Reminder of 1960s Gorbals
Ross Macfarlane, QC, a featured author at this year's Aye Write literary festival, talks about his debut novel Edward Kane and the Parlour Maid Murderer.
Great wealth, alongside crushing poverty, the Edinburgh of 1850 in which Advocate Edward Kane and his man Mr Horse exist is one of Dickensian extremes, but whether rich or poor, crime and corruption is never far away.
Edward Kane and the Parlour Maid Murderer is the debut novel from Ross Macfarlane, QC, a featured author at this year's Aye Write literary festival.
The Senior Advocate, who lives in the New Town, recalls, "I was researching a story about the visit of Charles Dickens to Edinburgh in 1841 and discovered he had visited the Advocates Library where I was based and had dinner with his friend, Patrick Robertson, in a house just across the way from where I live. It struck me Edinburgh would be a fabulous setting for a 19th century murder mystery. Not only that, I thought it would be fun to incorporate a murder trial set in the period. I say ‘fun’, but remember, in those days, the penalty for murder was death. And that’s how Edward Kane, Advocate, was born."
Set in Victorian Edinburgh, the tale finds Patrick Macnair facing the ultimate penalty, death by hanging. Why then, has he employed a young defence lawyer with no trial experience? And why does Macnair refuse to tell his Advocate what happened on the night the crime took place?
As his investigations take him from the great houses of Edinburgh to the taverns and alleyways of the Old Town, will Kane be able to solve the mystery and save a man from the gallows.
Originally from Glasgow, the writer who grew up the The Gorbals of the 1960's, recalls, "My dad was a chef and my mother a waitress. Both had left school at 14. There were not that many books in the house, but my father would always come home with a tall tale or two, usually about why he was so late. So, I always loved stories. I’m convinced that I taught myself to read by studying Superman comics, there was a culture of aspiration among the poor then, the idea of reading books or listening to music to become a better kind of person.”
He explains, “The problem for me was that, on the rare days I did go to school, they gave me books that reflected my own life when what I wanted to read about was people who had butlers, cooks and nannies, not kids that lived in tenements like me. So that aspiration is a part of the Edward Kane books.."
Having "done every job imaginable" and already a father of two, Macfarlane came to the Capital at the age of 28 to read Law at Edinburgh University. A mature student, his legal traineeship brought him to David Clark and Co on Leith Walk.
He remembers, "What was interesting was that Nineties' Leith reminded me very much of Sixties ' Gorbals, both had a very strong working class identifying culture."
It was while training in Leith that he took the first steps on the path that would see him become one of the UK'S ‘noted legal experts’ in the field of Child and Family Law.
Because of his intensive schedule, the father of five wrote The Parlour Maid Murderer on the commute to and from Court sessions."every day. Little by little, the book emerged. ."
The good news for fans of Kane and Mr Horse is that the writer can foresee more books featuring the young Advocate and his “Angel with a broken nose”.
"I’m already 20,000 words into book two, Edward Kane and the Wages of Sin, so watch this space."