5.18.2010

The World of MacBride

You might have heard about my obsession with Stuart MacBride and his books. I think I mentioned him here and here. I read all five tomes in his Logan McRae series at lightening speed and then nearly went into a brief depression when I realized there were no more. But fate smiled upon me, and his sixth and newest installment in the Aberdeen-based detective series has hit the shelves. You bet I've got my copy, ahem, booked at the local Ferryhill library (they're so popular you have to reserve them or you'll never see 'em).

For good measure, I ordered up an additional novel of his, this one apart from the series. That way I'll have two juicy reads to entertain me over the next 2-3 weeks. Or maybe just for the plane ride to Italy and back. Because that's how fast I read them. I have to order two at a time, which is probably why the librarian plunks them on the counter when I walk in. Who else reserves two big stacks of pages twice a month?

And now I've just discovered his blog. Praise Heaven. It's like a satirical gold mine of punch lines - dark humor, witty banter and snippy one-liners all twisted up in Aberdonian accents. I love it. He makes me want to use the expression "sodding about" every 15 minutes.

Stuart MacBride is a tremendous writer, and possibly one of the greatest I've ever discovered. He's certainly my favorite. His gritty crime novels are just my thing, like glorified CSI episodes set in Scotland and loaded with fish and chips and tins of Irn Bru.

Without further ado, ladies and gents, take a peek into the mastermind that is Mr. MacBride, courtesy of his newly renovated web site which you can view in full here.

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Stuart MacBride was born in Dumbarton, but ran away to join the circus at the age of nine, where he specialised in wrestling bears for money (Going on to represent Great Britain at the Atlanta Olympics). In 1975 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his revolutionary work on Irn-Bru, then went on to create the world's biggest ball of bellybutton lint. In 1989 he joined the secret intelligence service, but was later invalided out due to a back injury sustained while performing a reverse-overhead-piledriver on a grizzly bear. Now confined to his pyjamas, Stuart whiles away his time writing crime novels set in Aberdeen and lying to journalists.

 *ahem*

 Or at least, that's the version of events I gave Trend Magazine. They published it too...

In real life I was born in Dumbarton -- no one knows why, not even my mother -- and moved up to Aberdeen at the tender age of two, dragging my mother, father, and a pair of wee brothers with me. There followed a less than stellar academic career, starting out in Marchburn Primary School, where my evil parents forced me to join the cub scouts (specialising in tying unnecessary knots in things and wearing shorts). Thence to Middlefield Academy for some combat recorder practice.

Having outstayed our welcome in Heathryfold we stopped thencing and tried going hence instead. To Westhill. To a housing development built over the remains of a pig farm. Sounds a bit suspect, but that's what the official story was when all the householders found teeth and bones coming to the surface of their neatly tended vegetable plots. Pig farm. Right... Eventually I escaped from Westhill Academy with a CSE in woodwork, a deep suspicion of authority, and itchy shins.

"If you've never tried it, I can wholly recommend giving it a go..."There followed an aborted attempt to study architecture at Herriot Watt in Edinburgh, which proved to be every bit as exciting and interesting as watching a badger decompose. If you've never tried it, I can wholly recommend giving it a go (watching mouldy badgers falling to bits, not architecture). So I gave up the life academic and went a-working offshore instead. That involved a lot of swearing as I recall. Swearing and drinking endless cups of tea. And I think I had Alpen every morning for about a year and a half. Can't look at a bowl of the stuff now without getting the dry boak, sod how regular it keeps you. After my stint offshore I had a bash at being a graphic designer, a professional actor, an undertaker, a marketing company's studio manager, a web designer, programmer, technical lead... Then last, but by all means least, finally circling the career drain by becoming a project manager for a huge IT conglomerate.

Shudder.

Anyway, while I was doing all that IT stuff, I wrote a wee book about an Aberdonian detective sergeant and his dysfunctional colleagues: Cold Granite. HarperCollins bought it, and overnight I went from a grumpy project manager caterpillar to a writing butterfly. As long as you can picture a six-foot-tall, pasty-white, bearded butterfly with no wings, that spends all its time hanging about the house in its jammies.

1 comment:

  1. AWESOME!!! I am SO following his blog! Thanks for the info!

    ReplyDelete

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