Laidlaw’s Father on the Record

Seventy-six-year-old Irish crime novelist William McIvanney, the so-called Godfather of Tartan Noir, was recently interviewed for The Rap Sheet by Australian-born Scottish author Tony Black. The results of their discussion can be found today in our sister blog.

Here’s how Black sets up the piece:

A good friend of mine recently described McIlvanney as “like meeting a statue that’s come to life,” and that does kind of sum up the reverence with which he’s treated in his home country. But crime writers didn’t always attract such rapturous plaudits.

When McIlvanney wrote Laidlaw, back in the late 1970s, Scotland was not well-known for its crime fiction -- something he was to change singlehandedly. McIlvanney’s curmudgeonly cop, Glasgow Detective Inspector Jack Laidlaw, provided the imprimatur for the Scottish best-sellers lists, and our longest-running television drama, Taggart, is a very heavy homage to the work.

You’ll find the complete post here.