I’m in a little holiday cottage on the Applecross peninsular, just a single-track road (the infamous Bealach na Bà – pass of the cattle) away over the mountains from the rest of the world. I was last here in 2019, staying in the white house you can see through the window. I wrote a chunk of The Bone Clock (Whirligig) there without the conceit that I’d ever become a published author. Now I’ve just completed the edits for the third in the series and it’s available to pre-order on Amazon.

The weather has been changeable, but the cottage has no TV so when it’s too midge-laden to venture outside, I write: 6k words into Corstorphine book 4 (scheduled for delivery later this year), and 17k words into a new standalone about a ship.

Writing two books at once is an experiment for me. There are times in the process when I’m stuck on the plot and need to let the subconscious do some work in the background. What if I write something completely different during that break? I’ll let you know but so far I find my productivity has doubled. The danger is if I confuse the plot lines so if DI Corstorphine finds himself time-travelling across the Atlantic Ocean I’ve messed up.

I count myself lucky to be published, and even luckier to be able to spend time in such a beautiful part of the world. Most of all I know how privileged I am to live in a country where, although far from perfect, I can live without the threat of persecution, war or famine.

I am, I guess, what is referred to as a bleeding-heart liberal. A phrase coined by an American journalist so right-wing that he used it to describe those members of congress who dared support a bill to curb lynching.

We live in an imperfect world. Our actions and lives help define this world and those creatures that share this oasis in space. If I could live my life again, I tell myself I’d have done more than the little I have accomplished to protect the environment and improve the lot of the oppressed and the weak. But that ship has sailed, and all I have left are my words. They will have to do.