A portrait of Edinburgh crime fiction writer Robert McNeill by publisher, Erik Empson In an unlikely alliance with my parents, who didn’t have a natural affinity with the mores of the grammar school I went to, my teachers instilled in me a deep-seated fear that should I not knuckle down and do as told, my […]

A literary portrait of Belfast based crime author Robert McCracken by Erik Empson Robert McCracken is the last author I meet in the Irish leg of our literary tour. I left Carrickfergus and spent the night in a small coastal town on Red Bay, before the next day climbing Trostan, a modest peak at 550m […]

A misty portrait of crime writer Linda Hagan by publisher, Erik Empson From the outskirts of Dublin I head north, intending to go to Belfast, but something I can’t explain stops me from crossing the threshold that was and wasn’t, is and isn’t, will be and won’t be, a border, and instead I U-turn and […]

A portrait of Irish writer Anne Crosse by publisher, Erik Empson One might, on arriving in Ireland for the first time, disembarking the ferry as I did in Rosslare, think that one had got on the wrong boat and landed in Holland or such like, given the orderliness of the place – trimmed verges, perfectly […]

A portrait of novelist Pippa McCathie by publisher, Erik Empson Pippa McCathie is the tender age of twenty-three. One might not believe it by looking at this author, with her wide eyes, sun-weathered face, and shock of white hair, whom at first glance one might place at late sixties or early seventies at most. But […]