At the University of Edinburgh

This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. What is Tartan Noir? Investigating Scotland’s Dark Contemporary Crime Fiction Len Wanner Doctor of Philosophy The University of Edinburgh 2014 I, Len Wanner, hereby declare that this thesis, submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, is of my own composition, excluding designated citations, and was not previously submitted for the award of any other degree or professional qualiﬁcation at this or any other university. ______________________________________________ Len Wanner, BA, MA January the 31st, 2014 2 Abstract Contrary to popular belief, Tartan Noir is not a synonym for Scottish noir but a mystifying marketing label for a national literature: dark, contemporary Scottish crime fiction. As it comprises an immense diversity of writing done in such mainstream sub-genres as detective, police, and serial killer fiction, as well as actual noir, I will investigate both the contrasts and the crossovers between said sub-genres. I will show that only few of the writers who are most associated with Tartan Noir write much, or any, noir, whereas most of those who do are not commonly associated with the term. With a view to remedying this, I will discuss the novels which have most influenced the reputation of Tartan Noir alongside those which have most influenced its identity. And by showing how this literature integrates the tension between several highly charged counter concepts – such as conformity and individuality, convention and innovation, sensationalism and thoughtful social, cultural, and political commentary – I hope to demystify Tartan Noir, that is, define the term and refine its use. 3 Acknowledgments In the researching and writing of this thesis, I have been indebted to the department of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh for endowing me with a scholarship. For this, I wish to thank the department. Personally, I wish to thank Dr Lee Horsley for directing my research, Dr Robert Irvine for supervising my writing, and Allan Guthrie for sharing with me his supreme expertise in all things noir. Yet most of all, I wish to thank my wife for her reliable mental support, my parents for their equally reliable financial support, and Mylo, just for being here. 4 Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter One – The Detective Novel................................................................................................. 13 The Scottish Detective Novel ....................................................................................................... 20 Synopsis ...................................................................................................................................... 37 A Comparative Reading of Two Scottish Detective Novels .......................................................... 41 Chapter Two – The Police Novel ..................................................................................................... 48 The Scottish Police Novel ............................................................................................................ 54 Synopsis ...................................................................................................................................... 72 A Comparative Reading of Two Scottish Police Novels ............................................................... 77 Chapter Three – The Serial Killer Novel .......................................................................................... 83 The Scottish Serial Killer Novel .................................................................................................. 89 Synopsis .................................................................................................................................... 108 A Comparative Reading of Two Scottish Serial Killer Novels .................................................... 113 Chapter Four – The Noir Novel ..................................................................................................... 120 The Scottish Noir Novel ............................................................................................................ 127 Synopsis .................................................................................................................................... 145 A Comparative Reading of Two Scottish Noir Novels................................................................ 149 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 156 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 161 5 Introduction What is Tartan Noir? Perhaps surprisingly, it is not a synonym for Scottish noir. Instead, Tartan Noir is a mystifying marketing label for a national literature – dark contemporary Scottish crime fiction – and, as I hope to show, this literature comprises a broad range of shades and sub-genres besides noir. Why, then, did Ian Rankin – the man who coined the term and, as the so-called ‘King of Tartan Noir’, set the terms of the literature’s perception – use the word noir? “Well,” he said when I asked him, “there’s no tradition of crime fiction in Scotland but there is a great tradition of quite dark, psychological, Gothic horror stories. Specifically in the ‘70s, I think in Glasgow, there was a move towards a kind of realistic school of writing about working class life, writing about hard men, writing about hard lives, and writing about urban experience. So it was a move away from the ‘kaleyard’, which was this romanticised view of Scotland. I think crime fiction tapped into that very nicely, and because there was no tradition of crime fiction in Scotland it meant a completely level playing field. Nobody had to be worried about writing in a certain tradition, and most of us weren’t influenced by the English… because there was no Agatha Christie figure you didn’t feel you were looking over your shoulder and you had to write a certain kind of book. So, in fact, there’s a huge catholicism to Scottish crime fiction… But the balance has swung towards noir, quite dark fiction” (Rankin 2011: 3-4). Now, while Rankin is undoubtedly right in referring to Tartan Noir as a broad church of literary innovators, he is just as undoubtedly wrong in claiming that it was built on a ‘completely level playing field’, separate from the influence of any English tradition, and without the help of many Scottish imitators. Even if he himself has never looked over his shoulder or felt he had to write a certain kind of book, countless compatriots of his have looked South and many specifically to 221B Baker Street, London, where crime fiction’s perhaps most illustrious pioneer left a physical monument to the fact that, contrary to Rankin’s claim, there most certainly is an ‘Agatha Christie figure’ in Scotland. His name, of course, is Arthur Conan Doyle, and while nobody had to be ‘worried’ about writing in his tradition, as Rankin puts it, so many fictional gumshoes have followed in the footsteps of his private detective, Sherlock Holmes, that the latter has become a byword of detective fiction both at home and abroad. So, as most readers will already know, most detective fiction is far too concerned with brainteasers, heroic individualism, and the restoration of order to be noir in any meaning of the word bar the literal, French meaning of black. And it is in this meaning only that noir is the right choice of word when Rankin claims that ‘the balance has swung towards noir, quite dark fiction’. 6 The meaning first brought to mind by such literary commentary, however, is that of the art term noir, as in noir fiction or film noir, so it is misleading to refer to Scottish crime fiction en masse as noir. Noir, after all, is a broad ideological concept with shades of meaning such as ‘working class tragedy’, ‘transgressor fiction’, and ‘psycho thriller’, but it is not quite broad enough to include the mainstream, let alone the kind of fiction that features cantankerous but moralistic coppers figuring out whodunit, cosy atmospheres in which charming dilettantes solve murder mysteries, or, whisper it, cat detectives. Noir does not do heroism, it does not do happy ends, and it does not do harmless, so it will not do as a collective term for a literature which often does all three at once. As for the qualifier that it is tartan – that this literature’s multi-colouredness is signalled by the adjective tartan although

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