{"id":269,"date":"2011-11-14T22:41:55","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T22:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=269"},"modified":"2016-06-22T18:10:15","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T18:10:15","slug":"len-wanner-interviews-scottish-crime-writers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/?page_id=269","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Crime Writers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Len Wanner interviews Scottish Crime Writers<\/h3>\n

Len Wanner,\u00a0Dead Sharp: Scottish Crime Writers on\u00a0Country and Craft<\/em>\u00a0(Two Ravens Press, 2011) Review and Extracts<\/h4>\n

\"Dead<\/a>In these intelligent, perceptive, fascinating interviews, Len Wanner reveals both the diversity and the\u00a0shared concerns of contemporary Scottish crime fiction.\u00a0\u00a0His questions probe writers\u2019 creative processes\u00a0and their views of the genre. On the one hand he focuses in on personal aims, quirks, opinions and writing\u00a0habits; on the other, he broadens out to engage with such issues as the nature of noir, the turn towards dark\u00a0crime fiction, the political and moral issues raised by the genre, the Scottishness of Scottish crime fiction.<\/p>\n

The collection opens with an extended interview with \u201cthe King of Tartan\u00a0Noir\u201d, Ian Rankin, reflecting on the origins of the label (\u201cHah! \u2018Tartan Noir\u2019\u00a0is a term that I\u2019m confident I invented but I gave it to James Ellroy\u2026\u201d) and on\u00a0why it is so appropriate to the late twentieth-century emergence of some\u00a0distinctively Scottish variants of crime fiction:<\/p>\n

\u00a0“Tartan Noir \u2013 well, there\u2019s no tradition of crime fiction in\u00a0<\/span>Scotland but there is a great tradition of quite dark, psychological, Gothic\u00a0<\/span>horror stories. Specifically in the \u201870s, I think in Glasgow, there was a move\u00a0<\/span>towards a kind of realistic school of writing about working class life, writing\u00a0<\/span>about hard men, writing about hard lives, and writing about urban experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

So it was a move away from the \u2018kaleyard\u2019, which was this romanticised view of\u00a0Scotland. I think crime fiction tapped into that very nicely, and because there\u00a0was no tradition of crime fiction in Scotland it meant a completely level\u00a0playing field. Nobody had to be worried about writing in a certain tradition,\u00a0and most of us weren\u2019t influenced by the English.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Len<\/a>
Len Wanner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is by no means a unified tradition, and Wanner astutely explores the\u00a0variety apparent in the work of his nine chosen writers: Ian Rankin, Stuart\u00a0MacBride, Karen Campbell, Neil Forsyth, Christopher Brookmyre, Paul Johnston,\u00a0Alice Thompson, Allan Guthrie and Louise Welsh.\u00a0 <\/span>As MacBride says, \u201cTartan Noir doesn\u2019t exist…You can\u2019t pick up a\u00a0\u2018Tartan Noir novel\u2019 and expect to get the same thing every time. They are just\u00a0going to be incredibly different\u201d (interview extracts below).\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

With the author\u2019s permission, Crimeculture is delighted to present extracts from three of Wanner\u2019s interviews, which we hope will convey\u00a0something of the liveliness and insightfulness of this excellent collection, available from Amazon<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>For extracts from numerous other\u00a0reviews, see Len Wanner\u2019s website, The Crime of it<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>All<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Stuart MacBride<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Stuart<\/a>
Stuart MacBride<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2026Do foreign readers expect every Scottish writer to write like Ian\u00a0Rankin seeing as he\u2019s exported a certain notion of Scottishness<\/span>?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

