C.J.Cooke is a Creative Writing tutor at the University of Glasgow. We’re back to that debate about whether you can teach creative writing? No matter. I read the debut novel of a Creative Writing tutor from the same university a few years back. It was, as you’d expect, proficient but dead on the page. I doubted if she didn’t have a doctorate and credit in the bank of an esteemed University behind her, she wouldn’t have been picked out of the...

FEEL ITS WARMTH WHITE CLOUDS DRIFT IN, CARRIED BY A GENTLE BREEZES FORMING A SOFT CANOPY OVERHEAD. THEY OFFER A WELCOMING. BREAK FROM THE SUN’S GOLDEN RAYS. A NATURAL SHADE FROM ITS WARMING TOUCH. HERE ON THE SANDY BEACH, LAUGHTER FILLS THE AIR AS FAMILIES RELAX, SPREADING SUN LOTION AND SINKING INTO SOFT GRAINS BENEATH THEM. THE CLOUDS, LIKE AN UMBRELLA, ADD TO THE MAGIC OF A SUMMER EVENING, WHILE A WHISPERING BREEZE DANCE AROUND, CARRYING THE...

SCORPIO Antares burns, a crimson eye in The heavens, her heart of the Scorpion, fierce and eternal. Her fire pulses through the Milky Way: casting a silent call To those who dare LOOK BEYOND. BENEATH ITS GLOW THE BLUE MARBLE EARTH SPINS, SMALL AND FLEETING. VASTNESS OF THOSE FALLING STARS, THEIR LIGHT SWALLOWED UP BY DISTANCE AND INTO LIVING STARS LIGHT YEARS AWAY. BEYOND THE REACH OF HUMAN YEARS, PAST NEBULAS BIRTHING WORLDS UNKNOWN. A PLACE...

BEHIND THE EYES RESTLESS THOUGHTS LIKE A CHILD’S SPINNING TOP. CAUGHT BETWEEN SEED THOUGHTS AND REALITY. THEY SURFACE UNDIDDEN; WITH PAST AND FUTURE EVENTS. AS THEY’RE DEMANDING TO BE ADMONISHED. IDEAS FOR SALE ON FIRST IMPULSE, YET IDLE: THEY DRAIN ENERGY MEANT FOR FOCUS. WHILE STEALING BRAINPOWER, WITH HOLLOW WORDS: RESTLESS A NEED TO BE AFRIMED. THEY SURGE LIKE A DRUG IN THE BLOODSTREAM, AN ELECTRIC GYPSY DANCING FROM EAST, TO THE WEST, NORTH...

Satu Rämö has written a trilogy of books featuring Icelandic police detective Hildur Runarsdottir. Hildur did her police training in Reykjavik, the world’s most Northern capital, population around 200 000, but much prefers the quieter life in her hometown Isafjurour, where she’s a child protection officer but expected to chip in and do everything from traffic control to getting involved in domestics. Hildur is well up for it. She’s described as...

Award-winning Scottish author, Denise Mina, gets to play gumshoe in a Philip Marlowe Mystery. She’s a hired hand, in the same way that Marlowe’s a hired hound. Marlowe’s a man’s man that likes to drink and have a dame on his arm. He takes all kinds of cases but he’s got a code and a line that won’t be crossed. He’ll do the right thing and money be damned. A heatwave in LA makes everybody cranky. But that’s not what’s bothering Marlowe. Something...

Callum McSorley’s Squeaky Clean won the McIlvanney Prize and had the kind of reception any debut novelist would sell his granny for and would fling in his grandad as a freebie. Job done. You’re number 1. But here’s the rub, you need to write something else, pronto. People walk into doors. Open the fridge and put their shoes inside instead of the milk (I’m making that bit up. Never done that—yet). Why not write the same book and call it something...

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Blood Roses is the first in a quartet of books which feature Jan Kalisz. He’s a detective investigating a serial killer. So far so mundane. You know the type. Psychopathic killers. They have their own reason for killing, which relies on a tautology. Their reason for killing is because they’re psychopathic killers. What makes it different isn’t Douglas Jackson’s undoubted talent, but the timeline. It’s 1939 and the Germans have just invaded...

Start with the bad news. Flipper is dead. He drowned himself (or herself) in a small pool of water. He couldn’t take the isolation. Humans aren’t good at isolating either. We call it loneliness. You remember Flipper ? Saturday morning telly. It was a bit like Poirot but without the moustache or French accent. Flipper whistled to say ‘there’s the body over there.’ Or he’d rescue somebody. That seems improbable. But Kevin was relatively lucky. He...