0:00:00 > 0:00:02in some centres may come as a shock to the millions who visited them.
0:00:02 > 0:00:04Now it's time for Meet the Author.
0:00:04 > 0:00:04This week on Meet the Author Jim Naughtie talks with the writer MC
0:00:06 > 0:00:08Sergeant Hamish Macbeth lives in a sleepy place, Lochdubh,
0:00:08 > 0:00:11in the Highlands where you might think there's not much drama.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13But 33 books on, he's investigating yet another murder
0:00:13 > 0:00:22in Death of an Honest Man.
0:00:22 > 0:00:23Yet, in MC Beaton's novels, even when dastardly
0:00:23 > 0:00:26happenings are all around you, the pace of life in Lochdubh,
0:00:26 > 0:00:28with its regular cast of characters never seems to change.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31These are crime stories that are written to be reassuring.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34Welcome.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54What do you think Hamish Macbeth's secret is?
0:00:54 > 0:00:56I think...
0:00:56 > 0:01:01What fascinates people is he's totally unambitious.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05And what I try to do, you see, I think of myself more as an escape
0:01:05 > 0:01:09artist than a writer, is give someone something
0:01:09 > 0:01:13to take their mind off the troubles or a wet day or a journey.
0:01:13 > 0:01:18And it's based on a crofter that I still know up near Buey,
0:01:18 > 0:01:22and he would say, "Just fed the hens and I'm going to see my
0:01:22 > 0:01:23cousin in Hong Kong."
0:01:23 > 0:01:25And very laid-back.
0:01:25 > 0:01:26Fascinating.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29Yes, it is interesting.
0:01:29 > 0:01:31Of course, he doesn't want to leave Lochdubh,
0:01:31 > 0:01:32which is a lovely place, although terrible
0:01:32 > 0:01:34things keep happening.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36And he's terrified.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39Inspector Blair, who keeps interfering with him
0:01:39 > 0:01:43and his activities, is always a threat on the horizon
0:01:43 > 0:01:47but all he wants to do is stay with his own folk in the village
0:01:47 > 0:01:49and that's a very reassuring thing to readers, isn't it?
0:01:49 > 0:01:50Yes, it is.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53It observes the unity, keeping it all in a small place,
0:01:53 > 0:01:56and justice seen to be done.
0:01:56 > 0:02:01I admit it's rather old-fashioned because it can't be high-tech.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04The forensic lab's usually off playing shinty or drunk.
0:02:04 > 0:02:10But it's reassuring to know that it will all come all right in the end.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12I like stories with happy endings.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14You do, clearly.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18And there is also a great calm in the way that you write.
0:02:18 > 0:02:21There's no sense of hurry or frenzy, even when awful
0:02:21 > 0:02:24things are happening.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27There will be a moment of violence, we're not going to give away
0:02:27 > 0:02:30the plot because that would be a terrible thing to do,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33but there is a placid quality to the whole thing.
0:02:33 > 0:02:35That's really what you're aiming to do, isn't it?
0:02:35 > 0:02:36It is.
0:02:36 > 0:02:38Comfort reading.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42When I had a hip operation in Paris, I sent my sister up to WHSmith
0:02:42 > 0:02:45on the Rue de Rivoli to buy as many Agatha Christies as she
0:02:45 > 0:02:47could put her hands on.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51Because that is also...
0:02:51 > 0:02:54The between the wars detective stories which I love,
0:02:54 > 0:02:57it portrays a world, a small world, where
0:02:57 > 0:03:00there is always a squire, and there's the strawberries
0:03:00 > 0:03:02and the tennis parties.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04It was a world of the very small privileged few.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06Of course.
0:03:06 > 0:03:08But there's also something about these stories that
0:03:08 > 0:03:10will remind some people, I suppose, of something
0:03:10 > 0:03:13like the Father Brown stories, where nothing much seems to happen.
0:03:13 > 0:03:22It's a very gentle, unfolding of a story but it has a kind of...
0:03:22 > 0:03:29You know, simple elegance to it, just as a tail.
0:03:29 > 0:03:30Thank you very much.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34People often think because it's very easy to read, it must be easy
0:03:34 > 0:03:37to write but I only do one draft, and I've a friend in Paris who said,
0:03:37 > 0:03:39"You've got a very good literary background,
0:03:39 > 0:03:40"why don't you write something...
0:03:40 > 0:03:42"Different?"
0:03:42 > 0:03:47He meant better, you know?
0:03:47 > 0:03:50I said but that's the best I can do.
0:03:50 > 0:03:51You can't cheat the reader.
0:03:51 > 0:03:52It's the very best I can do.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54If it comes out frivolous...
0:03:54 > 0:04:03You have to check you don't use the same word twice,
0:04:03 > 0:04:05and you lay it on layers.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07A lot of people do confuse good writing, powerful writing,
0:04:07 > 0:04:16emotionally charged writing with complexity, you
0:04:16 > 0:04:18you know, with invention, with changes in form.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22You're saying, no, no, you can do it like that if you want
0:04:22 > 0:04:25but you can also do it just by writing good, old, plain English.
0:04:25 > 0:04:26Yes.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Also, an editor way back wondered why Agatha hadn't been published,
0:04:28 > 0:04:33for example, in this country.
0:04:33 > 0:04:38And I said they want the dark side, and I don't too dark.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40You know, I don't do torture.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42And anything with children being hurt, I run a mile.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45So, nobody gets electrodes and the ghoulies in my books, you know.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47Maybe not, but they do get murdered.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49The title of this, Death of an Honest Man,
0:04:49 > 0:04:50sort of gives it away.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52Somebody is killed in the village.
