Why Fairlie was the perfect inspiration for a crime novel

The Herald Scotland

a day ago

'We were living in Fairlie for six months in 2018,' says the New Zealand-based crime writer, of the day inspiration blew in off the Firth of Clyde. 'It's an idyllic setting, it feels like a very safe place, enclosed by hills, a beach sheltered by Cumbrae, one street. A little enclosed space, insulated from the cares of the world.
'So naturally the first thing a crime writer thinks is 'what if something went catastrophically wrong in an idyllic place like this?' It was an idea that knocked on the door and demanded to be written.'
McIlvanney had made good pace on the third installment of his DI Duncan McCormack series, following the travails of the gay, shinty-playing cop from Ballachulish, familiar to readers of his 2018's The Quaker and 2022's The Heretic.
Yet when the idea for a story about the worst thing that can happen to a young family began to form during his time on the Clyde riviera, McCormack went back into a drawer.
'A lot of times as a writer it's not the book you're writing, but the book you're writing next that is the book that really excites you,' says McIlvanney, speaking to The Herald from his home in New Zealand, days before flying home for a book tour.
'The logical thing to do is the next Duncan McCormack novel, but sometimes something else comes along that feels more urgent, and if something wants to be written then you should probably listen. It's nice to have an idea that you're enthusiastic about. You have a better chance of the reader being enthusiastic about what you're writing about.'
What lay at the other side of the door was The Good Father, a story about a couple whose seven year old son vanishes into thin Ayrshire air while walking his dog on Fairlie beach.
As well as a prize winning novelist, Professor of Scottish Studies at the University of Otago, and married father of four, Kilmarnock's McIlvanney is, of course, the son of legendary Scottish crime writer William, who died in 2015. It's perhaps too easy a reach to suggest that the book's title is laden with enough resonance to echo into the submarine trenches off Fairlie's coast.
(Image: Liam McIlvanney) The plot swings through on the actions of numerous fathers. You wouldn't need to be a family friend to suppose parallels with at least two of them: the central protagonist's dad (famous, broken marriage, buried from Glasgow University chapel) and the protagonist himself (Ayrshire-raised university academic, family man). It all seems so familiar that I absent-mindedly call McIlvanney 'you' when recalling a passage about the central character's late night encounter at the end of a pier.
'Incidents in your life creep in in different forms,' he says. 'There's not a 1-1 correspondence between your life and the things you write in a novel. There are elements of my old man in that character, but also elements of literary characters, those overlearning characters in Scottish literature like John Guthrie is Sunset Song and John Gourlay in House with the Green Shutters.
'You have that and you have elements that you make up in relation to characters. And there's always an element of me in those characters. They're an amalgam of different components.
'I used to find it difficult to read my old man's novels as straightforward novels. I would decode things about them - this character is a certain person in real life. And they are, but they aren't. They're fictional characters, alchemised, transmogrified into something different even if you can trace a line to a person in real life. It's inevitable in fiction, you can have a bit of fun with them.'
A decade on from his dad's death, McIlvanney - who will run a 22 date book tour - is candid in his recollections of their relationship. Godfather of Tartan Noir he might have been, but McIlvanney Snr was never presented with Jnr's manuscripts.
He says: 'It might have been quite short-sighted in some ways. I don't know. I'm not sure why I didn't avail myself of his expertise. I think I just wanted to see if I could make a go of it without doing that.
'We spoke about things like football and politics, we didn't spend a lot of time talking about writing. He was also a reticent figure in that respect. I have no idea what he thought of the books.'
The critics, on the other hand, approve. McIlvanney won the 2018 Scottish Crime Book of the Year for The Quaker at the Bloody Sunday festival. On the face of it, The Good Father would appear to be a one-off, but, McIlvanney jokes, his previous two series - one featuring a journalist, the other the aforementioned cop - are 'two book trilogies' in a line pinched from Greenock-born Hollywood author turned screenwriter Alan Sharp.
He'll return Down Under after the summer to continue working on a ghost story. And there are 10,000 words of a start on Duncan McCormack's calling out from a drawer in a desk in New Zealand.
'I have great admiration for people like Lee Childs who can write all those Jack Reacher books, but I couldn't write 20 books about the same character. I need to change things up, says McIlvanney. 'Anyway I'm too slow. I'd be 140 before I was 20 books in.'