MC Beaton Meet the Author

in some centres may come as a shock

to the millions who visited them.

Now it's time for Meet the Author.

This week on Meet the Author Jim

Naughtie talks with the writer MC

Sergeant Hamish Macbeth lives

in a sleepy place, Lochdubh,

in the Highlands where you might

think there's not much drama.

But 33 books on, he's

investigating yet another murder

in Death of an Honest Man.

Yet, in MC Beaton's novels,

even when dastardly

happenings are all around you,

the pace of life in Lochdubh,

with its regular cast of characters

never seems to change.

These are crime stories that

are written to be reassuring.

Welcome.

What do you think Hamish

Macbeth's secret is?

I think...

What fascinates people is he's

totally unambitious.

And what I try to do, you see,

I think of myself more as an escape

artist than a writer,

is give someone something

to take their mind off the troubles

or a wet day or a journey.

And it's based on a crofter that

I still know up near Buey,

and he would say, "Just fed the hens

and I'm going to see my

cousin in Hong Kong."

And very laid-back.

Fascinating.

Yes, it is interesting.

Of course, he doesn't

want to leave Lochdubh,

which is a lovely place,

although terrible

things keep happening.

And he's terrified.

Inspector Blair, who keeps

interfering with him

and his activities, is always

a threat on the horizon

but all he wants to do is stay

with his own folk in the village

and that's a very reassuring thing

to readers, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

It observes the unity,

keeping it all in a small place,

and justice seen to be done.

I admit it's rather old-fashioned

because it can't be high-tech.

The forensic lab's usually off

playing shinty or drunk.

But it's reassuring to know that it

will all come all right in the end.

I like stories with happy endings.

You do, clearly.

And there is also a great calm

in the way that you write.

There's no sense of hurry

or frenzy, even when awful

things are happening.

There will be a moment of violence,

we're not going to give away

the plot because that would be

a terrible thing to do,

but there is a placid

quality to the whole thing.

That's really what you're

aiming to do, isn't it?

It is.

Comfort reading.

When I had a hip operation in Paris,

I sent my sister up to WHSmith

on the Rue de Rivoli to buy as many

Agatha Christies as she

could put her hands on.

Because that is also...

The between the wars detective

stories which I love,

it portrays a world,

a small world, where

there is always a squire,

and there's the strawberries

and the tennis parties.

It was a world of the very

small privileged few.

Of course.

But there's also something

about these stories that

will remind some people,

I suppose, of something

like the Father Brown stories,

where nothing much seems to happen.

It's a very gentle, unfolding

of a story but it has a kind of...

You know, simple elegance

to it, just as a tail.

Thank you very much.

People often think because it's very

easy to read, it must be easy

to write but I only do one draft,

and I've a friend in Paris who said,

"You've got a very good

literary background,

"why don't you write something...

"Different?"

He meant better, you know?

I said but that's the best I can do.

You can't cheat the reader.

It's the very best I can do.

If it comes out frivolous...

You have to check you don't use

the same word twice,

and you lay it on layers.

A lot of people do confuse good

writing, powerful writing,

emotionally charged writing

with complexity, you

you know, with invention,

with changes in form.

You're saying, no, no,

you can do it like that if you want

but you can also do it just

by writing good, old, plain English.

Yes.

Also, an editor way back wondered

why Agatha hadn't been published,

for example, in this country.

And I said they want the dark side,

and I don't too dark.

You know, I don't do torture.

And anything with children

being hurt, I run a mile.

So, nobody gets electrodes and

the ghoulies in my books, you know.

Maybe not, but they do get murdered.

The title of this,

Death of an Honest Man,

sort of gives it away.

Somebody is killed in the village.

It's always someone

who deserves to be killed.

There's nothing worse than people

who tell it like it is.

I speak as I find which means

they don't care about your feelings.

When people say he tells it

like it is, they usually mean

he tells it like it isn't.

Yes, exactly!

That's the truth, isn't it?

Absolutely.

You've got to get people to accept

the absurd promise a bit

You've got to get people to accept

the absurd premise a bit

like Midsomer Murders on television,

where you have a village, and,

indeed Miss Marple's

village in Christie,

you mentioned, where every other

day there is a murder.

Now, we know this doesn't happen.

It just doesn't.

It's fantasy.

It's complete fantasy.

There's been one murder

in Sutherland the past 100 years.

I make up for it.

Yeah, you've certainly

made up for it.

Now, what kind of guy

is Hamish Macbeth?

He is, as you say, unambitious.

There he is, with his shock

of ginger hair, he knows

everybody in the village...

Oh, not ginger.

Red.

Right, red hair.

And he, obviously, knows

everybody in the village.

What keeps him going?

He loves the laid-back life.

He is lazy.

He's unambitious.

He's intuitive.

A lot of the highlanders have sort

of rudimentary telepath if.

A lot of the highlanders have sort

of rudimentary telepathy.

You have to be polite

inside as well as out.

Well, people talk about having extra

powers and, you know,

all the rest of it,

in the Highlands, and stories

about these things.

Do you believe there

is something lurking about?

Instinctively they seem to know

what you're thinking.

It's rather unnerving.

He has that quality and also just

a general love of the land.

Geography shapes people, you see.

They said would I ever move

Agatha Raisin to the Highlands?

No.

The other series, yes.

It wouldn't fit in.

It would be ridiculous.

You obviously love the Highlands.

Yes, my mother was Highland.

When we lived in

Glasgow, she used...

She believed in fairies.

She used to put a dish

of milk for fairies.

In Glasgow?

In Glasgow.

And the hedgehog drank it

but we didn't like to

destroy her illusions.

Well, she knew it was an illusion,

presumably but just kept it going.

Oh, no!

Oh, no?

No!

No, there's nothing madder

than some type of Highlander!

You're writing about a world that

you don't want to see go,

and you don't want to destroy,

you don't want to...

Have to experience

too much turbulence.

You just want it to be described

understood and absorbed.

Yes.

And a bit of kindness.

A little bit of decency underneath,

which is considered old fashioned,

except Alexander McCall Smith has

brought it back into fashion.

I read one of his Isabel Dalhousies

and I thought, this is...

And then I got addicted to them.

Yes, well, addiction seems to have

happened to Hamish Macbeth.

Will he continue?

Will there be more?

Well, I'm contracted for two more.

I'll try to retire.

I said to my agent, I want fun.

And I went on a Hebridean cruise,

you know, the very expensive one?

What a waste of money.

Everyone was so nice.

There was no one I wanted to kill.

Yeah.

It would have been nicer

if there'd been a murder,

then you could have...

Not a murder, just

someone obnoxious.

I mean, the Orient express

was marvellous for obnoxiousness

but there was no one there.

They were just

absolutely marvellous.

Waste of space, so I decided

to go back to work.

Back, more writing?

More writing.

MC Beaton, author of Death

of an Honest Man and 33 books

featuring Sergeant Hamish Macbeth,

thank you very much.

Thank you very much

indeed for asking me.