It wasn’t until she’d hit the age of 50 that Scots author Lin Anderson decided to finally follow her dream of becoming a hit novelist.
The Greenock-born writer quit her job as a maths and computing teacher, and put pen to paper creating the Rhona McLeod novels about a determined and plucky forensic scientist. And it proved to be a great move for Lin, whose books have been such a massive hit that they’re now being adapted for a special TV series, due to be screened within the next year.
Explaining how she ended up taking the leap, Lin said: “I think a lot of women like myself change careers…I had three children, I was a teacher for many years and I had a career doing that. But once my children reached a certain age I thought ‘right now is my time to have a go at doing something I’d always fancied trying’.”
“It was my 50th birthday, I came home from school and I walked in and he (my husband) was waiting with a silver tray and a mixed martini and an invitation to a Scottish castle for my birthday and he said ‘right ok this weekend is make your mind up time, what are you going to do?’.”
Lin soon got to work on her novels, creating the character of Rhona McCleod after being inspired by a former pupil of hers, Emma Hart, who became a forensic scientist with The Met (Metropolitan Police Service).
Crime solving clearly runs in Lin’s family, with her father, a highly respected former detective inspector with Greenock CID, who also inspired another of her characters in the books, McCleod's mentor Bill Wilson.
As well as using her father and former pupils career choices as a base for her novels, Lin also enlists the help of a forensic science specialist at Glasgow University, who advises the author of the factual aspects of her books.
The result has been a series of hugely popular, gripping stories which have captured the attention of the nation, and Lin has recently been working closely with TV writers to ensure the tales are reproduced faithfully for the small screen version.
Lin said: “I got to meet the writers and they talked to me a lot about the characters and I was really, really pleased with their take on the characters, I felt like they really knew them. And they did say to me ‘is there anything you’re really worried about?’ and there was one thing I felt I had to say, I said ‘you know Rhona McCleod is not a wee lassie’ and they said ‘no we know that in fact that’s why we like her so much’.
The TV series based on Lin Anderson’s books will be on screen within the next year. In the meantime you can find out more about the author from her website www.lin-anderson.com.
