Was it all inevitable, John?" Reeve was pushing his fingers across the floor of the cell, seated on his haunches. I was lying on the mattress. Yes," ….

You need a great idea, but then you've got to carry it through. If you get it right, you're going to be a critical success. But not everyone who work….

I started writing novels while an undergraduate student, in an attempt to make sense of the city of Edinburgh, using a detective as my protagonist. E….

[About a tiresome colleague]: He could bore for Scotland..

I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread - Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Loui….

I am, of course, a frustrated rock star - I'd much rather be a rock star than a writer. Or own a record shop. Still, it's not a bad life, is it? You ….

No matter how many awards you've won or how many sales you've got, come the next book it's still a blank sheet of paper and you're still panicking li….

I still think most writers are just kids who refuse to grow up. We're still playing imaginary games, with our imaginary friends..

My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on….

I took the first James Kelman novel, 'The Bus Conductor Hines', home to my dad. I thought, 'My dad will like this; it's written in Scots.' But my dad….

War created bizarre allies, while peace itself could be divisive..

The most difficult part of any crime novel is the plotting. It all begins simply enough, but soon you're dealing with a multitude of linked character….

I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No -….

Rebus was eating breakfast in the canteen and wishing there was more caffeine in the coffee, or more coffee in the coffee come to that..

I've always written. At the age of six or seven, I would get sheets of A4 paper and fold them in half, cut the edges to make a little eight-page book….

I love short stories - reading and writing them. The best short stories distill all the potency of a novel into a small but heady draught. They are p….

I wrote my first short story for a competition and won second prize. Another competition came up and I won first prize. The first story was published….

It was the laughter of birthdays, of money found in an old pocket..

It seemed to him a very Edinburgh thing. Welcoming, but not very..

I'm interested in Scotland now and then, how it's changed. I want to get the reader to think about that by thinking about something from the past. Ho….

A good album should be more than the sum of its parts..