1. School 

I AM from a family that prized education very highly. My mum was a schoolteacher, both her sisters were teachers and my great uncle was a deputy head. I was very well behaved as there was no question of me doing something at school and it not being known at home. I don’t think I was ever at a school where there wasn’t a relative teaching, including my own mother when I was at primary school.

You learn a lot in your school years about society which is just as important as the stuff you learn in the classroom. You are learning to fit into what is a microcosm of society. Unfortunately, a lot of the time it is a totalitarian, fascist society where there are rigid rules and group punishments! But you do also learn to get along with different social groups.

School has informed a lot of my work. I wrote about it in One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night, which is about a school reunion based on my old school, St Luke’s, and I drew on it in A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away and A Tale Etched In Blood And Hard Black Pencil. There is actually a tour of a stage show of that at the moment in Scotland.

2. Meeting Marisa

THAT happened to coincide with going to university. Although I learned a lot from school, I could not wait to get out of it. I did not like the rigidity and all of it seemed to be about getting qualifications. I looked forward to going to university where there would be a chance to get an education for its own sake.

Marisa (above) and I have been together since 1985 and that, probably more than anything, has defined the decisions I have made throughout my life. She even had the idea for Quite Ugly One Morning, the first book I ever had published.

We met pretty much at the start of Freshers’ Week, and we were very lucky in that we were well suited. We didn’t seem to have much time to socialise as Marisa was studying medicine, and sometimes I had to take a backseat to her studies, but I think that’s an important thing to learn as well – you have to be supportive to each other’s ambitions and during the stress of each other’s jobs, but I guess that’s another way of saying she had me very well trained from the start.

We did show a wee bit of good judgement and awareness in that we realised we had something worth working on, and we rode out any difficult times because we knew we had a strong bond. That has endured all the way down the years – even though we were both 17 when we met.

3. Moving to London

I TOOK a joint honours in English Literature and Theatre Studies at Glasgow University but I lived at home throughout. My first job was in London so I was really in at the deep end in terms of moving out and starting my first job.

It did a lot for me, as I had to be very autonomous from the off. I was going from a small town – Barrhead – to work at Screen International, a cinema trade paper. That required me going to Los Angeles once a year and the south of France twice a year for the Cannes Film Festival and the Mifed film market in Milan, which we covered from a base in Nice.

I was still 21 years old and I sometimes look back and think about how my son is now 19 and I was only two years older but was working in LA and the south of France.

I had to grow up quite quickly in that respect, but it really broadened my horizons, and I’m aware that I really landed on my feet with that job.

I wasn’t a reporter; I was a sub editor, starting as a junior and leaving four years later as chief sub-editor. I really liked the production side of it and the page design side of things.

4. Getting published

WE moved back to Scotland so I could freelance, as I wanted to write fiction, but I realised I couldn’t do it properly in the evenings and at weekends.

Marisa wanted to move into anaesthetics and took a job in Edinburgh, and I worked freelance at the Scotsman so I could take a couple of months off each year to work on a book. I wrote four before I got one published – and that was Quite Ugly One Morning in 1995.

I was aware the first three were not good enough, but I was also aware I was getting better with each one, and when I wrote the fourth I knew it was my voice. Before that, I was writing what I thought I should be writing, not what I wanted to write.

When I was at the Scotsman I got to know the film critic, Angus Wolfe Murray, whose cousin was an agent. He put me in touch with her, though he said she didn’t often take on new clients.

However, she really liked it, and sent it out to editors she thought would be receptive.

There was an auction and within a fortnight a publishing deal came through for a two-book deal. It was pretty substantial so I was able to work full time on the books, and that was the end of my subbing career.

I don’t think anything has changed my professional life as much as that.

5. Parenthood

I WAS from a very big West of Scotland Catholic family and was the oldest of a clan of cousins. I spent my teenage years trying to stop them breaking my stuff. It took me a long time to think I wanted children in my life, but when we both turned 30, we were both keen.

We had Jack in 2000 and it turned everything upside down. I don’t think anything changes your perspective quite so much. Nothing changes your life more dramatically than parenthood. It was the hardest thing I ever did but also the most worthwhile.