God bless him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, why not. But does his success mean that the rest of Scottish crime\u00a0fiction is marketed according to the terms of \u2018Tartan Noir\u2019, whatever that may\u00a0be?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Tartan Noir doesn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s a\u00a0very convenient umbrella under which to promote crime fiction that is written\u00a0in Scotland. It\u2019s another \u201cGod bless\u201d \u2013 this time James Ellroy<\/span> for coming up with it. Scottish crime fiction is\u00a0incredibly varied. You can\u2019t look at it and say it\u2019s all of a \u2018type\u2019, because\u00a0it\u2019s not. It\u2019s all over the genre. It\u2019s a huge spread from very gritty\u00a0hardboiled stuff like Ray Banks and Allan Guthrie to<\/span> much gentler styles of crime writing like Alexander McCall Smith and Aline<\/span> Templeton. You can\u2019t pick up a \u2018Tartan Noir novel\u2019\u00a0and expect to get the same thing every time. They are just going to be\u00a0incredibly different. But it\u2019s a wonderful marketing tool to sell the books\u00a0outside Scotland.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you read a novel that came without a cover, title or name, do you\u00a0think you might be able to recognise the writer if he or she were Scottish?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Some writers yes, other writers\u00a0no.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why some?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Well, there are some key parts of\u00a0the Scottish psyche… They\u2019re not universal, by any means, but there\u2019s quite a\u00a0black sense of humour that runs through a lot of Scottish life \u2013 possibly\u00a0to do with the weather. We have an extremely healthy disrespect for authority,\u00a0which probably comes down to our political nationhood over the past 40, 50, 60,\u00a070, 80, 90 or 100 years, possible longer. We are incredibly \u201cthrawn<\/span>\u201d as a culture. It\u2019s a Scottish word that means that\u00a0if you tell us to do something we will do exactly the opposite, given the\u00a0opportunity. That is how we are.<\/span><\/p>\n

An excellent example of that is\u00a0every time England gets into the world cup or the Rugby final or whatever,\u00a0there\u2019s this big thing where we\u2019re all told by the BBC that the entire nation\u00a0is behind England and we all have to support them and how great England\u2019s\u00a0chances are… And because we\u2019re all thrawn<\/span> in
\nScotland, we go, \u201cWho<\/span> are they playing against?\u00a0Brazil? Ah, we like<\/em> Brazil.\u201d We just\u00a0don\u2019t like to be told what to do. We like to push back.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that comes out a lot in\u00a0the kind of crime fiction that I could identify easily as Scottish crime\u00a0fiction.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Does that mentality predispose Scots to crime fiction seeing as the\u00a0genre is all about the tension between constitutional justice and the protagonist\u2019s\u00a0sense of right and wrong \u2013 how a guy like Rankin\u2019s Rebus will put his\u00a0career and more on the line…<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

…because<\/span> he likes to push back? \u2013 Rebus is a perfect example. I mean,<\/span> there are books that I\u2019ve read and thought, \u201cRebus is\u00a0really just being shit because he thinks he\u2019s right.\u201d It\u2019s not because he\u2019s\u00a0going out to save person A or because he\u2019s on this big crusade \u2013 it\u2019s\u00a0because, as far as he\u2019s concerned, he is right, and he refuses to be proven\u00a0wrong. Not in all the books, but in some of them it feels to me as if what he\u2019s\u00a0doing is he\u2019s proving that he\u2019s better and that he\u2019s right: that he\u2019s the man.\u00a0It\u2019s what makes him so identifiably Scottish.<\/span><\/p>\n

I probably shouldn\u2019t have said\u00a0that \u2013 I will<\/span> also say that I do very much\u00a0admire Ian Rankin\u2019s work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t we all?\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want the Edinburgh mafia\u00a0coming after us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Funny you should mention organised crime. At a recent \u201cIntelligence\u00a0Squared\u201d debate Stephen Fry was opposing the motion of \u2018the Church as a force\u00a0for good in the world\u2019. He was rejecting the very concept of infallibility and..<\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

