The photo above is from Dundee Law, a hill that is the highest point in Dundee. The iconic Tay Rail Bridge is in the middle of the photo, its predecessor immortalized (if that’s the word for it) by William McGonagall in his epically bad Tay Bridge Disaster.

Among other clinking stanzas, we get:

“…Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.”

Though I’d never been to Dundee until 2019, a close friend, Father Frank, grew up in nearby Monifieth, and through him I was already conversant in McGonagall from past Burns Nights where we interspersed Burns poetry with that of Dundee’s idjit poet laureate. The Sunderland Calamity was a particular favorite, and it’s particularly eye-watering. It begins:

’Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883,
That about 200 children were launch’d into eternity…

So, I came to Dundee knowing very little about the place except some of the works of its worst poet, and that its claim to fame was the “three J’s”: jam, jute and journalism. As a marmalade addict, I was eager to avail myself of what Dundee had to offer!

I came because Dundee, along with Glasgow, had been anomalies during the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014, which is the inciting event from which everything in the Bastard Verdict issues. In both cities, preference for independence was very high. Indeed, there had been a twenty percent increase in voter turnout for the referendum all across Scotland–except in the two places that early polling said would have both the highest turnout and the highest preference for Yes, for Independence.

As well as researching and studying the actual method of counting the ballots, I sought input from UK friends who had been tellers (‘poll watchers’ in the US), and those who supervised actual vote counts. But I needed places for these things to happen, and I needed them to seem real.

I stayed in a lovely B&B along Perth Road, west of the University of Dundee. Because I had been around the neigborhood so often (or out of laziness) I had Imogen stay in the same (unnamed) B&B I had used as my base. It had a lovely, commanding view of the rail bridge.

I was able to have Imogen eat at a pub near the university…

And up the hill along nearby Hyndford Road, seemed just posh enough for the character, the ARO, Donald Alban.

I found the courthouse, where I decided the attorney, Ewan Johnston, plied his trade, and I was pleased to find that there were a number of law offices nearby, along Ward Road. Once again, I didn’t use any of the nearby offices, but locating the fictional office along Ward Road had verisimilitude.

And a little bit along Ward Road, is The Howff, a cemetery, which the council maintains beautifully. The Howff and Ward Road would be the scene of…well, I should let you read that for yourself.

# # #

Bastard Verdict is available now in paperback, and eReader!

YOU DON’T NEED TO WIN, JUST DON’T LOSE
In politics, people cheat to win, or because they’re afraid to lose. The difference can be deadly.

Imogen will risk what’s left of her standing, her career–and maybe her life–to get at the truth.

James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. To get the details right for the new thriller, he drew on his boyhood in Scotland and scouted locations for scenes in the book while attending Bloody Scotland.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

He’s a member of MWA, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the new president of the Delaware Valley Sisters in Crime chapter. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle. His current, work-in-progress is a mystery-thriller set in Oregon’s wine country…A (pinot) Noir, called Witness Tree.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

His most recent short fiction is below. The first is available for online reading.

“Eight O’Clock Sharp” in Retreats from Oblivion: the Journal of NoirCon. (free online)
Set in Philadelphia’s 9th Street Market, Thomas is a man outside of time, forgotten, but trying to do the right thing while contending with avaricious forces.

“Ultimatum Games” in Rock and Hard Place magazine issue #7
A rare book heist, bad decisions. The narrator and his partner-in-crime clash over evolving bourgeois norms.

“Nostalgia” in Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 3
An armed group tries to resurrect a past that never was as they struggle with change.