Rob McInroy
Rob McInroy is the author of CWA John Creasey First Blood Dagger-longlisted novel Cuddies Strip, based on true crimes in 1930s Scotland, and its follow-up, Barossa Street, both published by Ringwood Publishing. His short stories have won and been placed in over twenty competitions. A short story, “Fresh Watter”, was published in New Writing Scotland 39 in 2021. In 2018 he was a winner of the Bradford Literature Festival Northern Noir Crime Novel competition with Cuddies Strip and in 2019, he won the Darling Axe Novel First Page Prize with another novel, Cloudland. He was born in Crieff, Perthshire and his writing is all based on the Perthshire area, from the 1920s to the 2010s.
Rob can be found at
Website: robmcinroy.co.uk
Instagram: @mcinrob
Facebook: facebook.com/muirtonenclosurepress
Twitter: @McInRob
Tell me what inspired you to write your book?
I came across a photograph of a funeral cortege passing through Perth in 1935, watched by hundreds of onlookers, and the detail said it was the funeral of a young boy murdered on the Cuddies Strip on the outskirts of the city. I’d never heard the story so I did some research and came across this extraordinary story and knew I had to write it.
How hard was it to get your first book published?
I’m still trying to get my first book published! My second book got picked up by independent Ringwood Publishing from Glasgow quite quickly.
Cuddies Strip
What’s the favourite reaction you’ve had to your book?
A reader said she had a book crush on my central character, Bob Kelty. That was fantastic, because it showed the character really resonated.
What can you tell us about your next book?
It’s July 1939, six weeks before the outbreak of World War Two, and 3500 Rover Scouts from all over the world arrive at Monzie Castle outside Crieff, Perthshire for the International Rover Scout Moot. Among them is a murderer.
Bob Kelty and his friends find the body of a murdered man on the outskirts of the campsite. But when they report it to the police they find that no one is interested.
Question: When is a murder not a murder?
Answer: When the authorities say so.
Do you take notice of online reviews?
They’ve mostly been positive. The couple of one stars I’ve had on Amazon and Good Reads haven’t added any commentary, which is actually a bit annoying. I’d like to know what it is they didn’t enjoy.
Would you ever consider writing outside your current genre?
I kind of push at the boundaries of crime fiction anyway, and my first novel, which is still unpublished, though I retain hopes, wasn’t a crime novel, even though it shares some characters in my series.
What did you do before (or still do) you became a writer?
I work in local government as a Business Change Manager, seeking to make millions of pounds of savings from Council budgets.
Which author(s) inspire you?
Carson McCullers and Marilynne Robinson.
Carson McCullers was only 23 when she wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I simply cannot fathom how she could have had such an insight into the human condition at that age. Aged 23 my life still revolved around drinking and nights out.
And Marilynne Robinson’s characterisation is magnificent. Even a man who, in real life, I would struggle to connect with, like John Ames, is written with such warmth and empathy you are drawn into his world and worldview.
How much (if any) say do you have in your book covers?
To date I’ve had a lot of input. My first novel, Cuddies Strip, uses a photograph of the Cuddies Strip that I took, and I sourced the photograph for me second novel, Barossa Street.
Were you a big reader as a child?
Yes, I was in the library most evenings.
Barossa Street
What were your favourite childhood books?
The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linkater. Two girls are naughty when the wind is on the moon and get turned into animals. It was so inventive, the first time I’d read anything so fantastical.
Do you have any rituals when writing?
First draft longhand, then typed up and not edited until the draft is complete. In the first draft of my third book, which will be out in Spring 2024, a character dies twice because I changed my mind but didn’t go back to rewrite it.
How many books are in your own physical TBR pile?
It’s very nearly a roomful….
Any plans or projects in the near future you can tell us about?
My series started in 1935 and it will follow the central character, Bob Kelty, through until the 1980s. Along the way it will take in Hugh McDiarmid, Hamish Henderson, Alec Douglas Home and other historical figures.
I’m doing a session with three other authors, Flora Johnson, LA Kristiansen and Carol Margaret Davison, in Typewronger, Edinburgh, on November 13th, discussing historical fiction,.
and finally, what inspired you to write the genre you do?
I fell into it. My first novel, Cuddies Strip, is a fictionalised account of true crimes that occurred in Perth in 1935. When I first read the story, and in particular what happened to the central character, Marjory Fenwick, I just knew I had to write about it. Having written a crime novel, it made sense to write another, and the series was born.
