Unsung Heroes of Crime Fiction by Lynne Patrick

An occasional series which looks at the work of authors whose books qualify as bestsellers,
but who still aren’t quite as famous as they deserve to be.
Aline Templeton

The challenge was to name six Scottish crime writers. Easy, came the reply. Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves, Denise Mina, Peter May, Lin Anderson... shall I go on?

Only if you include Aline Templeton, I replied.

She’s reviewed in the Times and the Guardian as well as the big Scottish papers. Val McDermid calls her the crime czar of the small Scottish town. So why isn’t she a shoo-in on a list of Scottish crime writers – or on any list of crime writers you care to name, come to that?

In the course of a writing career lasting four decades (and counting!) she’s written six standalones, and a successful nine book series which charts the career of Marjory Fleming, a DCI in rural Galloway, right through to retirement. Now there’s a second series, featuring the head of a fictional Serious Rural Crime Squad; the sixth title has just been published, and the protagonist Kelso Strang is still going strong. Aline’s may not be the first name that comes up in a discussion of Scottish crime writers, but she’s not going anywhere.

Aline Templeton was born close to St Andrews, and apart from a sojourn in Cambridge where she studied English literature, she lived most of her life in Scotland until a few years ago, when she decamped to Kent for family reasons. A voracious reader from the age of four, she wrote her first novel when she was six, on notepaper stitched together with yellow thread. At various times she has been CWA Booksellers’ Champion, a justice of the peace, chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland, and a member of the Scottish Parliament Cross-party group for Media and Culture. And she found time to get married and bring up two children. She says herself that there has to be more to life than writing, and that everything else she does, even a country walk with her grandchildren, feeds into her books one way or another.

Character and location are the mainstays of her work. Her protagonists always have a rich life outside crime fighting. Marjory Fleming is a farmer’s wife and is often seen feeding the chickens before heading off to a murder scene. Kelso Strang has had to sort out his sister’s problems, is a fond uncle to his small niece, and has now embarked on a serious relationship with Marjory Fleming’s daughter!

Kelso Strang’s remit sends him to rural communities all over Scotland, and his creator makes a point of visiting them all. ‘It’s a great treat to have a legitimate, tax-deductible reason to holiday in such wonderful places,’ she says.

https://www.alinetempleton.co.uk/ 

The Kelso Strang series:

Human Face
Carrion Comfort
Devil's Garden
Old Sins
Blind Eye 
Deadfall

The Marjory Fleming series: 

Cold In The Earth 
The Darkness and the Deep
Lying Dead
Lamb To The Slaughter
Dead In The Water
Cradle to Grave
Evil for Evil
Bad Blood 
The Third Sin

Standalones:

Death Is My Neighbour

Last Act of All

The Trumpet Shall Sound

Past Praying For

Night And Silence  

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.