…a<\/span> God\u00a0given right, perhaps?<\/span><\/p>\n

If so, isn\u2019t it ironic how pop culture has replaced religious authority\u00a0only to champion the cause of an individual\u2019s higher sense of what is ethically\u00a0right?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s even\u00a0connected, to be honest. But of course I\u2019m speaking from an Aberdeen perspective which<\/span>, according to census records, is the most\u00a0secular city in Scotland. It has the lowest percentage of people in the UK who\u00a0proclaim themselves<\/span> to belong to one religion or\u00a0another. There are loads of churches, but as a city it\u2019s incredibly\u00a0unreligious, and has been for a long time. So I possibly have a different\u00a0perspective on it, having grown up there, than you might do in another part of\u00a0the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is there a noun for \u201cthrawn<\/span>\u201d?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t\u00a0know, I\u2019ve never really thought too much about… thrawnity<\/span>?<\/span><\/p>\n

Pardon me<\/span><\/em><\/span>, did you say thrawnitude<\/span><\/span>?\u00a0That makes it sound like a virtue.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It does.\u00a0Let\u2019s call it \u201cthrawnitude<\/span>\u201d!<\/span><\/p>\n

You know, possibly the difference\u00a0is between organised religion \u2013 which personally I don\u2019t feel is\u00a0generally a force for good \u2013 and disorganised religion which is much more\u00a0appealing, and which is where the characters like Rebus sit. It\u2019s not part of\u00a0an organised belief structure; it\u2019s an individual belief structure. I think\u00a0that might be what makes it more appealing.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have to trademark \u201cthrawnitude<\/span>\u201d; that\u2019s a good word.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whose books can you\u00a0still enjoy?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Definitely Allan Guthrie. I absolutely love his work. \u2013 Zoe Sharp, I like her stuff, even though I picked up one of her books, I think it was Second Shot, and within about 6 or 7 pages she\u2019s introduced this whiny American teenager and I thought, \u201cAch, Christ, I don\u2019t think I can face reading an entire book about this whingeing little git. Oh well, let\u2019s have a go.\u201d Within 2 chapters I actually cared whether that character lived or died, and I think \"Shatter<\/a>she does that incredibly well. \u2013 Val McDermid. Yeah, I like her.\u00a0Do your reading\u00a0preferences reflect a shared writing style?<\/span><\/p>\n

No. Allan is very much\u00a0steeped in Noir,<\/span> he is a proper Noir author. I write\u00a0Police Thrillers.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you define Noir?<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think in Noir your\u00a0protagonist is doomed from the start, and although there may be the hope of\u00a0redemption it is small and it\u2019s very rarely realised. It is a rollercoaster to\u00a0hell and everybody is getting fucked on the way, and not it a good way…\u00a0They\u2019re not making love on the rollercoaster.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If I were to write a\u00a0proper Noir novel with Logan I couldn\u2019t write a follow up to it, because he\u00a0would be dead or he would be irredeemably screwed. That\u2019s the ultimate Noir\u00a0ending \u2013 your point of view character cops it. I think Logan isn\u2019t a\u00a0doomed character, because he has always been an everyman. He\u2019s just meant to be\u00a0a normal guy, and the events that he gets drawn into are larger than life and\u00a0the stakes tend to escalate. That is basically the pattern for a thriller.<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s not James Bond at\u00a0the start of it, and he\u2019s not James Bond at the end of it. He is a policeman.\u00a0In between the books time always passes and things always occur but those\u00a0aren\u2019t the bits that we want to have a book about. Logan arresting 17 people\u00a0for car theft or not returning their library books isn\u2019t a novel \u2013 it\u2019s\u00a0just his day job. It\u2019s only when the extraordinary stuff happens that the\u00a0camera starts rolling.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Paul Johnston<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>
Paul Johnston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To what extent do genre\u00a0conventions constrict you?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

