I’ve been talking about it on Bluesky and Instagram (but no longer X/Twitter because, while my account is still there, it is now essentially inactive thanks to the fact the site has become… well… everything it has become lately…) But just in case you need to know:
There’s a new book coming soon! On the 13 March!
The Friday Girl is my first book since 2017. I’ve wanted to write a version of it for a long time, knowing that I wanted to write a period piece set in the late 70s in Dundee and looking at police corruption, changes in society, and all kinds of darkly fun stuff that also references very true crimes that took place during that period. It was only in 2019, though, that I finally realised what the book was about — a young woman entering a world where she wasn’t expected to be. A young woman proving to be a brilliant homicide detective in a world where mediocre and corrupt men were the order of the day.
Not that Dundee was like that, necessarily (I have extrapolated based on attitudes at the time and of course fiction is not intended to be documenatray etc), but it created the conflict I needed to really get the book moving as young WPC, Elizabeth Burnet finds herself the only person who believes a serial killer is on the loose in Dundee’s Templeton Woods.
Anyone from Dundee will know why the Templeton Woods are important. In early 1979, the body of Carol Lannen was found there. Her murderer was never caught. Just over a year later, Elizabeth McCabe was found in the same area. Her murderer was never caught, and was very likely the same man. While there have been arrests (and even, a few years back, a trial), no one has ever actually been sentenced for the murders, and there are a number of reasons that the case never came to a proper conclusion.
But while those murders informed the background to what I wanted to write about, they were never the focus of the book. I didn’t want to write a book in which that killer was caught, or where I identified a conspiracy to kill these women. In part this was about respect to the victims. I didn’t want to deny the emotional reality of these real life crimes for so many people. But I did want the events to inform what I was writing about. And I realised that there were other cases, too, that really affected the city around this time period.
A few years earlier, former soldier, Robert Mone had taken a class of schoolgirl hostages. He killed one of their teachers. He was taken to a hospital and locked away due to his mental state. As far as I am aware he is still alive but will never be released (although there has been controversy over his sentencing through the decades). This event shocked the city and would go on to have even more unsettling consequences when his father was also arrested for murder several years later. In the book, THE LAW KILLERS (By Alexander McGregor), I read about how the police who entered the classroom following the release of the hostages had found Mone sitting there, laughing. Again, I didn’t want the event to form the plot of the book, but I knew that it was likely one of my older characters might have been among the officers who witnessed this and used it to inform his character.
The true crime aspects of the book form a background, but the main plot — with the “werewolf killer” stalking the woods in 1978 — is pure fiction. There are subplots about corruption — again, fictional that are intended to explore the topics of police overreach and what it means to give men such power who perhaps may not be best suited for it.
It’s a dark novel, I think — maybe the darkest I’ve written. It weaves the fiction through certain real events, which was a first for me as a writer and resulted in my finding elements that really added a little depth, and sometimes even fun to the book. I loved finding out that an oversold screening of JAWS at one of Dundee’s many cinemas accidentally led to a riot where the police had to called out! And of course I get to have a bit of fun with that Scotland were in the world cup during ’78, and expected to win (they — spoiler alert — most definitely did not, despite some early promise)
You promised us events?
Yes, yes I did.
The events will start just before official publication day, with a launch in Glasgow Sauchiehall Street (since I live on the west coast these days) on 11 March at 7 p.m. Tickets are available instore and online, and more details are here:
Then, I’ll be off on a drop in tour of Glasgow bookstores on the 13th so you may find some signed copies around the city…
On the 27 March at 6 p.m. , I’ll be back in my old stomping ground of Dundee at the Waterstones on Commercial Street (where I also used to work as a bookseller about a decade ago…) appearing with James Oswald, whose new book — THE REST IS DEATH — will be launched that day. I’ve known James since before his first book came out and he is, genuinely, one of the loveliest people (albeit with one of the darkest imaginations!). I’ve had a chance to read the new book, by the way, and it is PHENOMENAL. This event is free but ticketted, so get onto the website and in store to let ’em know you’re coming!
On the 8th April, I will be in Kirkcaldy in my old homeland of Fife for another ticketed evening at 7 p.m. Once more go book your place, folks, and come on out to say hello! I love being back in Fife. It is, after all, where I grew up!
There are more events coming, too, including some festivals later in the year, and I’ll update you on those later — but in the meantime, please do come along and say hello at these events and help me celebrate my new book… and here’s hoping the gap between this and the next isn’t as long as it was between ED’S DEAD and now…
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