IT WAS a weekend to die for. Fans with murder on their minds flocked like literature-hungry vultures to Stirling for the inaugural “Bloody Scotland”.
It’s a brand-new, three-day festival to celebrate the Scottish crime-writing scene. And what a lot to celebrate. The guest list read like a Who’s Who of crime-writing royalty, featuring names such as Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre and William McIlvanney.
Scotland can proudly boast of having the best writers in the world for this dark and gritty genre. It was American crime writer James Ellroy who coined the term “Tartan Noir” in the late 1990s to sum up Rankin’s success.
Denise Mina, author of the Garnethill Trilogy, said recently: “More people are doing it now than ever before. If you throw a brick on Sauchiehall Street, you’ll hit someone writing a crime novel.
“Someone publishes a book, it makes a lot of money, and other people think, ‘I could do that’, which is brilliant. It is much easier to get published now. Publishers are aware there is a big movement and are looking for the next new Scottish crime writer.”
There must be something unique to Scotland, and the people, that delivers up the perfect ingredients to produce such a wealth of talent in this genre. Is it the weather or our dark sense of humour?
On a misty winter’s night, walking the dark, cobbled streets of Edinburgh, it’s not difficult to imagine why writers’ thoughts turn to gruesome crimes.
Our literary heritage is another possible theory as to why Scots excel at crime writing. Look at Robert Louis Stevenson’s fascination with gothic Edinburgh, illustrated in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. And we also have a love of the gory old Scots stories, like the infamous twosome Burke and Hare, the serial killers and body snatchers.
I love crime fiction. I can’t get enough of the stuff. And neither can Scotland’s library-goers, it seems. It’s the most popular genre of books that people borrow from these wonderful institutions.
Last year, there were nearly 30 million visits to our country’s public libraries, and millions more to libraries of other types, in universities, schools and colleges. It seems the Scots are bucking the trend of declining visits being reported elsewhere in the UK. In fact, in Scotland, more readers are using these fantastic facilities than ever before.
They are undoubtedly the most precious public service. Stephen King describes books as “uniquely portable magic”. And that’s so true, isn’t it? The idea of a world without literature is unthinkable.
I have been a bookworm since I was a little girl. In fact, my sisters and I once even started a book club – we were way ahead of our time. Unfortunately, I was thrown out it for always reading a book during the meetings. Yes, I think we can all see the irony now.
It’s wonderful now to see my own children devouring books. My eldest, especially, has inherited my love of reading and is often happiest snuggled up on her bed immersed in the latest Jacqueline Wilson.
“Books are wonderful things,” she tells me, “they take me to a whole different world.”
It’s been a joy to introduce them to the delights of the Harry Potter books and the wonder of the Narnia series by CS Lewis, my all-time favourite children’s books.
JK Rowling gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television.
The last four in the Harry Potter series consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The spellbinding stories of wizards and the evil Voldemort have been translated into 65 languages.
And what a debt of gratitude we owe to the late, great Roald Dahl, described as one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century. Books like James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda are all classics that have stood the test of time.
He once said: “A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never by sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.”
Thank goodness for all of us that his well of inspiration never did run dry.