0:04:52 > 0:04:54It's always someone who deserves to be killed.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58There's nothing worse than people who tell it like it is.
0:04:58 > 0:05:04I speak as I find which means they don't care about your feelings.
0:05:04 > 0:05:07When people say he tells it like it is, they usually mean
0:05:07 > 0:05:08he tells it like it isn't.
0:05:08 > 0:05:09Yes, exactly!
0:05:09 > 0:05:10That's the truth, isn't it?
0:05:10 > 0:05:13Absolutely.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18You've got to get people to accept the absurd promise a bit
0:05:18 > 0:05:20You've got to get people to accept the absurd premise a bit
0:05:20 > 0:05:23like Midsomer Murders on television, where you have a village, and,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25indeed Miss Marple's village in Christie,
0:05:25 > 0:05:27you mentioned, where every other day there is a murder.
0:05:27 > 0:05:28Now, we know this doesn't happen.
0:05:28 > 0:05:29It just doesn't.
0:05:29 > 0:05:30It's fantasy.
0:05:30 > 0:05:31It's complete fantasy.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34There's been one murder in Sutherland the past 100 years.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37I make up for it.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39Yeah, you've certainly made up for it.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41Now, what kind of guy is Hamish Macbeth?
0:05:41 > 0:05:43He is, as you say, unambitious.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46There he is, with his shock of ginger hair, he knows
0:05:46 > 0:05:47everybody in the village...
0:05:47 > 0:05:48Oh, not ginger.
0:05:48 > 0:05:49Red.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53Right, red hair.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56And he, obviously, knows everybody in the village.
0:05:56 > 0:05:58What keeps him going?
0:05:58 > 0:06:01He loves the laid-back life.
0:06:01 > 0:06:02He is lazy.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04He's unambitious.
0:06:04 > 0:06:07He's intuitive.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11A lot of the highlanders have sort of rudimentary telepath if.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14A lot of the highlanders have sort of rudimentary telepathy.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16You have to be polite inside as well as out.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18Well, people talk about having extra powers and, you know,
0:06:18 > 0:06:21all the rest of it, in the Highlands, and stories
0:06:21 > 0:06:22about these things.
0:06:22 > 0:06:24Do you believe there is something lurking about?
0:06:24 > 0:06:27Instinctively they seem to know what you're thinking.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30It's rather unnerving.
0:06:30 > 0:06:35He has that quality and also just a general love of the land.
0:06:35 > 0:06:41Geography shapes people, you see.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44They said would I ever move Agatha Raisin to the Highlands?
0:06:44 > 0:06:45No.
0:06:45 > 0:06:46The other series, yes.
0:06:46 > 0:06:47It wouldn't fit in.
0:06:47 > 0:06:48It would be ridiculous.
0:06:48 > 0:06:49You obviously love the Highlands.
0:06:49 > 0:06:50Yes, my mother was Highland.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52When we lived in Glasgow, she used...
0:06:52 > 0:06:53She believed in fairies.
0:06:53 > 0:06:55She used to put a dish of milk for fairies.
0:06:55 > 0:06:56In Glasgow?
0:06:56 > 0:06:59In Glasgow.
0:06:59 > 0:07:01And the hedgehog drank it but we didn't like to
0:07:01 > 0:07:04destroy her illusions.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07Well, she knew it was an illusion, presumably but just kept it going.
0:07:08 > 0:07:09Oh, no!
0:07:09 > 0:07:10Oh, no?
0:07:10 > 0:07:11No!
0:07:11 > 0:07:19No, there's nothing madder than some type of Highlander!
0:07:19 > 0:07:22You're writing about a world that you don't want to see go,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24and you don't want to destroy, you don't want to...
0:07:24 > 0:07:28Have to experience too much turbulence.
0:07:28 > 0:07:33You just want it to be described understood and absorbed.
0:07:33 > 0:07:34Yes.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36And a bit of kindness.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41A little bit of decency underneath, which is considered old fashioned,
0:07:41 > 0:07:44except Alexander McCall Smith has brought it back into fashion.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48I read one of his Isabel Dalhousies and I thought, this is...
0:07:48 > 0:07:51And then I got addicted to them.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53Yes, well, addiction seems to have happened to Hamish Macbeth.
0:07:53 > 0:07:54Will he continue?
0:07:54 > 0:07:55Will there be more?
0:07:55 > 0:07:57Well, I'm contracted for two more.
0:07:57 > 0:07:59I'll try to retire.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02I said to my agent, I want fun.
0:08:02 > 0:08:07And I went on a Hebridean cruise, you know, the very expensive one?
0:08:07 > 0:08:08What a waste of money.
0:08:08 > 0:08:09Everyone was so nice.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11There was no one I wanted to kill.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13Yeah.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15It would have been nicer if there'd been a murder,
0:08:15 > 0:08:18then you could have...
0:08:18 > 0:08:19Not a murder, just someone obnoxious.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22I mean, the Orient express was marvellous for obnoxiousness
0:08:22 > 0:08:24but there was no one there.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26They were just absolutely marvellous.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29Waste of space, so I decided to go back to work.
0:08:29 > 0:08:30Back, more writing?
0:08:30 > 0:08:31More writing.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35MC Beaton, author of Death of an Honest Man and 33 books
0:08:35 > 0:08:38featuring Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, thank you very much.
0:08:38 > 0:08:44Thank you very much indeed for asking me.