To me it\u2019s a battle with the procedure and reality of police investigation. Unless people are killing themselves in the desert and there\u2019s no social structure, there are things you can\u2019t just ignore. So in many ways these generic conventions are actually extra-generic; they\u2019re social. In the end it comes down to the same thing: how much you want to subvert these conventions or stay within them. I\u2019m obviously a member of the subversive faculty but I dare say most writers in this country are not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The PI tradition, simply because it is rooted in fact, gives you an\u00a0inherent opportunity to be anti-establishment and individualistic. I certainly\u00a0try to subvert as many conventions as I can. What you do run up against then is\u00a0the basic fact that there are only so many stories, plots and ways of telling\u00a0them. All you\u2019re ever doing really is providing a variation on a theme.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whose work do you read?\u00a0Can you say who has most influenced your writing?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Well, it started off with Conan Doyle. Although he\u2019s a Tory and all the\u00a0rest of it, he possibly unknowingly problematised the darker aspects of\u00a0Victorian and Edwardian society. Of course there were the opium dens but also\u00a0some issues about the way women were treated, and his writing is certainly\u00a0underrated in terms of its darkness and subversion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there were people like Hammett and Chandler. If you\u2019re even vaguely\u00a0interested in Noir you can\u2019t afford not to pay attention to them. Jim Thompson\u00a0was a great writer but his view of humanity is such that you\u2019d never want to\u00a0read more than one of his novels. I like a lot of contemporary Americans, like\u00a0James Ellroy and James Lee Burke with their curious blend of lyrical violence.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems like you might\u00a0have a shared concern that goes beyond similarities in style and<\/span><\/em>subject matter, wouldn\u2019t
\nyou agree?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That might well be the case. I don\u2019t have a particularly rosy view of\u00a0human nature. I broadly go along with the traditional Noir position on that,\u00a0which is that in a certain situation anyone would behave in an illegal way.But, again, it\u2019s important not to lose sight of the fact that crime fiction is\u00a0a recreation for the vast majority of readers. They want a good story with\u00a0interesting characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you give your\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span>readers both, are you allowing them to sound out their own experiences by going\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span>through alternative ways of dealing with violence and crime?<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I think that process does go on, whether consciously or not. There has\u00a0been a gradual change over the last 3 decades in terms of how readers view\u00a0authority figures like police men, judges, politicians and so on. There is a\u00a0lot less respect for them in a social sense than there used to be and that is\u00a0obviously reflected in fiction where people accept far greater flaws in their\u00a0characters as long as they\u2019re seen to be achieving a degree of justice.<\/span><\/p>\n

I tend to leave a lot hanging because I don\u2019t believe that certain\u00a0things are susceptible to solutions. A man whose wife is multiply raped and\u00a0murdered in real life is very unlikely ever to recover from that. In fiction\u00a0one tends not to find that very often at the end of a novel. That\u2019s where Noir\u00a0is much more convincing in its conclusions of broken lives that will continue\u00a0although there may not even be a temporary solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m broadly sympathetic with that position, which is why I have tried to\u00a0bring in significant issues rather than providing an easy ride that doesn\u2019t\u00a0push readers\u2019 ideas of the social and political structures they live in. I\u00a0think that after the collapse of one\u2019s old-fashioned values, the only way to\u00a0validate your own existence is by attempting to construct some kind of\u00a0accessory identity that is within the globalised world and at the same time\u00a0something personal. I think it\u2019s also true that the genre often offers false\u00a0solutions to that problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

How so?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>To some extent the big questions are being devalued by the fact that\u00a0they\u2019re asked so often. They\u2019re not shocking anymore, which is another reason\u00a0to describe violence and be hard-hitting about motivation in order to deal with\u00a0almost taboo subjects like child abuse or organised sex industries, which are\u00a0beyond most people\u2019s everyday lives. I think crime fiction can make people face\u00a0up to that but I do worry about the conservative nature of a lot of it by the\u00a0end of the story.<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems like that might\u00a0explain the post-democratic setting of your Edinburgh series.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s certainly true.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did you draw on the\u00a0tension between authoritarian and libertarian societies to highlight conflicts\u00a0between cultural attitudes to crime?<\/span><\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I did it because those ideas interest me, and because they\u2019re part of\u00a0the tension in such stories. A lot of people like to think that they are more\u00a0tolerant of those who bend the rules than they would probably be in real life.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does that affect the\u00a0way you write?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

