AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Neil Broadfoot’s experience as a news reporter feeds into his Tartan Noir. By

Aways been drawn to working with words, Neil Broadfoot’s career has taken him from local reporting in Fife to writing for national newspapers and finally to releasing his own brand of Tartan Noir.

“I always said I’d dedicate my first book to my gran, who was hugely supportive of my love of reading and writing as I was growing up,” says the Dunfermlinebased author. “But then life, kids, job, marriage got in the way and I never managed to get published while she was alive.”

Then, while watching an old family video, he saw his gran on film and that promise came back to mind: “I was going to fulfil my promise, write a book and get published.”

Writing about crime was a natural step, says Neil: “I wrote crime purely, I think, because I’m a fan – I grew up on Conan Doyle, Rankin, Chandler etc.”

He credits journalism with teaching him how to write: “Writers are magpies, we’re always picking up ideas or little snippets of things we see and storing them away for use in books later on.

“I’ve always been very conscious not to sensationalise or trivialise the news stories I worked on – these are people’s lives we’re reporting on and we have a duty of being responsible in that. It taught me how to write – the who, what, when, where, how and why of stories. It also taught me that writing is, ultimately, a job and should be approached as such. Also, the editing pen is not something to be scared of!”

His first novel, Falling Fast, was released in 2014 to critical acclaim and shortlisted for the Dundee International Book Festival, which led to a three-book deal. From there, the only way was up and Neil was also nominated for the Bloody Scotland book of the year award. Since then he has published a book a year, with his latest, the third in the Connor Fraser series, which follows the ups and downs of the policemanturned-security specialist in Stirling. The gripping resolution of Point of No Return, like Neil’s other

works, came as much of a surprise to the authors as his readers.

“I never plan or plot my books in advance,” he explains. “I just start with a scene or an idea or a line and follow it where it takes me. I know writers who are plotters, but for me, that kills the book.

“If I’m figuring out the story at the same time as Connor is, it gives the narrative a drive and an urgency which hopefully gives the reader a more enjoyable experience. The Point of No Return is a deeper dive into Connor, his family and his past, and it was great to get to know him better.

“One of the other things that interests me, and I think it’s important in writing, is that you give readers an understanding of why people do what they do.

“You might not agree with what they do, you might think the person is a monster, but the trick is to make readers understand that, for whatever reason, characters are acting based on a belief that what they are doing is right, no matter how twisted their motivations are.”

Neil Broadfoot.