Bloody Scotland

So there was I chatting to Ian Rankin over lunch with the volcanic rock and outline of Edinburgh Castle as my backdrop waiting for someone to pinch me. A pencil in the ribs. Something.

The occasion was the annual dinner for the Scottish chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association. The numbers were down because of the appalling weather, but those in attendance –among others - also included Alex Gray, Lin Anderson, Gordon Brown, Aline Templeton and Caroline Dunsford.

What was Mr Rankin saying to me? Lips. Sealed. What happens in Edinburgh, stays in Edinburgh and all that. Well, actually we talked football (soccer) and drinking mens’ clubs. The latter have been a bit of a tradition in Edinburgh over the centuries and are basically an excuse – like we need one – for men to get together, chat about the issues of the day and get as drunk as lords. Did you know they used to provide wine glasses with no base – so you couldn’t put your glass down until it was empty.

Apparently, back in the day – even in Robert Burns’ day actually, they used to employ servants to sit under the tables. Their job was to wait until their lord and master passed out, fell of their chair and landed on the floor and then to unloosen their cravat to make sure they could breathe and didn’t drown in their own vomit. 

They provided a precursor to the recovery position, if you will.

The chat among the Crime Writers was mainly about plans for the first ever festival of Scottish Crime Writing. The event will be called Bloody Scotland and will happen in September 2012. This celebration is in the early stages of planning and I’ll keep you posted. The weekend promises to be something special, so if you are a fan of Scottish crime fiction and you are looking for an excuse to visit our green and handsome shores you now have one.

Saturday was work xmas party time. This was held in a local conference centre where around 3,000 people from a variety of employers/ employment turned up to take part in the revelry.

It takes a pretty slick operation to feed that many people a three course meal and then offer them musical entertainment. Don’t you think the quality of the food always suffers in these type of evenings? You want gourmet? Go to a restaurant. You want food that will soak up the party juice, then you won’t be disappointed. You just have to accept that the meat will be as dry as an old slipper and the vegetables will have the texture of a swamp.

It always amuses me at these events to see how much effort the women go to with their party frocks, hair styling and ...all that other stuff and then compare that to the (majority of) men who settle for a shower, quite possibly a shave and just about to manage to run an iron over their favourite jeans.

For the record, I was wearing a new suit, shirt and tie. An ensemble which only lasted for the time it took to walk through the door, check my coat in at the cloakroom and take a seat with my friends and colleagues.  Swear to god, I thought I’d walked into a sauna. The heat was incredible. The organisers might say that they need to put the heat up so that the women are comfortable in their backless, shoulder-less, short dresses. The cynic might suggest that the increased heat would drive people to the bars and the watered-down booze. The realist would argue that, as a crowd, we didn’t need that added inducement.

To be fair there was a fair amount of cloth missing from the female population. And those I did miss, my friend (let’s call her M.D.) was perched at my side to point out the high and low lights with such pronouncements as “Would you look at the nick o’ her!” or ‘Nice set of jugs on the girl at 3 o’clock. And at nine o’clock.” Or the fatal judgement;  “Mutton. Dressed. As. Lamb.”

What’s wrong with a nice bit of mutton, I say. And maybe I’m going out on a limb with this opinion – I like to live dangerously, it’s how I roll – but listening to these comments made me realise that women don’t dress to impress men. We just like to kid ourselves that you do. No the truth is that women dress to impress each other. Or at the very least to silent any possible bitchy comments.

Tell me I’m wrong.

But then, the devil on my shoulder asks, what about the yards of cleavage on display? Surely that’s not for other women?

It is?

Books, glorious books...

What have I been reading recently and what’s on the TBR pile, I hear you ask. You didn’t? Well here goes anyway...

Tana French – Faithful Place

The blurb wallahs are giving us this - The course of Frank Mackey's life was set by one defining moment when he was nineteen. The moment his girlfriend, Rosie Daly, failed to turn up for their rendezvous in Faithful Place, failed to run away with him to London as they had planned. Frank never heard from her again. Twenty years on, Frank is still in Dublin, working as an undercover cop. He's cut all ties with his dysfunctional family. Until his sister calls to say that Rosie's suitcase has been found. Frank embarks on a journey into his past that demands he reevaluate everything he believes to be true.

First line: My father once told me that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for.

Verdict - this is a 5 out of 5'er. Tana French is a wonderfully evocative writer and she's on top form here.

