My favourite Highland locations for criminal inspiration!

Do you love the Scottish Highlands? Do you love crime fiction?

I can’t get enough of either and they came together to create my DI Monica Kennedy crime series.

Since I was a kid growing up in lowland Scotland I’ve had a thing about the Highlands. From my bedroom window I could see Ben Ledi in the distance, one of the first mountains in the Trossachs. In summer it might look green and hazy until late in the evening giving a sense of a Celtic fairytale, in winter coated in snow it became my symbol of the frozen north. Years later I moved to Inverness, the city in the Highlands, to explore the landscape up here: the amazing beaches, the atmospheric mountains and glens.

I’ve been a huge fan of Scottish crime fiction since pretty much the same time I was staring out that window, devouring the modern greats like Ian Rankin and Val McDermid (and watching their TV adaptations), as well as being obsessed with Robert Louis Stevenson, the original thriller writer. Around the time I moved to the Highlands in my twenties my partner and her family were immersed in Scandi-Crime. From their recommends I discovered and fell in love with the Wallander series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Miss Similla’s Feeling For Snow, books by Jo Nesbo and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and the classic TV shows like The Killing and The Bridge, to name just a few.

All those crime and thriller influences sort of merged together to create the DI Monica Kennedy series, with the amazing highland landscape forming the backdrop for her dark adventures! Below are a handful of the many locations that inspired the first two novels in the series.

Gairloch

This is where my relationship with DI Monica Kennedy began, on a beach near Gairloch on the west coast of the Highlands. I was walking with my partner when we started chatting about what it would be like to find a dead body out in this beautiful but remote and wind scoured location. In exploring the idea Monica Kennedy emerged in From The Shadows.

Torridon

Torridon: beautiful mountains made from some of the oldest rock in Europe. You can't shake the feeling that there should be a Tyrannosaurus Rex wandering among the hills and Pterodactyls swooping overhead. I couldn't resist putting one of my favourite scenes in From The Shadows here - a dark contrast with this jaw droppingly beautiful landscape.

Inverness - the city in the highland wilderness

Inverness City

I've lived close to Inverness, and worked in it for years, and love the place! It's interesting culturally and historically with both the famous Culloden Battlefield and Loch Ness nearby (not to mention Clava Cairns of Outlander fame!). But what I find most inspiring is the mix of the urban environment surrounded by so much wilderness. It gives an amazing mix of beauty with just enough grittiness to make the perfect hub for crime fiction.

River Beauly

In the past year (writing in July 2021) this pool became a favourite spot to swim during lockdown! Before that I’d often driven past and found the mix of the woodland with the imposing wall of the Kilmorack dam striking. Being a crime fan I inevitably imagined someone fishing body parts out from the river, which became one of the opening scenes in Dark Waters (although not the most encouraging image to inspire a swim…).

Glen Strathfarrar

The road which runs down the glen is private, used to access a dam. You can get access, but only at certain times and you have to register with a gatekeeper. Something about the limited access makes the glen feel extra exciting for me - as if going on an adventure. Especially combined with the deep tunnels dug into the mountains for the hydro-electric projects: like a monster’s cave from a myth. Those elements came together to inspire much of the story of Dark Waters.

These are just a few of the locations that have inspired my writing. What Highland locations do you love? And where would you most love to see a crime fiction novel set?

My first novel From The Shadows on location in the highlands!