“Plays criticising the government make the second most boring evenings ever invented,” says Sir Humphrey Appleby to his minister in the delicious (and still, all-too-relevant) Yes, Minister series – “The Patron of the Arts” – (sea.2/ep.6).

The minister pauses, then asks him: “What are the most boring?”
Sir Humphrey responds: “Those praising the government.”

To write political thrillers as I do is delicate. Readers seeking partisan, anger-porn that affirms their view one way or the other have ample fodder elsewhere, and I want my stories to be something else. As I’ve written before, stories are about questions, not answers.

In my work, I’m drawn to what lies behind the official explanations and stories we’re told. What is the flip side of the answer the powerful would like us to accept? What (if anything) is being concealed? Who would be involved? What is their story, what are the consequences of their choices?

I write stories because it’s how I understand the world and the questions I have about it. My work, as much as it’s about characters in action, is animated by politics, by threats to the sovereignty of people to determine their own future and, through the ballot, to hold those in power accountable. But it isn’t meant to be partisan. Unless you regard democracy itself as partisan.

Bastard Verdict.
September 18 marked the 10 year anniversary of the 2014 Referendum on Scottish Independence, in which voters were asked, “Should Scotland be an independent country?” It failed. 55% voted ‘No,’ to independence, while 45% voted ‘Yes.’ The dismay over this sad anniversary grew starker earlier this month, when, on October 12 we learned of the death of Alex Salmon, former First Minister of Scotland, and the most visible architect of that referendum. The quote that titles this post comes from him.

I got to meet Salmond when he gave a talk at Princeton in 2013. He was a fantastic speaker. The focus of his talk was Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, which forced me to reread Smith, and it gave me the epigram for my second novel, Dark Network – “Virtue is to be feared more than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”

I lived in Scotland as a boy, but I had to watch the referendum from the sidelines here in the US. Nevertheless, I felt the failure of the vote keenly, and I wanted to understand it. My knowledge of the Scottish National Party (SNP)–and hopes for its success–began in 1974, when we lived in Edinburgh. My father, a US political scientist, had come to study the politics of independence during a sabbatical year at Strathclyde University.

As I began gathering notes for a new thriller about the referendum, the process led me to a different story and question: What if there had been irregularities in the referendum? What if, as a second (fictional) referendum was gathering strength, those who had interfered in 2014 felt that they needed to make sure their involvement stayed hidden? What would the conspirators do? Further, what if those who perpetrated the election interference weren’t in government at the time but had gained their places at the table through their plot?

I had not initially envisioned it as a story involving my character, the FBI Agent, Imogen Trager, but she insisted on being a part of it. (After all that has happened to her in the first books, she takes a year off to do some research at the University of Glasgow, to keep her head down and consider her next steps–only, like Michael Corleone, to get pulled back in!)

Ten years ago, hope for the future shined brightly amidst the fear-mongering and mendacity (and that hope endures, albeit somewhat dulled). At the time, retirees were told that their pensions would be at risk in a Scotland independent from the UK. The predictable media suspects treated the run-up to the referendum with derision and condescension. The queen weighed in four days before the vote, saying that Scotland should “think very carefully about the future,” an unsubtle hint. Pro-European Union voters were told that leaving the UK would mean Scotland couldn’t participate in the EU. Neither the pension scare nor the EU ouster was true of course (except later, in 2016, when the UK voted in favor of Brexit–even though voters in Scotland voted 62% in favor of remaining in the EU) It wasn’t enough of a counterweight, and England dragged its “partners” out of the EU).

Three of the four highest returns for Yes were in Strathclyde – Glasgow City, West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire. The fourth was Dundee City Council. While the map looks very red, 20 per cent of the population lives within those four blue districts. Roughly 2 million voted No, and 1.6 million voted Yes.

As aghast as I am about the above political maneuvering, it’s of a type that’s depressingly common during an election cycle. But as I watched the ham-fisted way the Tory party managed Brexit (if managed is the word for it), I began to wonder how Westminster would have reacted to a successful referendum, and what kind of legal and extra-judicial mischief they might get up to. At stake are markets, airfields, a nuclear submarine base, and the energy wealth of the North Sea. And of course Britain’s standing in the world.

As I wrote the story, traveling back and forth to Scotland on two occasions and corresponding with academics about certain aspects of the book, I struggled with my partisan feelings over the referendum, and I think that tension helped the book. Two of the principle characters did not favor independence, but they are both aghast that there may have been irregularities. Oddly, a petty criminal character becomes something like the moral center of the story.

For the story, I focused on Glasgow and Dundee, and I brought back Imogen Trager (an FBI elections specialist) into service. I felt that a novel told from the perspective of an American in Scotland–my own point of view–would be more authentic. That novel became Bastard Verdict, named for the “not proven” verdict in Scottish Law. The tension I wrestled with, between telling a good story on the one hand and venting my anger and disappointment on the other, gave the novel an energy and clarity I doubt I would have managed if I given in to the disappointment.

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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. His novel-in-progress is called Witness Tree, about a conspiracy set in Oregon’s wine coutry, a (pinot) noir tale of murder and corruption.

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 Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

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