Lin Anderson

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Scottish islands in crime fiction

A question: What do William Shakespeare, Jules Verne, Agatha Christie, Peter May and Enid Blyton all have in common? And the answer? They’ve all used islands as settings for some of their most exciting and memorable works.

Just think of those raging storms of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Or the terror of being trapped on an island with an unknown murderer as in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Then there’s those bleak, elemental, wind-swept landscapes of Peter May’s Lewis trilogy. And of course, that youthful delight in sailing, swimming and the great outdoors (with a smuggler or two thrown in for good measure) in Enid Blyton’s The Island of Adventure. All examples of that long-standing urge authors have to set their writings in a self-contained and very specific world. And islands fit that bill perfectly.

Scotland’s islands are no exception. We’re blessed with a great many of them. Some lie close to the mainland and so-called civilisation. Others lie far out to sea, beyond the distant horizon. Some sit almost within striking distance of their neighbours. Others in splendid isolation. Yet all with very different landscapes, customs, beliefs and even language. Perfect settings to fuel the imaginations of authors. Over the centuries they’ve provided inspiration for myths, legends and even today’s crime writers. And it’s the works of some of these that I examine in this article in issue 96 of iScot Magazine.

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Islands to die for

“It was a dark and stormy night …” I wonder how many stories have opened with those famous words? Words first penned by American author Washington Irvine in 1809. Although much parodied, it’s an opening phrase that was used to great effect by Madeleine L’Engle in her ground-breaking novel A Wrinkle in Time, a book that had a profound influence on me as a child. L’Engle opened the door to a whole generation of children in the 1960s onwards with her stories that combined science fiction and fantasy with the spiritual and questions of good and evil. The first in a series, the book went on to win many literary awards and be dramatised for stage, radio, television and film.

That question of good and evil, right and wrong and the responsibility we hold for our actions and words, has stuck with me ever since. And it’s a question that’s been with humankind from the word go! Cain and Abel, those murderous Greeks and Romans and every ‘civilisation’ before and since has been built upon murder and violence. Curiously, but also happily, murder is far, far less common today than at any other time in the past – so perhaps we’re learning!

It’s also an issue that’s at the heart of much literature, in particular the crime genre. Add an island to the mix and you have a winning combination. Long used in literature as settings for dark deeds thanks to their enclosed and isolated communities, islands been used to great effect by authors as varied as Homer, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Enid Blyton!

Scotland, with its wealth of islands, has long been fruitful territory for crime writers, perhaps the best known being Peter May and Ann Cleeves, featuring the Hebrides and Shetland respectively. But there are many others and in the current issue of Scottish Islands Explorer I look at novels by two Scottish authors, Lin Anderson and Craig Robertson, who use distinctive and very different island settings for their characters’ dark deeds!

We tend to think of islands as idyllic holiday destinations, but pick up a crime novel and you’ll find an able author can turn them into something very different indeed. A safe haven or a sinister setting? Have a read of this article and then decide!

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Follow the Dead

Unlike the characters at the opening of Lin Anderson’s new novel, we weren’t trapped in the Cairngorms by a blizzard. Unlike them we were free to walk away from the Cairngorms Mountain Rescue (CMR) Base in Inverdruie whenever we chose. And unlike her fictional protagonists, we wanted to be where we were. We’d come Aviemore for the weekend to hear about the 12th book in the Rhona MacLeod series, Follow the Dead.

A mountain rescue base must surely be a unique setting for a book launch, but it was also very apt, as the CMR team play a major role in the story and Lin had spent many hours in their company, picking their brains for tales of nail-biting rescues and learning about the real-life risks and challenges they face when trying to reach walkers and climbers trapped in the harsh mountain landscape of the Cairngorm Mountains.

Prof and Mrs James Grieve

The skill, commitment and bravery of mountain rescue teams is legendary. John Allen, whose exploits are described in the book Cairngorm John: A Life in Mountain Rescue, was at the launch. As was Willie Anderson, the current leader of the CMRT, who spoke about rescues the team had been involved in, some of them requiring extraordinary bravery and truly heroic efforts to bring bodies – alive and dead – down off the mountains.

Also present was Lin’s chief forensic expert, Dr James Grieve, Emeritus Professor of Forensic Pathology at the University of Aberdeen. A man with a long title and a great sense of humour! He confirmed the realism of the technical aspects of Lin’s books, applauding the work she does in ‘educating’ readers to the reality – and limitations – of forensic science in the solving of crimes. It’s this accuracy that gives the books such an authentic feel, and helps make the character of Rhona MacLeod so believeable.

The author (right) and the fictional character!

Among the audience was a ‘real-life-fictional-character’, Mary, who plays a pivotal and intriguing role in the story. But just what that role might be, is a mystery you’ll only be able to solve by reading the book for yourselves!

After Lin, the second most celebrated guest must have been Oor Blaze fae Skye – perhaps the best-known resident of that fabled isle. With a Twitter following in the thousands, Blaze is a mountaineering (and Portree pub) legend in his own right.

Oor Blaze fae Skye

He even has his own much-sought-after calendar: a calendar signed last year by the author and stars of the spectacularly successful Outlander series, amongst many others. The funds raised from the auctioning of the autographed calendars go to the Skye Mountain Rescue Team. So Blaze has a very appropriate connection to the book launch we were attending.

A brilliant book with the best set of autographs possible!

Some of you will already know that Blaze’s other great claim to fame is that he writes regularly for iScot magazine, sharing his mountain exploits with the magazine’s readership. There’s something rather special about having a fellow contributor who has four legs and a penchant for tennis balls: which, I must add, he catches with unfailing accuracy!

Shush! I’m reading!

And so, having spent time with Blaze (whose literary efforts are penned with a little bit of help from his ‘dad’ Steve) and having heard about the real-life background to the drama in Follow the Dead, as well as having met some of the real-life counterparts to the fictional characters, all I have to do now is get reading – so shush!

 

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Crime wave!

Crime writing in Scotland has never been more popular. From Bute Noir to Bloody Scotland there are events taking place all around the country, giving readers a golden opportunity to meet and talk to their favourite authors.

However, rather than discuss their fiction, I wanted to pose a different sort of question to these dealers in death. Tracking down three of the Tartan Noir brigade – Douglas Skelton, Lin Anderson and Louise Hutcheson – I asked them where in Scotland they would choose to be when they’re not penning the dark deeds and murderous machinations of their characters, and their answers took me to three very different parts of the country.

Lin Anderson

Douglas Skelton

For Douglas it was the Kinloch Rannoch area stretching from Pitlochry to the wilds of Rannoch Moor.  Lin chose the Highland village of Carrbridge, with its historic coffin bridge. While Louise plumped for the Queen of the Hebrides, the Island of Islay. And their reasons for these choices? Well, that’s for you to discover when you read this month’s iScot magazine: and you won’t be disappointed!

Louise Hutcheson

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