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There is a new game afoot among crime fiction afficionados. Especially those who believe there’s nothing to match the rapidly expanding sector known as tartan noir. It is called Spot the Join. Or Find the Seam. Even Detect the Author. Or any of the many possible similar phrases. My own variation on this theme is Where’s the Rankin? Any number can play and the rules are simple: obtain a copy of The Dark Remains (Canongate Books, paperback, 2022) and decide where today’s supreme master of Scottish crime fiction, Ian Rankin, takes over from  William McIlvanney, the maestro who inspired Rankin… Continue reading

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I HAVE been renewing acquaintance with an old friend. As always, it was a rewarding and compelling page-turning experience. It was also thought provoking, making me wonder yet again why so few Australian crime writers make it on to the international stage. Rather than becoming household names they are too often relegated to being the hard-working lasses and lads in the backrooms. They are crime fiction’s equivalent of the supporting cast in Upstairs, Downstairs or Downton Abbey. Relegated to  the back rooms; the maids, cooks, grooms, servants, pot-washers, bed-makers and skivvies toiling away, unseen and disregarded by their alleged betters. Continue reading