Novelist couple:we step into our plots
Crime-writing couple Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman have revealed how they solved the plot of their latest thriller on long lockdown walks.
International bestselling author Brookmyre and former consultant anaesthetist Dr Haetzman launched A Corruption Of Blood at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Completed between May and September last year, the book is the third historical novel by the husband and wife who write together under the pseudonym Ambrose Parry.
While the book is set in Edinburgh in 1850, the couple were locked down at home in Bothwell, South Lanarkshire, for much of the process, and relied on walks for inspiration. And they joked it gave them something to talk about after running out of new topics while cooped up in the house.
Chris, 52, said: “When you’re writing a book together there’s always something to talk about.
“Marisa had been working on it while I was writing my own book, The Cut, but the nitty-gritty we did over the summer when otherwise all we would have been thinking about was not going anywhere.
“We would go for a big long walk and just talk it through. If you walk somewhere different it does spark new ideas.”