The Sunday Times
20 November 2005
A sexy forensic scientist is muscling in on the Edinburgh detective’s literary patch and could prove just as successful, discovers Claire Sawers
Lin Anderson lives at the heart of a network of streets that Ian Rankin has affectionately nicknamed Writer’s Block. Alexander McCall Smith’s house is a two-minute walk from Anderson’s family home in the leafy and pleasant Edinburgh suburb of Merchiston. Rankin himself lives in the next road and JK Rowling’s house is a row behind.
“Yes, that is a bit bizarre, isn’t it?” says Anderson, who has just signed a six-book deal with Hodder & Stoughton for her series of Scottish crime novels. Her heroine, Rhona Macleod, is a thirtysomething forensic scientist who helps detectives solve a variety of crimes, including a brutal murder in Glasgow and an arson attack staged during Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations.
Exactly what it is about this safe and sunny neighbourhood of Edinburgh that inspires its residents to write such gory and wildly imaginative stories remains a mystery. “Merchiston is such a nice place to live,” says Anderson, settling herself in a corner of her living-room sofa. On the mantelpiece beside her are wooden sculptures collected during the five years she spent working in Africa, while family snapshots on the wall feature her three grown-up children.
“When you live here you sometimes walk along the street and think, ‘This is Edinburgh’. But of course it’s only a tiny part. There is a whole other side to the city.”
It is the darker, grittier side, where murders take place in underground vaults and rent boys end up strangled and mutilated, that Anderson - a former teacher - delves into in her writing.
Her choice of subject has led to inevitable comparisons with Rankin, Scotland’s best-known crime writer. His Inspector Rebus novels inhabit the same grimy underbelly of Edinburgh’s well-to-do facade.
Anderson, 54, is quite happy to be pigeonholed alongside her internationally famous neighbour and realises that “it makes a good hook” for people to latch onto. But she is also keen to point out how different her books are from his. “Ian is a great writer and I really admire his work. He has set a very high standard for Scottish crime writing. But Rebus and Rhona have absolutely nothing in common.”
It’s true that the characters have little in common except for their work. Rebus is an angst-ridden male detective living in Edinburgh and a bit of a loner; Rhona is a sexy thirtysomething female living in Glasgow with her on-off Irish saxophonist boyfriend.
The inspiration for Rhona’s character came in part from one of Anderson’s former pupils, Emma Hart, who was in her maths class at Grantown Grammar School on Speyside. Hart went on to become a forensic scientist and now works for the Metropolitan Police in London. “Emma used to tell me such amazing stories about her job,” says Anderson. “I loved how enthusiastic she was about it. The idea of puzzling out a case and all the attention to detail you need as you piece together the jigsaw - that really stuck in my head.”
Anderson became fascinated by the science of solving a criminal case. So much so, in fact, that she quit her job last year as a maths and computing teacher at George Watson’s College to follow her childhood dream of being a writer.
She had already had some success with the script of her first film, Small Love, broadcast on Scottish Television in 2001, which earned her a TAPS writer of the year nomination.
A handful of short stories penned at home on school nights - in between marking maths homework - had also been published and broadcast on BBC and European radio stations. But it was time to get serious. Anderson was already a dedicated fan of crime fiction, having adored PD James and devoured Agatha Christie as a teenager. She decided to earn her crime writer colours by enrolling in a diploma course in forensic medical science at the University of Glasgow, where she studied alongside police officers, lawyers and mortuary assistants.
“We were taught at uni to concentrate totally on the scientific procedures when you are dealing with a crime scene. You haven’t got the luxury of getting emotionally involved. The only way to do any good is to be totally professional, and not miss a thing.”
“I really like putting my characters in some sort of danger. I try to think of the most horrifying scenario for them to find themselves in”
Her first two novels, Driftnet and Torch, which were published by Edinburgh-based Luath Press, focus on the minute details of forensic science that Anderson finds so compelling.
As the popularity of television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and novels by crime writers Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs or Dan Brown shows, audiences love the thrill of the chase and the “treasure hunt” that detectives go on as they piece together a series of clues.
“Other authors have focused on pathology or anthropology or history when they try to catch their criminal. I wanted to use British forensics to catch mine, which people seem to have really enjoyed. And as a writer it’s great to get to fix your own puzzle,” says Anderson.
But as she points out, it’s not all toxicology reports and DNA samples. Her meticulous attention to detail has apparently made her novels essential reading among forensics staff at the Met in London, who love the drama and colour Anderson has added to their scientific world.
Rhona Macleod, her heroine, seems to be a partially autobiographical version of the author. “She is in the science world, but that doesn’t mean she’s not passionate,” says Anderson. Macleod works in the forensics lab of Glasgow university, where Anderson studied in her twenties and returned to in her fifties.
The author has used poetic licence to shift Macleod’s workplace from the real-life lab tucked away near Byres Road to the top floor of the red stone main building, “because the views out over Kelvingrove Park are so much nicer”.
Macleod is joined in the lab by her outspoken assistant Chrissy, who Anderson says was inspired by Janice Toner from John Byrne’s Tutti Frutti series. “I loved that Glasgow gallus way she had. She’ll just come right out and say the thing,” she says.
Macleod’s level-headed sidekick, DI Bill Wilson, was modelled on Anderson’s own father, a CID detective in their home town of Greenock. She remembers how he used to come home from work and switch from hard-nosed detective mode into loving family man and husband.
“I think that’s what kept him sane. He came home and shut the door, and never ever discussed work. There were some days when you could see he’d been really affected by something, and he would maybe go next door and talk it over with my mum to clear his head, but we never got told what had happened.”
Perhaps it was the secrecy of her father’s profession and the forbidden danger of the crimes he spent his day solving that inspired his daughter to eventually make a living by crime, so to speak.
“I really like putting my characters in some sort of danger. I try to think of the most horrifying scenario for them to find themselves in, then just let things take a life of their own,” says Anderson, narrowing her eyes before letting out a laugh. “Whatever I write about, it’s never as strange as real life.”