Caro Ramsay – Dark Water

The promo goes thusly - A bitterly cold February in Glasgow. Hanging from a rope in the attic of a deserted tenement is the body of a criminal believed to have been hiding out on the Costa del Sol these last ten years. His face has been hideously disfigured. Investigating officers DI Anderson and DS Costello believe the dead man to be a suspect in a decade-old case: the rape and attempted murder of a young student by two men. And there are other, similar cases on file. But what has happened to the dead man’s accomplice, ‘Mr Click’? And with the discovery of another young woman who has been brutally attacked, detectives Anderson and Costello realize this terrifying psychopath has started working once more. They must use every trick in the book to stop him. For Mr Click has developed a taste for his bloodthirsty trade. And to satisfy his lust he will strike again and again . . .

First line: Emily Corbett flicked the headlights of the Punto on to full beam, highlighting the puffballs of soft drifting grey fog.

Verdict - not finished yet. Police procedural set in the West of Scotland. Her last 2 were excellent and I'm expecting this to go the same way.

Lin Anderson – The Reborn

When the body of a pregnant teenager is found in a Hall of Mirrors with the full-term foetus surgically removed, forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod is called in to assist the police. Suspicion falls on Jeff Coulter, a psychotic inmate at a nearby hospital whose hobby is making Reborns – chillingly realistic baby dolls intended for bereaved parents or those unable to conceive. But how could he have orchestrated the murder from a secure mental facility?

The investigation leads to a group of teenage girls who seem to have all got pregnant at the same time. Then a Reborn doll is discovered near the crime scene and a second girl from the group is found dead...

First line: It was the fear of the clown that drove Kira inside.

Verdict - not started yet. Lin's career is going from strength to strength with the recent announcement that her books were being adapted for TV. Rankin and Rebus comparisons are fatuous but nevertheless will be delivered by the skipful.

Kate Atkinson – Started Early, Took My Dog

A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn't bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn. Witnesses to Tracy's Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie who has returned to his home county in search of someone else's roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished. Kate Atkinson dovetails and counterpoints her plots with Dickensian brilliance in a tale peopled with unlikely heroes and villains. "Started Early, Took My Dog" is freighted with wit, wisdom and a fierce moral intelligence. It confirms Kate Atkinson's position as one of the great writers of our time.

Beginning: 1975 9 April – "Leeds: Motorway City of the Seventies". A proud slogan. No irony intended. Gaslight still flickering in some streets. Life in a northern town.

Verdict: Not started yet but I'm expecting BIG things. Kate Atkinson could copy out the phone book and I'd read it. She's THAT good.

Tony Black – Long Time Dead

Gus Dury is back on the drink. While in hospital after a hit-and-run accident, his best friend, Hod, asks him to investigate the ritual, on-campus hanging of an Edinburgh University student. The murder victim's mother is a high-profile actress, who has promised a big-money reward. Gus, desperate for money, goes undercover at the university, taking a janitor's job, and soon uncovers a similar ritualistic hanging which took place in the 70s. Few of the students are prepared to talk about it - until another one of their group turns up dead by the same method. But Gus now moves into very dangerous waters as he begins to discover what and who is really behind it all - and he becomes the next target for the executioner.

First line: The doctor was a non-nonsense west-coaster type that called a spade a shovel and if you didn’t like it would add, You got a problem with that?

Verdict; Squemish much? This is as noir as they come; as dark and intense as a day under the stairs of  a haunted house.

As per, the reviews will end up on te crimesquad.com website eventually.

A couple of things occur to me as I write this – thing 1 – most of these writers are based in Scotland – Tana French is in Ireland which is as good as (and thing 1B - all are bloody brilliant) – thing 2 – four of them are women.

Thing 2 reminds me of a comment from the stage at Harrogate Crime Writers Festival last year (if you haven’t been yet and you love crime fiction, do yourself a favour and go). The comment was that male readers don’t read female writers. And it was Val McDermid who made it. A woman who surely knows her crime writing onions.

For me it’s all about the quality of the writing and being captivated by the storytelling. I NEVER check the gender of the writer first. When I look at the books on my book shelves, floor, stairs, bathroom floor – pretty much everywhere in my house – the gender mix is pretty even, with I have to be honest a leaning towards male names.

Am I out on a limb here? One of the enlightened few?

Tell me what you think, fellas.