It was difficult because we were in Aberdeen at the time and several hours away from the nearest relative. You don’t realise the value of being close to your relatives until you have a small baby.

Marisa went back to work after six months and was on call a lot of the time, so I was probably the person mostly in charge as I was at home. It was a massive change and you have to adjust to responsibility like you have never known.

It has informed some of my books. A Tale Etched In Blood And Hard Black Pencil was inspired by when Jack first went to school, as it made me revisit my own school days.

He was partly the inspiration for All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye, which is about espionage on the surface, but more about parenthood than anything else – the resources you have to find and the things you are driven to do.

6. Meeting Mark Billingham

I MET Mark (above) at the National Book Awards in 2002, although he had been previously mentioned by our mutual friend, Ed Byrne.

Ed told me Mark was a comedian who had just published his first novel and it was the same publishing house that I had. Mark suggested we do some events together in Scotland as he was not well known there at the time. We got along well and share a sense of humour.

Over the years we have ended up doing many literary events together, and because we know how to cue each other’s stories, he suggested we do a two-man show, a late-night cabaret-type thing. We have ended up doing that at various book festivals.

He also got me involved in stand-up – memorably at a charity night at the Comedy Store which was supposed to be just for the book trade but ended up in front of the general public who came along to see Rich Hall, Sandi Toksvig and Jenny Eclair, and various others.

It was a hell of a line up and I was first on in front of an audience who were not going to make any allowances. It was a great buzz though, and I would never have had the confidence if not for Mark. He has become one of my closest friends in the writing world.

7. Moving to Bothwell

I NEED a sense of place and belonging in order to work. There is a cliche that writers can work anywhere and, although I can write on trains and in hotel rooms, I do need a sense that there is a home I can go back to that I can identify with.

Marisa and I moved five times in five years because of her job, but once Jack came, we decided we needed to put down roots.

She got a job as a consultant in Wishaw and we moved to Bothwell in 2002. It was weird as it was a place I’d never visited, but we’ve now been here 17 years and I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

It’s just 15 minutes from Glasgow but if you walk 10 minutes you are at the Clyde and you feel a long way from the urban environment.

8. St Mirren winning the League Cup in 2013

IN the West of Scotland we have a problem in that football means too much to too many people.

I used to feel that in football you only get out as much as you invest in it, in terms of emotion.

I have been a St Mirren fan all my life and I was always wanting my team to achieve something. When they won the cup and I finally got what I wanted I realised I had been looking for something that was actually not that important.

That was a bit of an epiphany and there was something liberating about it. I realised I did not need it and I probably enjoy going along more than ever because I can enjoy the highs but not be as despondent during the lows – and there are probably too many of them.

9. Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers

MUSIC has always been important to me, and when I was a teenager I tried playing a guitar, but it was a Spanish classical guitar with nylon strings on which it was impossible to play barre chords and that convinced me I wasn’t cut out for it.

When FLCW (above) started up I was initially on board to sing one song, but at the age of 49 I thought I would try the guitar again and started teaching myself on YouTube.

By January 2018 I had learned enough to play on stage, but only because we have Stuart Neville, who is an amazing guitarist and is loud enough to cover my mistakes. Val McDermid, Doug Johnstone, Luca Veste and Mark Billingham are also in the band.

This June we are playing at Glastonbury, which is the stuff of teenage fantasy. Stuart even has a t-shirt made that says “Best Mid-Life Crisis Ever!”

10. The Advent Of Ambrose Parry

MARISA decided to step back from her job and do a Masters in the History of Medicine at Glasgow University in 2013. There were so many pressures on her as a consultant that she needed to do something else for a while.

It also made it easier for me to do my job as my promotional activities were very restricted when Jack was younger, as Marisa was on call over many weekends.

During her studies she came across James Young Simpson, and we thought his story could form the basis for a novel, so we decided to write it together. In her case it was a very courageous decision to do that rather than go back to work. We didn’t know how it would go but it has taken off far beyond our expectations. We’ve finished book two and are contracted to write a third.

It has changed her career and has opened up a whole new area of writing for me. We can also tour together.