The Crime Of It All

Added on 02 November 2010

A few months ago a fellow wrote to me saying that he was doing a PhD at Edinburgh University on crime fiction, particularly Scottish crime fiction. Could he ask me a few questions?

While the thought of Barney Thomson being included in a PhD on anything seems a bit odd, you know there's weirder shit than that in life, so I said of course, and he sent me some questions and I answered them. Good questions too.

Now the fellow has posted the answers and presented them as an interview on a new crime fiction website The Crime Of It All. It would have been nice if he had either a) mentioned that this was his intention or b) asked if it was all right for him to do so. I might have written a couple of answers differently had I known it was for general broadcast, but on the basis that no one will actually read it anyway*, it would seem unnecessarily churlish - however appropriate - to ask him to remove it.

So, should anyone want to prove the statement at * wrong and read the interview anyway - where celebrity crime author Douglas Lindsay discusses at tedious length the stories behind each of the Barney Thomson novels - you can find it here.