Ramblings of a Frustrated Crime Writer: About Me

Ramblings of a Frustrated Crime Writer: About Me: "I began contributing to magazines when I was 15-years-old and had my first piece in Jackie magazine - a piece on superstitions. From then ..."

Why Vile City?

My novel is set in Glasgow and begins with a young woman getting off a bus with her boyfriend. They take a short cut down an alley (not a wise thing to do anywhere) and are attacked by an assailant unknown. The boyfriend thinks he's been stabbed, but he's been knocked out cold by a sedative and his girlfriend is abducted. Vile City follows DI Duncan Waddell, who wishes he'd become a history teacher, as he tries to track down three women who have been taken by the beast the press have dubbed 'The Glasgow Grabber.'

The title comes from the fact that DI Waddell is becoming disillusioned by the fair city he once loved thanks to the nasty underbelly he uncovers in the course of his work.

As well as this novel, I am also working on a book of 23,000 words aimed at one imprint in particular, about Kirsty, a one legged barmaid who goes on the run after killing a gangster's goon who got a bit too touchy feely by putting her stiletto through his pug ugly head. You had to have been there to know her violence was justified.

Weird and wonderful research

Throughout the time I have been writing Vile City, I have found myself having to look up some pretty weird stuff in the Internet.  Things like what car would have the least leg room for a 6ft 2 gangly detective, so he would have to unravel himself getting out and curl up getting in?  Can you buy sperm on the Internet - the madwoman in the novella I am writing How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks tries to impregnant my hero with it - and if so how easy is it to inseminate someone.  And, my personal favorite - is it possible to use thumb screws on a man's ganglty bits?  Well, the psycho in my novella has a unique line in torture techniques.