Writers Of The Western Isles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Scotland

Peter May was born in Glasgow in 1951 and worked as a journalist before his first book "The Reporter" was published in 1976. It was adapted for television. He went on to create and write a number of television shows and series before concentrating on novels from 1976. Among the shows he wrote for was the Scottish soap "High Road". His books included the six-novel "China" series and "The Lewis Trilogy", as well as a number of stand-alone works.

May was a multi-award winner. In 2020 he published "Lockdown", a novel that mirrored the circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 epidemic - and which had been rejected by publishers 15 years earlier as being "too far-fetched". [Interview in "The Scotsman", April 2020.]

Answer: Ireland

"USA Today" best-selling author Claire Allan was born in Derry-Londonderry in 1976 and worked as a journalist before turning to writing full time. Her early books were written while she was still working for "The Derry Journal".

Her first book in 2006, "Rainy Days and Tuesdays" was a romantic comedy and several more followed in the genre before her first thriller "Her Name Was Rose" was published in 2008. Claire Allan also wrote under the pseudonym Freya Kennedy.

Answer: England

Mo Hayder was born in Essex in 1962 and had a varied working life before her first thriller "The Birdman" was published in 1999. It was to be the first of seven books featuring Detective Inspector Jack Caffery. Her novel "Gone" won the Edgars Best Novel award in 2012.

Answer: Scotland

Val McDermid was born in Kircaldy in Fife in 1955 (another great Scottish author born in Fife was Ian Rankin, so there must have been more in the air than just dust from the coal mines). She wrote her first novel "Report for Murder" while working as a journalist in England. It was published in 1987. In 1995, she won a CWA Gold Dagger award for "The Mermaids Singing". She also created characters that became mainstays of the television series "Wire In The Blood". In 2020, it was announced that her books based on the detective Karen Pirie were to be adapted for television.

McDermid was a member of the band Fun Lovin' Crime Writers along with Mark Billingham, Chris Brookmyre, Doug Johnstone, Luca Vesten, and Stuart Neville.

Answer: Wales

Ken Follett was born in Cardiff in 1949. His first novel was "Eye of the Needle" in 1978. It won the Edgar Award and was made into a movie starring Kate Nelligan and Donald Sutherland. Many best-selling novels followed, several of which were adapted for television.

These included the mini-series "World Without End" that was shown in North America in 2012 and "The Pillars of the Earth", shown in North America and Europe from 2011. Many of Follett's novels had been adapted for television or the big screen.

More than 160m copies of his books have been sold worldwide. In 2017, Follett was placed on the "Sunday Times Rich List" for the first time, with an estimated fortune then of £67m.

Answer: England

Mick Herron was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1963 and created a world of fictional espionage outcasts with "Slow Horses" in 2010. Nine more novels or novellas in the Slough House series followed. The series was both dramatic and comedic in equal measures, and some reviewers drew comparisons between fictional character and real life political figures. Writing in the "Guardian", Mark Lawrence said: "Herron negotiates the laws of libel to create fictional public figures who hit more than one ral-life bullseye."

In 2013 he won a Gold Dagger award for "Dead Lions". In November 2019, it was confirmed that the Slough House series was being adapted for television, with Gary Oldman to play Jackson Lamb, the almost grotesque leader of 'the slow horses'. Herron also wrote four books in the Oxford Investigations Series featuring a bored housewife and a private investigator.

Answer: Ireland

Cecelia Ahern was born in Dublin in 1981. She published her first "PS I Love You" at the age of 21 after completing a degree in Journalism and Media Communications. A few years earlier she had sung with the pop group Shimna in the Irish national fials of the Eurovision Song Contest. "PS I Love You" was a number one best seller in Ireland and in the UK. Hilary Swank, Lisa Kudrow, and Kathy Bate starred in the movie adaptation in 2007. More books followed and she was also a co-creator and producer of the US TV sitcom "Samantha Who?", which was broadcast between 2007 and 2009.

[ a quick run-down on the life of Cecelia Ahern without mentioning her famous dad ... a former prime minister of Ireland ]

Answer: England

Born in London in 1944, Cornwell became noted as an author of historical fiction. His books based on the exploits of the fictional Napoleonic War soldier Richard Sharpe were adapted for television. The first in the series, "Sharpe's Eagle" kick-started Cornwell's career in 1981.

A second series of books, "The Last Kingdom", was also adapted for television. By the time this quiz was written in June 2020, more than 30 million more than 30 million copies of Cornwell's books had been sold worldwide.

Answer: Wales

Rachel Trezise was born in the Rhonda Valley in 1978. Her first novel "In and Out of the Goldfish Bowl" was published in 2002 while she was studying journalism and English Literature at university. Her second, a series of short stories, "Fresh Apples" was published in 2005 and won the Dylan Thomas Prize for writers under 30.

The early books and several of those that followed focussed on life in the Welsh valleys, while she also wrote about the integration of immigrant families into Welsh society. Rachel Trezise also wrote plays and children's books.

Answer: Scotland

Craig Russell was born in Fife in 1956 and worked as a police officer and freelance writer before turning to novels. "Blood Eagle", the first in seven books about Hamburg murder detective Jan Fabel, was published in 2005. Several of the books were dramatised for German television and in 2007 Russell was awarded the Polizeistern (Police Star) by Polizei Hamburg, becoming the first non-German to receive the award. He also wrote five books in the "Lennox" series, featuring a private detective working in Glasgow in the years after WW2.

Russell was a winner of a McIlvanney Prize in 2015 and a CWA Dagger in the Library prize in 2008. The movie rights to his 2019 stand-alone novel "The Devil's Aspect" were sold to a Hollywood studio. Russell also wrote under the pseudorandom Christopher Gault.