Kirkcudbright Crime Writing

By crime novelist David L Haigh, (pictured here)

It was an honour to be asked to participate in the first ever Dalbeattie Book Festival, which has just finished.

My wife, Barbara and I gave a joint presentation. It involved her art work and book of illustrated short stories, plus my memoir and crime fiction novels. The attendees were receptive to learn of the journeys we have travelled in our creative endeavours. Our healthy sales were a welcome bonus.

We also benefited from attending other authors’ presentations, including Glasgow-based Gordon Smart, a fellow crime writer, pictured here, and Geoffrey Lindop, from Lockerbie, writer of science fiction and non-fiction including Galloway’s dark skies observatories. Hearing about these authors’ highs and lows struck a cord and was, if ever I needed it, a boost to keep writing and striving for the elusive perfectio

Gordon (pictured at the top of this article), said: “Last Friday, 14 August, I was delighted to be able to give a talk about my crime books at the Dalbeattie Book Festival. I am very grateful to Rupinder Dulay for this opportunity as it allowed me to share my writing with a wider public. The venue was in an attractive room in the King’s Arms in Dalbeattie at 6.30 pm. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of numbers of an audience but was pleasantly surprised.

“Rupinder introduced me and I explained a bit about my background. Books and reading have always been very important to me so I was thrilled to be able to support the first-ever Dalbeattie Book Festival. I was an English teacher before becoming an adviser in education and feel passionately that reading, especially reading books for pleasure, should be encouraged. It’s particularly important to encourage this in children who are growing up in a digital age.

“I spoke about how other writers had influenced and inspired me. Writers such as Jo Nesbo and Mick Herron and, closer to home, William McIlvanney , Ian Rankin, Chris Brookmyre and Denise Mina. Robert Harris’s novel Fatherland gave me the idea of setting a story in an alternate history period so I chose to set my DI Khan trilogy in an Independent Scotland.

“I said that I was able to have more time for my writing from when I retired from my work in education, about ten years ago. Since then, I have written four crime novels, three in a series set in Glasgow and the fourth one set in Orkney.

I spoke briefly about each of the books, giving an outline of the ‘mysterious’ death at the start of each one, describing some of the main characters, settings and themes and reading short extracts. Then there were quite a few interesting questions from the audience. It was a pleasure to meet people from the local area who share the same love of books as myself and I would be happy to support the festival in the future.“