Wednesday 15th November - 3.30pm Colinton Library

Pamela Gordon Hoad

Dorothy Dunnett: Colinton’s Queen of Historical Fiction

Admired by academics, feted by her peers and loved by her readers, historical novelist (and Colinton resident) Dorothy Dunnett was one of the greatest Scottish writers of the 20th century. Her meticulously researched books are vibrant with life, intelligence and consummate storytelling. And her legions of fans from all over the world still meet in person and online to fiercely debate these deviously plotted novels. Dunnett’s first six-book series, The Lymond Chronicles, introduced Francis Crawford of Lymond, 16th-century Scottish soldier of fortune, scholar and wit, and was snapped up by the legendary American editor who discovered Gone With The Wind. These were interspersed with a series of light-hearted detective stories featuring a bespectacled gentleman sailor- spy, Johnson Johnson. Then, after years of exhaustive research, came King Hereafter, which examined Macbeth’s ‘real’ identity and produced a theory that set historians aquiver. Dunnett’s final work, the eight-volume House of Niccolò series, introduced another extraordinary hero, Nicholas de Fleury. This time it was 15th-century commerce and banking that had captured her imagination. In Dunnett's Centenary year, Pamela Gordon Hoad, member of the Dorothy Dunnett Society and writer of the Harry Somers historical thrillers, celebrates Dunnett’s fiction, unsurpassed for vivid characters, drama and thought-provoking subtlety.