Allan Guthrie

I took an MA course in creative writing a couple of years back, and I was definitely in the bottom of the class.

I try not to think about writers who came before me when I'm writing myself. If I did, given the abundance of literary talent Scotland - and Edinburgh in particular - has bestowed upon the world, I wouldn't be able to get as much as a sentence written.

Noir focuses on the criminal mind, not a whodunit: more why they did it and will they get away with it. The abnormal psychology is what fascinates me rather than the puzzle-solving aspect.

Music was something I was encouraged to do, which I appeared to be quite good at, but it was never a passion. Writing was always my first love.

I managed to fit most of the writing to evenings and weekends, and my wife has been very supportive.

There is a dark side to Allan Guthrie, but only at the weekends.

Some authors are quite happy - and have the time - to do it all themselves, which is great.

I'm really quite normal. My imagination has some serious kinks in it, that's all.

Maybe it's the buildings, maybe it's the weather, but you can see it affects us - that Scottish gallows humour; our tendency towards bleakness, to look at things in a negative way. Those definitely come out in my writing.