You can write about bureaucrats but to make them interesting you have to\u00a0make them rule benders. That\u2019s actually rather absurd when you\u2019ve got a novel\u00a0which is about the reacquisition of justice by someone who behaves in many ways\u00a0that are not on the side of justice. You\u2019ve got two issues there: One is that
\nthe story has to make sense as a story within the confines of what the\u00a0characters are likely to do, and the other one is the issue of what people want\u00a0to read.<\/span><\/p>\n

It may be that people just accept that society is fucked and the world\u00a0is fucked but it\u2019s still possible to be heroic. I think a lot of people want to\u00a0find something gold underneath the layers of shit that are modern society.\u00a0That\u2019s also one of the things that worry me about crime fiction though: the\u00a0effect it can have on the reader… if it all works in a fantasy world then I\u00a0feel better about the real world. I mean, I love the genre and am fascinated by
\nit, but there\u2019s much more to life than that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it interesting,\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span>though, that your concern has an old tradition in Scotland?<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I see where you\u2019re heading with that, but one thing that you have to\u00a0bear in mind is that lots of Scottish crime fiction doesn\u2019t particularly\u00a0provide social analysis. A lot of it is traditional crime fiction seen through\u00a0Scottish lenses if you like, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. But I would\u00a0argue that there are more Scottish crime writers who are interested in social\u00a0issues than maybe in, well, I\u2019m not going to say Britain, because it would\u00a0sound anti-English, but you know what I mean.<\/span><\/p>\n

Louise Welsh<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Louise<\/a>
Louise Welsh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nHow about the cultural\u00a0context of Tamburlaine Must Die<\/strong>?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s probably the most researched book just necessarily because it was\u00a0about Marlowe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Were you aware of the\u00a0literary controversy that surrounds Marlowe and his death when you started out?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

No, no, not at all. I didn\u2019t study English literature and this is going\u00a0to sound really ridiculous. I wanted to write about Marlowe because I\u2019d shared\u00a0a flat with somebody who was doing theatre studies and they had been very\u00a0interested in Marlowe. We talked a lot about Marlowe and then I went to see\u00a0just about every version of Doctor\u00a0Faustus<\/em> that I could see in Glasgow… really, really loved it and that was\u00a0a part of my life and I\u2019d moved on, and when I came to think about writing\u00a0about Marlowe I didn\u2019t realise how interested lots of other people were.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know that, for instance, there was a Marlowe society, although\u00a0I did know that there were people who said that Marlowe had written all of\u00a0Shakespeare\u2019s plays, but I didn\u2019t realise they actually had the society and\u00a0were so serious about it. If I had, who knows, it might have put me off, it\u00a0might not have.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tamburlaine<\/a>Instead you wrote Tamburlaine Must Die<\/strong>, a novel that has\u00a0become a perfect example of how crime fiction can raise awareness of a cultural\u00a0phenomenon that few even know about and most would say is beyond the genre\u2019s\u00a0reach. Were you politically motivated at all?<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Aw, that\u2019s a nice thing to say. You know, I was conscious of being\u00a0political in that book. What is the point in writing something historical if it\u00a0doesn\u2019t somehow pertain to our times? At that point I was interested in\u00a0Dungavel prison, an asylum seekers prison. There were children being locked up\u00a0and all sorts of awful things going on. That was very much part of my\u00a0consciousness when I was writing Tamburlaine\u00a0Must Die<\/em> \u2013 that and the Elizabethan period and its hatred, fear,\u00a0distrust \u2013 whatever you want to call it \u2013 of outsiders, of\u00a0immigrants… that was the idea but it\u2019s very much embedded; it\u2019s not at the\u00a0front of the book but nevertheless that concern that I had and still have I\u00a0think is there somehow.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I was very worried about writing a false history, as well, because I\u00a0studied history at university and I was a really bad student. I think this is\u00a0where the little essay at the end… because I thought, \u201cNo, if I put a\u00a0bibliography in it suggests that this is a learned book.\u201d So I said, \u201cI got a\u00a0lot of information from this book and this book.\u201d I mentioned two or three\u00a0books that had been good sources for me but I didn\u2019t put in a bibliography\u00a0because I thought it would be showing off. Any interested reader, all we have\u00a0to give them is three books; they\u2019ll find their own bibliography.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps if I\u2019d realised how brilliant he is I possibly wouldn\u2019t have\u00a0written this book in his voice. I think I found out a lot as I was doing it and\u00a0I still have a huge affection for Marlowe.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that your\u00a0modest approach of enthusiastic discovery makes your subject matter a lot more\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span>accessible. Seeing as you engage readers with this time and place you also give\u00a0it greater relevance than the abstract value previously arrogated to Marlowe\u2019s\u00a0legacy. On a separate note, the underdog Marlowe seems like an authentic voice\u00a0for a Scot writing about English literature. As someone who has made it into\u00a0the public square and the university campus, how do you feel about your shared\u00a0role of the literary underdog?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In a way I quite like it actually. Obviously I want to sell books and\u00a0I\u2019ve been really lucky. But if there\u2019s an outsider in literature I\u2019d rather be\u00a0with that outsider, I\u2019d rather be with the person in the street, and I think\u00a0maybe that\u2019s why there\u2019s a little snobbishness about crime fiction because it\u00a0is the books that, as you say, everybody hopefully feels empowered to pick up.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re not well written; it doesn\u2019t mean that they don\u2019t\u00a0have intelligent points. But everybody seems empowered to lift them off the\u00a0shelf, and that\u2019s where I want to be; I\u2019m much more comfortable there. I wouldn\u2019t\u00a0want to put myself in opposition to literary fiction, but I don\u2019t want to write\u00a0books where nothing happens.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

