A portrait of popular crime fiction writer John Dean by publisher, Erik Empson After an elbow bump with John outside, I am welcomed into his house by his wife, Frances, and their daughter, Laura, who is back during university reading week, and immediately made to feel at home. Their eldest child, Michael, does not get […]

A portrait of bestselling Scottish mystery writer, Pete Brassett by publisher, Erik Empson Following the seismic shifts in the publishing industry over the last decade, one tendency has been for the onus of responsibility for promotion to shift from publishers onto authors themselves. With academic books this has led to such absurdities as “proper” publishers […]

A portrait of Scottish writer and poet James Andrew By publisher, Erik Empson I meet James in a cosy eatery in Nairn, and not surprisingly we quickly get talking about books. If you read, he says, and James has certainly read widely, you are never bored. There is always another world to discover. I want […]

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 […]