Dyed in the Wool

Shadows & Ink 2025-05-26

Hey, hope it's a nice bank holiday for you – if you don't celebrate, then I hope you're having fun anyway...

Well, Friday saw me send on the final of the first four books I ever published (though it's possible I wrote the vampire one that's now Lost Cause between Fire in the Blood and Stab in the Dark, I can't quite remember…) to my editors.

If you remember, the reason for this was to make the audiobooks easier to narrate and more stylistically similar to the better books – I mean the later books. Dead in the Water is the first in the Police Scotland series, which I revamped last year, and comes out in audio on the 1st June... With the second and third coming on the 15th and 29th... Then books dropping every fortnight until they're all done. It's a huge commitment from Angus to narrate so many books, but it's been hell on earth for me going through these ancient books like an insane man.

Going back into Cullen's world was a weird experience. The first three were MESSY as hell and the fourth was MESSY as heck. No matter how many times I edited them back in the day, these were rough and the flow was all over the place. The biggest changes I've made are about making them readable and logical, with more solid storytelling (I hope). Some big changes made to make the whole piece less melodramatic, which I mean stuff happening too quickly – a big storyline takes place over three books rather than one, so it's stronger for it. Cullen moans a lot less.

Oh, and I changed the locations... It annoyed me how book 1 (now book 2) was Edinburgh/Leith, then it went out for two books in East Lothian, in the daft fictional town of Garleton, then to the daft fictional town of Ravencraig in West Lothian. So, I've made them in real locations. North Berwick in East Lothian for Devil in the Detail, which is where I used to live. The Dunpender distillery in Fire in the Blood, which has an easter egg in Fenchurch 3, is now in Midlothian, just outside of Dalkeith. And this one, Stab in the Dark (originally published as Dyed in the Wool), is now set in Linlithgow, Bathgate and Bo'ness. I'm happy with that, but the only regret is I can't change Cullen's hometown from the fictional Dalhousie. Not sure why I did all of that inventing towns nonsense, but I've learned that writing about real places is the way to go.

Anyway, they're all ready to go, except for Stab in the Dark. Just waiting to pair up the releases with the audio editions. Hopefully anyone who's bought the old ones will get the new editions... New covers ready to rock…

And that's me for a few weeks. I'm in hospital tomorrow for my second ablation so I'll be taking some time off to recover from that.

Speak soon,

Ed