What kind of books do\u00a0you want to write?<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I want to make people feel something. Yeah, I want to give my reader an\u00a0experience. But I don\u2019t have a writing manifesto. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s a right\u00a0way to do it and that I\u2019ve found the right way.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

That experience you want\u00a0to give your reader, is that partly an experience of where the author is from,\u00a0the home you have known in your life outside the books?<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I think a strong sense of place is really, really important in my\u00a0fiction. I think it\u2019s important for me as the writer to get there, to\u00a0experience it and to feel it, and hopefully it enhances the reader\u2019s experience\u00a0as well. And I live in Scotland and it\u2019s the country that I know best. I do\u00a0still think that I\u2019ll set things elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tamburlaine Must Die<\/span><\/em> is set in London. In The Bullet\u00a0Trick<\/em>, as we said, he goes to Berlin. The next book that I\u2019m thinking of\u00a0writing I\u2019m not sure it\u2019ll be set in Scotland; I might just turn my back on it\u00a0for a book.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you think you could\u00a0turn your back on more than just the place?
\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I think as Scots we\u2019ve always travelled widely. Maybe a Scotsman abroad\u00a0is more identifiable than a Scottish person at home… So I\u2019m not sure about\u00a0that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the number and\u00a0variety of Scottish crime writers, are you comfortable in their company?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Oh yeah. I\u2019m really\u00a0happy with that both in person and on the shelf. I think people are actually\u00a0pretty nice to each other. Within Scotland and that crime community \u2013 if\u00a0you can call it that \u2013 it\u2019s not like you see people terribly often but\u00a0when you do it\u2019s really nice. I get a real feeling that people want to pull\u00a0somebody else up with them. If they can help someone out, especially a new\u00a0person, then they will. That\u2019s certainly been my experience; people have always\u00a0been very welcoming, very nice \u2013 and fun. I don\u2019t know if other genres\u00a0are like that but I\u2019m very happy to be included in all of that.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Len Wanner interviews Scottish Crime Writers Len Wanner,\u00a0Dead Sharp: Scottish Crime Writers on\u00a0Country and Craft\u00a0(Two Ravens Press, 2011) Review and<\/p>\n

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