Black Isle-based writer's last book was longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for best crime book of the year – but the twisty plot of his latest The Night Watch is no less compulsive
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
THE contrasting strengths of Neil Lancaster’s Max Craigie crime books come punching out at you from the very start of his latest book The Night Watch.
With the Black Isle-based writer you can guarantee the authentic feel Neil can bring to the police procedural elements of the series.
Neil’s own past in the Met and specialist surveillance experience begun in the Forces, sings out of the books.
“Max went to Afghanistan, where his experiences there pushed him and have stayed with him.” Neil explained early on about his police hero.
At the Met, Max had to shoot – and he has PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
“But I didn’t want the PTSD to define him,” Neil said.
“A scene at a post mortem really shakes Max up in this book and takes him back to Afghanistan and he has to deal with that and he deals with that by doing breathing exercises.”
Max is shown getting on with normal life, until a couple of high-profile murders drag him and the team of his special unit into a baffling set of events.
A high-profile gangster is disposed of in a particularly sinister way.
But for Max and his colleagues there is the growing fear the killer might be one of their own.
In The Night Watch, the working lives and realities of the job Neil creates is one of the powerful strengths he brings to the book.
The banter between the team just feel real – does Neil speak their lines out in an empty room as he writes?
“It’s a reflection of what it used to be,” says Neil. “It’s me thinking of a line and going ‘If I said this, what would the comeback be?’
“From some of the pals I worked with, where it was quite a brutal mickey-taking banter, literally, you had to be careful what you said when I was a cop because if you said anything that was a little bit suspect you would catch hell for it.
“To me it’s a reflection of what you had in the police. It’s how cops are in many places.
“The character of Max’s boss Ross, for example, is inappropriate and his language is appalling. But in the reviews, people still really like him.
“He’s foul-mouthed, he’s bluff, he’s crass, he’s crude, but he’s not nasty, and I think people think they would like to have him on their side.
“With introducing Barney, the Yorkshireman, who is the ex-MI5 technical expert, I thought, wouldn’t it be quite funny to have this quite elderly, cigarette-smoking, cardigan-wearing, sardonic Yorkshireman? And of course he and Ross rub each other up the wrong way.
“And I just find it really funny to write.
“One of my favourite things about the book is the banter
“I do spend a lot of time, I think, getting it right.”
As ever, Neil adds in details about the procedure itself which enlightens the reader, such as the fact police can’t name someone as dead – however obvious the fact is that they are - without a qualified medic.
But as he adds, Neil prefers to drop it in without having the book read like a textbook!
The Night Watch ‘keeping it real’ includes the addition of Highland bakery treat the Dream Ring, a writer colleague teasing on Neil on Twitter that it’s a bid to get himself a lifetime supply of the delicious cakes!
It sounds as if the energy might come in handy as Neil’s writing schedule is relentless.
He agrees he writes nine to five.
“Any time – as and when,” he laughs. “I’ve been working hard on the fifth Max Craigie book.
“The fourth one is ready to go – and will be out in March next year, I think.”
And for fans of Neil’s first Novak series, there’s only one thing the writer needs to work on his next idea for the troubled hero.
“Time is the problem. There are not enough hours in the day!”
The Night Watch is out now. Neil is appearing at the St Duthac Book and Art Festival. More:
