully done to death and the suspects include bestselling author Dame Petunia Uppercrust, press baron Piggy Grunter, flapper Loxie McLovely and millionairess Colleen O’Blarney. Add in salty sea dog Captain Obadiah Trusspot, manservant Tremble and Inspector Bumble of the Yard and you have the recipe for a night of mystery and mirth.
Theresa Talbot, Michael J Malone and some eejit called Skelton will take out acting talents out for a spin as the entire supporting cast.
It’ll be fun but it is daunting.
I’m a bit of a limelighter now but I think I may have a drink beforehand. Or a Valium. Or both.
(Carry on Sleuthing can be seen for one night only in Waterstones Argyle Street on Friday April 8 at 7pm. Details in the Events section of this website)
It’s fast becoming a tradition in any book festival worth its salt that there is an East Coast v West Coast event – or a North v South.
Next week is Book Week Scotland and on Thursday November 26 the formidable Caro Ramsay will be debating with the plucky Neil Broadfoot on which setting is tops – is it West (which rhymes with Best) or the East (which rhymes with East).
They’re both pictured here – and if you can’t work out which is which, then you have my pity.
I’ll be moderating the event and if you think you detect any bias you couldn’t be more wrong. I will be fair and even-minded, even though Glasgow is best.
You’ll find details here:
Writers write.
They also read.
It’s not an original sentiment, hell, what is? But it is very true.
I don’t believe you can write well if you don’t read, too.
After all, who are you going to steal from?
So, what have I been reading of late?
Well, I’m glad you asked.
I’ve so many books waiting to be read and – newsflash! – I also write, so apologies if I’ve not got to your books yet (if you’re an author). I’ll get there. So many good things to read, so little time.
Alex Gray’s ‘Keep the Midnight Out’ is the latest in the hugely successful Lorimer books and this time the gentlemanly cop spends time both in Glasgow and on Mull. Fans will lap up the rich prose and evocative descriptions of an island the author obviously loves as Lorimer investigates two deaths, twenty years apart.
I’ve also been belatedly introduced to Caro Ramsay’s Anderson and Costello series having now read the first, ‘Absolution’. It had everything I wanted in a crime novel, good characters, smart dialogue and some grotty bits. And I’m told the books just get better and better!
Nick Sweet’s ‘The Long Siesta’ won’t be out till September but I was privileged to read a proof copy and it’s one to watch out for. It boasts an under-used location – Seville – and a police detective with problems of his own being presented with some very nasty murders indeed. There are horrors under the sun, horrors in the country’s past, in its present and – sorry, but got to say it – in the bullring.
And speaking of advance copies, I’ve also had a preview of Matt Bendoris’s new one, the cunningly-title ‘DM for Murder,’ the latest title from Contraband, the crime imprint that’s creating a big, bloody splash in the genre. It’s great fun, spans both Glasgow and Baltimore, and is the only crime novel I can think of in which Twitter plays an important role. I think it’s going to be one of the big Scottish sellers of 2015 and I hate him for it.
He’s launching it in Waterstones Argyle Street
I’ve also had a sneak preview of Michael J. Malone’s next Ray McBain thriller, not due out till next year. It’s so good it makes me sick.
I’m currently reading a fat American thriller which is at least 200 pages too long. I won’t identify the book or author out of respect and because I’m gutless.
The month was a joint initiative between the Crime Writer’s Association and the Crime Reader’s Association to promote peace and goodwill. Nah, it was to promote crime reading. Who’da thunk it?
Anyhoo, what did I get up to during the month.
Yes, me, me, me…
Well, June 1 saw me at the vet, so I don’t chase the ladies anymore. Doesn’t matter – I never caught ’em anyway.
If you’ve just joined us, here’s the story so far…
Bloody Scotland is Scotland’s international crime writing festival. Every September the great, the good and the just plain gorgeous gather in Stirling to talk crime writing. It’s a fabulous weekend and if you haven’t been you really should make the time because it’s a lot of fun.
I’m on during the Sunday, alone with the always terrific Caro Ramsay and someone called Michael J. Malone, who I’ve never heard of. It promises to be a lorra laughs, as Cilla used to say. And may still do for all I know.
I also visited the dentist during June. She said it wouldn’t hurt so I bit her. Guess what? She was wrong.
But my teeth are still squint.
It’s been talked about elsewhere on the site so suffice it to say that the book is now available and I’d really like you to buy it. Those teeth won’t straighten themselves, you know.
This was another hugely entertaining night and anyone who thinks crime writers can’t be funny should listen to these three.
I settled into the STV Glasgow couch on The Riverside Show the following night to talk about the new book and Macaroni Pies, which have been consigned to the big food bin in the sky. I’ve never had one but now that I can’t I really have a yearning. Life’s funny.
Doug Johnstone led the beleaguered east coasters – Neil Broadfoot and TF Muir, but we call him Frank. Among other things.
Craig Robertson was question master but also managed to score minus 40, which is quite a feat.
I was asked to do this some time ago by Aileen Cowan, the head honcho at the Carnegie Library in Ayr. I wasn’t sure about it at first, to be honest, but finally I put my nose to the grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel. After I had some treatment for a sore back, I started writing.
The result was the comic mystery which we performed in the Library on June 29. Aileen, Samantha and Nan from the library took on all the female parts – apart from one, which I did, complete with red wig. I was also a sea captain and a press baron.
That fella Michael J. Malone played two parts – a gentleman’s gentleman and a police officer. And no, I still don’t know who he is.
It was a success, I think. A capacity audience laughed in all the right places – I think the wine helped with that – and tried to solve the mystery.
So, that’s it. A month of crime fun over. And I never thought I’d put the sword ‘Crime’ along with ‘fun’ until I joined the CWA!