Yahoo News Writers behind Ambrose Parry bestsellers coming to Dumfries and Galloway
The writing duo behind a best selling series of historical crime novels will be visiting Dumfries and Galloway this week.
Ambrose Parry - also known as consultant anaesthetist Dr Marisa Haetzman and her husband, international best selling author Chris Brookmyre - will be making an appearance at The Mill on the Fleet in Gatehouse on Thursday.
They’ll be talking about Voices of the Dead - the fourth in the Raven and Fisher series set in Victorian Edinburgh.
Community Bakehouse Arts are organising the pop-up event ahead of the Big Lit, book festival which takes place in Gatehouse between July 19 and 21.
Chris told the Standard: “I was down in Kirkcudbright early in 2023 for Stewartry Literary Society. I did a talk one afternoon and got a good crowd.
“Marisa and I were supposed to be taking part in Big Lit last July but I got Covid in Harrogate. Lots of writers managed to get Covid there so unfortunately we had to cancel, so this is us finally getting down there.
“I’m conscious of the artistic history of the area – when I was down in Kirkcudbright there was an artist in resident at the venue.
“I’m aware it’s because of the light, which I assume there’s a lot more of than we normally see further north in the west of Scotland!”
Voices of The Dead – which is being published in paperback on June 6 – is the latest crime thriller featuring Dr Will Raven and Sarah Fisher.
The series has been inspired by the gory details Marisa uncovered during her history of medicine degree and feature the darkest of Victorian Edinburgh’s secrets.
And the latest instalment is no exception, with body parts being found at Surgeons’ Hall in a city still reeling from the Burke and Hare scandal, while performances of mesmerism and spiritualism are grab the public’s attention.
Chris said: “Depressingly the modern equivalent is exactly the same. There’s still a huge audience of credulous people for spiritualism and other supposed psychic phenomena.
“It was more understandable that people at that time were thinking about what the next breakthrough was going to be and it might well have been talking to the dead.
“Not only are people still susceptible to wanting to believe they’re contacting their lost loved ones, the same principles are what lead to people not applying sufficient critical faculties to other issues.
“That’s why they end up swallowing conspiracy theories. Life is complex, frustratingly so, and conspiracy theories make everything so much simpler.”
Voices of the Dead has been longlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger award, with the shortlist due to be announced on Friday.
• Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman will be at The Mill on the Fleet in Gatehouse on Thursday, May 9 at 7.30pm to talk about their latest book, Voices of the Dead which is published by Canongate. Tickets from The Mill Bookshop or online www.thebakehouse.info
