A bitter wind howls in from the east blowing the rain horizontal. I could easily be on the Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights, and this would be a fitting backdrop for an interview with gothic novelist, Sandra Ireland. We meet in Carnoustie’s Costa Coffee to chat about her most recent novel The Unmaking of Ellie Read More
Critically acclaimed as ‘the queen of Scottish folklore-inspired domestic noir’, Sandra Ireland’s oeuvre boasts three successful thrillers that all open with haunting epitaphs and disturbing prologues. However, Ireland’s new novel, Sight Unseen, is lighter. Narrated in alternating chapters, Sarah Sutherland in first person and her elderly father, John, in third person, we are immersed in Read More
(This is a lightly edited transcript of the interview; to view the whole interview, please click image above) Edward Small: Hello. I’m Eddie Small. I lecture in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee and we’re here today to do an interview with one of our past students on behalf of DURA, Dundee University Review of Read More
Deadlier than the Male, the tabloids said. They didn’t know the half of it. When reviewing Russel McLean’s previous novel Cry Uncle, I used the following sentence, “The gritty and honest narration has a truly Scottish attitude.” This is also true, perhaps even more so, of his newest book Ed’s Dead. McLean has already established Read More
The DCA doesn’t seem like the right place to meet Russel D. McLean. It doesn’t seem fitting for the author of the five McNee Private Investigator novels, all set in the grimmer parts of Dundee, to be meeting up with me in this most contemporary and modern of venues. As he arrives a little flustered, Read More
