Some years ago, I was asked to give the keynote lecture at Crime Scotland – Then and Now, at the University of Gottingen in Germany. The conference brought together an international crowd of readers, critics and people to explore the relationship between Scotland and crime fiction.
As a Scottish crime writer, and co-founder of Bloody Scotland, Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival, I welcomed the opportunity to examine Scottish crime writing, its origins, its variety, its popularity and its future.
Bloody Scotland is now in its tenth year. A firm favourite in Stirling, it is also truly international, attended by Scottish, British, and international crime-writers and their fans, both physically and digitally. Tartan Noir is indeed a universally recognisable brand.
The inaugural Bloody Scotland took place in 2012 on the 125th anniversary of the publication of the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, one of Edinburgh's most famous crime writers.
READ MORE: Bloody Scotland festival: Stephen King and Ian rankin headline crime fest
It was also the 35th anniversary of William McIlvanney's groundbreaking crime novel Laidlaw, and 25 years since we first met Rankin's Rebus in Knots and Crosses.
To complete the modern triumvirate that blazed the way for Tartan Noir and those of us who followed, we must add the name of Val McDermid whose first crime novel was also published 25 years before.
An auspicious year indeed.
At the Gottingen conference I was surprised to discover that none of the papers on Scottish crime writing featured William McIlvanney, when in Scotland, McIlvanney is regarded as the father of the modern Scottish crime novel.
Ian Rankin frequently pays tribute to Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw as his inspiration for the character of Rebus.
Along with McIlvanney's Laidlaw, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is often cited as influential among Scottish crime writers.
In it Stevenson examines the heart of the human condition, namely that each human being has the potential to do good and the potential to do evil, which is what the crime novel is essentially about.
In fact, Ian Rankin says Knots and Crosses was to his mind a contemporary retelling of Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, with Rebus set up as a possible murderer, but nobody realised that, much to Ian's chagrin. He openly admits going into bookshops and switching Knots and Crosses from the crime section to the section on Scottish literary fiction next to McIlvanney.
When Laidlaw was published, McIlvanney, a winner of a string of literary awards, was surprised by the reactions of some of his former admirers. He tells a tale of meeting his former English teacher in a pub. When the teacher told him off for producing something ‘as worthless as a detective story,’ McIllvanney was swift with his rebuttal.
According to Willie, the old assumed distinction between detective stories and literature merely served as a way for people, whose reading habits had petrified, to protect themselves from having to think afresh.
Well said, Willie.
The inspiration that was Willie is at the heart of the Bloody Scotland festival. Hence the Scottish crime book of the year award is named The McIllvanney Prize.
So many Scottish crime writers, influenced by Stevenson and Hogg, and forged on McIlvanney strive to understand and portray the duality of human nature, the darkness and the light in all of us.
What about the villain?
I was asked a series of questions recently by the Open University, which is looking at the way in which readers react to crime novels and empathise with the characters involved. One question was, how do you create a baddie, and how do they emerge in your imagination?
McIllvanny’s Laidlaw asks at one point, ‘Who is the true monster among us?’ realising that if there is such a thing as a monster, then we are all monsters, fashioned from, and by, the place we come from, the society we have created, and our own personal situations.
Who knows what each of us are capable of, if put in the most difficult of environments?
Psychology tells us that reading alters the way our brain works. As we become fully immersed in a story we can become more empathetic, less judgemental, more questioning.
Transported into a story, we become immersed in the fictional world of a book, and identify with the characters of that world. We feel we know them personally. They are real to us. We understand their motivations, their desires, their fears. Some of which we recognise as our own. We experience the good and the bad aspects of their world, their wishes, their disappointments, their moral dilemmas, their mistakes.
We walk hand in hand through the story with the protagonist, or on occasion with the perpetrator. We live in their skin for a while. Experience their thoughts and feelings. Perhaps we experience being brave, foolish, afraid or insightful.
Perhaps we even manage to solve a crime.
Scottish crime writing is internationally recognised. It’s also in a healthy state with new and up and coming writers appearing all the time, as can be seen through the success of Bloody Scotland’s McIllvanney and Debut prizes, its Spotlighters, and its Pitch Perfect competition.
We are looking forward to entertaining and informing our readers both physically in Stirling and internationally on line again soon.
Bloody Scotland International Crime Festival will take place in Stirling and online 17-19 September. For tickets and further information go to www.bloodyscotland.com
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