ALLANA KNIGHT

SATURDAY 16th JUNE at 10.30

 

A CASE OF SERIES NOVELITIS

MY THREE HISTORICAL CRIME CHARACTERS

 

Featuring Inspector Faro (13 books), his daughter Rose McQuinn (4 books and a 5th on the way),

and Tam Eildor, a time travelling detective (3 books).

Alanna enjoys engaging with her audience so there will be the opportunity to ask questions.

 

SUNDAY 17th JUNE at 2.00

 

MY LIFE WITH

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Alanna describes her connection with RLS as ‘like meeting an old friend’. Her talk will feature her

extensive research into Stevenson’s life and works; and how this has influenced her own writing.

 

 

Alanna Knight's award-winning first novel, 'Legend of the Loch' was published in 1969 and she recently celebrated the landmark publication of her 50th book, her latest in the Inspector Faro series, 'The Final Enemy'. Novelist, playwright and biographer, her work includes gothic and historical novels and crime fiction, as well as her notable non-fiction works on Robert Louis Stevenson.

Born in Tyneside of Scots-Irish parentage, she now lives and writes in Edinburgh, the city which inspired her popular and widely-acclaimed series of books: The Inspector Faro Series. These crime stories featuring Victorian detective, Jeremy Faro - the most well-known and well-loved of all her creations - have won her praise and fans from all over the world. Speaking about her reasons for being drawn to the world of historical crime, Alanna explains: “I have always loved solving puzzles!  As a historical novelist I was used to mysteries and riddles to be researched and it was just a short step to becoming a crime writer with Inspector Faro set in Victorian Edinburgh which I knew very well from ‘walking the paths and touching the stones’ with Robert Louis Stevenson.”

 

The Rose McQuinn Series features Inspector Faro’s daughter who returns to her native Scotland from America and is drawn into solving crime.

In The Tam Eildor Series her time travelling detective tracks down crimes in historical Scotland.

 

Her books about Robert Louis Stevenson are

The Robert Louis Stevenson Treasury (1982) and (1986)

Robert Louis Stevenson in the South Seas: An Intimate Photographic Record (1986)

Bright Ring of Words: A Centennial Tribute to Robert Louis Stevenson (1994)

(edited together with E S Warfel) is a compilation of essays written by writers whose lives have been influenced by Robert Louis Stevenson..

 

Alongside her own writing Alanna has been involved over the years in helping other writers get into print: lecturing in creative writing as well as writing articles and books on the subject and adjudicating competitions.

Alanna says of herself, “I love writing. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a writer. I even wrote plays for my classmates at school and poems for children’s radio. I realise I’m a workaholic. I am never happy unless I have a book in progress”.

 

The Times lists her as ‘one of the masters of crime’.

 

The Scotsman refers to her as ‘Alanna Knight, crime writer extraordinaire’.

 

Ian Rankin states‘ Alanna Knight could hardly be better, with a crime novelist’s

insight into motive and aftermath.’