Custard, Coathagers and Catwoman

I am currently down at my parents (alternately being spoiled and being treated as though I have regressed to being a six year old). This is a very useful visit, as well as being lovely, because the screenplay I have just finished is set in a retirement community. And my parents live in one. Handy, eh? I'm currently editing the screenplay so some of the things that have happened over the last couple of days may well find their way into it. Today, my mum took me to the bingo (having first said "You just mark off the numbers on the card with a cross." Gee, thanks mum.)

Sadly, we didn't win the cucumber, the gravy granules or the mint sauce (or the tin of Ambrosia Creamed Rice - which seemed to be the hot prize of the day, given the oohs and aahs that accompanied its announcement), but we did come home with this little haul (the custard powder and the coat-hanger were my winnings, the rest of the booty was down to my mum).

I also made the shock discovery that my mum once walked out of a Beverley Sisters concert in the 1950s "because of the foul language". Yes, this bevy of apple-cheeked beauties. No wonder my mum doesn't like my books... I have no idea what they said, sadly my mum can't remember.

Anyway, enough of that nonsense, and on to the Scottish crime fiction news.

First of all, Ray Banks is interviewed by Allan Guthrie over at Criminal-E. And here's Mr Banks again, at Guilty Conscience.

While on the subject of Luca Veste's excellent Guilty Conscience website, she's not Scottish, but she lives in Sunderland, so that's close enough, here's an interview with Julie Morrigan. If you like dark and warped, do read her stuff.

Over at I Meant To Read That - a review of Douglas Lindsay's THE LONG MIDNIGHT OF BARNEY THOMSON.

A bit of a half-hearted review of Christopher Brookmyre's WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED,

Pictures of all the Ian Rankin art sculptures. Aren't they brilliant?

Alexander McCall Smith on tackling rabies.

The Rap Sheet has a piece on Paul Johnston.

Week two of the Telegraph's Kate Atkinson discussion.

Finally, what all the well-dressed assassins are wearing these days. Au revoir, mes petits choufleurs.