From Tartan Noir to Yeah Noir: Kiwi Scot crime author inks deal
By Stuff - Hamish McNeilly | Posted: Wednesday Jul 23, 2025
Life is good for Kiwi Scot crime writer Liam McIlvanney - he’s on a world book tour promoting his latest thriller, and it’s just been optioned for television.
Original Article with images: From Tartan Noir to Yeah Noir: Kiwi Scot crime author inks deal | Stuff
McIlvanney’s The Good Fatheris a thriller centred around the disappearance of a child and the impact on the family left behind.
It’s won praise from many quarters, including fellow Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, who said the novel was “heart-stopping and heart-rending, this is Liam McIlvanney's best novel yet”.
While writing can be a lonely business, McIlvanney is in the middle of a busy 22-leg book tour, which includes Melbourne, Hong Kong, London, Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh “and pretty much every town of note in Ayrshire and the West of Scotland”.
He says he’s enjoying the feedback from readers, and while some writers regard book tours as a chore, it’s different for him.
“I love it. I feel like I could do it indefinitely, touring continuously like the Rolling Stones.”
In addition to meeting readers and selling books, is McIlvanney’s deal with Synchronicity Films, which has optioned The Good Fatherfor television. It’s the same company that worked on The Tattooist of Auschwitz, based on the novel by fellow Kiwi writer Heather Morris.
McIlvanney says the company still has to persuade a television channel or streaming service to fund the production, but “they seem pretty confident”.
While a television deal was a “nice bonus”, McIlvanney says he was not a writer who pens a thriller with visual elements at the forefront of his mind.
“To me, writing is primarily tweaking syntax to make a sentence tighter, or replacing a three-syllable word with a two-syllable word to improve the rhythm.”
Answering “an email in an idle moment” from a recruitment company about a role as professor of Scottish Studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, led to McIlvanney’s move to New Zealand.
“As a Scottish studies academic, you don’t get too many opportunities to ply your trade overseas.”
While his knowledge of New Zealand was limited, “I was lucky enough to be offered the job and I jumped at the chance, moving to Dunedin with my wife and three (now four) sons in 2009.
“It’s been a fantastic move, in all sorts of ways. I’m a New Zealand citizen, and very proud to be one.”
The Good Father is his sixth novel. McIlvanney was finishing his first book, All the Colours of the Town, when he accepted the Otago job.
“In fact, you can probably tell which page I was on when the job offer came through, as references to Central Otago pinot noir start to creep into the novel.”
McIlvanney continues to write about Scotland, particularly Ayrshire, Glasgow, and West of Scotland.
“The stuff that really matters to a novelist – the quality of the light, the palette of the landscape, the accent and idiom of the people, the stories they tell and the songs that they sing – is all embedded in my memory.
“I can access it at any time, whether I’m on the spot or 12,000 miles away in New Zealand.”
McIlvanney, via his deprecating Scottish Kiwi humour, describes himself as a “slow-motion crime writer”, but his latest book came about “pretty quickly, by my standards”.
From go to whoa, it took around 18 months, almost half the time of his other thrillers.
So what does the Kiwi Scot crime writer miss most about Scotland when he is in New Zealand, and vice versa?
At the moment, he’s missing his nightly 6.5km walk through the Dunedin hill suburbs.
“The same route, night after night. I really miss that when I’m in Scotland. I can’t wait to get back to it.
“When I’m in New Zealand, what I miss most about Scotland is haddock. I eat haddock at every opportunity. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. I would mainline haddock if I could.”