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Review from 5D writer, Maria Robertson of the final Granite Noir event; A Sense of Place – Lemon Tree, Aberdeen on Sunday 27th February 2022
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The last day of the Granite Noir crime festival included this author panel discussion based on locations. Sally Magnusson was the chair, asking questions of Marion Todd (St Andrews based crime novels), Alan Parks (Glasgow) and Stuart MacBride (Aberdeen and Oldcastle).
There was a nice wee convention at the start that Granite Noir give local authors a chance to “hog the spotlight” and share with us a reading from their book. We were treated to Roy Burnett reading from Eye For An Eye.
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All the questions were about how the place their novels are set in affect the stories and characters and it was a really interesting angle to take and got some great answers. As we all know the 3 places are very different, added to which is Stuart’s imaginary Oldcastle for a totally different angle. The writers all had very different views, and ways of working, which lead to some fascinating discussions. We learnt never to ask some certain organisations to base your murder mystery there, and that a certain…”underwear company” is thrilled to be mentioned anywhere! Stuart’s reminiscing about being a pantomime dame turned a few stomachs in the room.
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Marion Todd only started publishing her crime novels about DI Clare Mackay in 2020, but the 6th in the series is already due out this year. She makes up venues, such as a country house, for the murders as she is scared of getting sued! Alan Parks starts with the characters and then works out where in Glasgow they are from and tends to make up imaginary pubs for the action so as not to offend anyone living or passed on, although his books are set back in the 70s anyway. To him the key aspect is the dialogue, which is Glasgow includes a lot of swearing! Sometimes he and the publishers disagree about such things as how to spell “for fuck’s sake”. Stuart MacBridge wrote his Logan MacRae books in and around Aberdeen but now writes about the imaginary Oldcastle as then he can’t get complaints when he puts a paedophile in their street. He does have a detailed map of this imaginary place and if the theatre is down the bottom of a certain street in one book then it will be there next time it is mentioned.
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It was a wonderful session, and two lucky audience members were able to ask questions at the end. My only complaint was that it just wasn’t long enough! I could have listened to them all discuss methodology of writing and their very interesting life stories much longer! Alan was in the music industry, Marion was a piano teacher and made candles and Stuart – well, he has a croft with horses. He also has cats, which were not mentioned at this event but used to quite often get tweeted about before he left Twitter to concentrate on real life, unfortunately for those of us who enjoyed his take on life!
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At the end of the discussion all 5 authors were around to sign their books and Waterstones were on hand with stocks of each to sell. It was a well thought out event with a wonderful panel, a truly unique experience.
Further information: HOME | Marion Todd WriterSTUART MACBRIDE – The No.1 Sunday Times bestselling authorAlan Parks
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Maria Robertson is the newly anointed Chief Music & Theatre Writer for the 5D Pop Culture Website and provides reviews & coverage of local Aberdeen music & theatre gigs. She’s an experienced writer for numerous sources and is a self-confessed live gig addict ever since seeing The Counting Crows at the Barrowlands in 1994.
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