“If you talk to real people, you get the real world, not just the forensics.”
Gill Sherry
If you’re a fan of crime fiction, chances are you’ll have read at least one of the Rhona MacLeod series of novels by Greenock born author, Lin Anderson. The first, Driftnet, was published in 2003. The latest, The Dead and the Dying, is the nineteenth in the series and will be launched on 15th August.
As the daughter of a former detective, the most obvious choice of protagonist would have been a male police officer. However, Lin’s main character was inspired by a former student rather than her own father.
“As a policeman’s child, we were never allowed to do anything wrong. Anyone in the frontline will worry that they’ll turn up to deal with some issue and it might be someone connected with them. My father obviously worried about that and went on to joke that he was worried whether we were the victim or a perpetrator. So I came up with this idea that someone would turn up at a scene of crime and believe that the victim is someone either they know or are related to.”
One of Lin’s students at the time (she taught maths and computing science) went to university to study forensic science, moving to London to work in the forensic services once she’d graduated.
“I thought, in a serendipity moment, I’ll make it a woman and I’ll make her a forensic scientist who turns up at the scene of a crime. And that was all because of my student, Emma Hart!”
Needless to say, Emma always receives a copy of Lin’s new books. Prior to publication of that very first novel, she was also sent copies of the crime scenes and was able to inform Lin of any relevant procedural changes or scientific advances.
“This was over 20 years ago, and I still have the hand-written letter she wrote to me.”
Having discovered that she enjoyed the forensic science aspect as much as she enjoyed the actual writing, Lin registered for a course at Glasgow University.
“It was a Diploma in Forensic Medical Science. It said it was for anyone who was giving evidence in court, police, social workers, mortuary assistants… and any other interested parties, and I thought, that’s me!”
Co-incidentally, Lin’s friend and fellow author, Alex Gray, had also signed up for the same course.
“We were the two annoying people with our hands up all the time! But the people who gave part of the course are still the people that I talk to each time I write a new book. When an opening scene comes into my head, I speak to them about anything I need to know about that scene.”
Lin did just that when writing Follow the Dead, the twelfth book in the Rhona MacLeod series.
“I sent the scene to Professor James Gray. It’s set at the Shelter Stone at the top of the Cairngorms. There are four bodies, three in the Shelter Stone and one somewhere else. I give the scene to him, and he comes back telling you what you should be looking for.”
Dr Jen Miller was also a lecturer at that course in Glasgow.
“The real Rhona MacLeod isn’t Emma now, it’s Dr Jen Miller. If you talk to real people, you get the real world, not just the forensics. It’s fantastic. She now lives in Orkney and works at the University of the Highlands and Islands.”
Which is great news for Lin, because her new book, The Dead and the Dying, is set in Orkney.
“It opens with a pod of whales coming ashore at Skaill Bay. Rhona is up there and they’re trying to save them. There’s a birthing mother, they think that’s the reason they’ve come ashore. They decide to bury the calf in the dunes and when they get a wee digger to do that, they hit a stone cist. There have been quite a few Viking burials there and they assume it’s likely that, so they bring in the UHI archaeologist, Colin. When they open it, it’s an ancient grave but it’s not an ancient body that’s in it.”
I’m hooked already! Even more so when Lin tells me that Colin is a real person and not just a character in the book. And on the subject of characters, Lin’s next project is already underway.
“One of the things that I’ve wanted to do, I’ve actually just started. There’s a character in this big Orkney story called DI Erling Flett, and I wanted to give him his own series. I’m in the middle of writing the first of Erling Flett’s own series, so that’s going to happen.”
Despite being one of Scotland’s most prolific writers (she’s the author of dozens of published novels, short stories, screen plays and a non-fiction book), Lin still sounds incredibly excited at the prospect of writing yet another crime fiction novel. Her proudest moment, though, remains her very first published work, a short story titled ‘Pandrops’ which was included in the New Writing Scotland collection Full Strength Angels in 1996.
“To see yourself in print is the most exciting thing ever. They launched it at Waterstones in Argyll Street in Glasgow, and when I got to the shop window, there was the book! It was overwhelming.”
Surprisingly, it wasn’t a crime story but a comedy, and one which Scottish poet and novelist, Ian Crichton Smith, said he really enjoyed. A big fan of Ian’s work, she was delighted and inspired by his feedback.
No doubt there are plenty of budding writers out there who are inspired by Lin’s work. What advice does she have for them?
“A lot of women come late to writing… they tend to have a career and a family and then come late, which is wonderful. Jenny Brown and her associates run a competition for women aged 50 and over. Also, I should give a plug to myself, Alexander McCall Smith and Alex Gray. We’re judges in The Sunday Post short story competition. Look out for these things and go for them.”
Lin is also appearing at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway for ‘A Blether of Books’ on Sunday 2nd November.
“I was born and brought up in Greenock so I’ve been down to Ayrshire lots of times, but I haven’t been for a while so I’m very much looking forward to it.”
Tickets are available from www.eventbrite.co.uk, and you can pre-order Lin’s new book, The Dead and the Dying, from Waterstones or from your local book shop.
Lin leaves me with one final piece of advice for wannabe writers: “If you want to write you just have to get on with it.”
