Ian’s end of year round-up: 2025
What a ride…
This year was my wife Miranda’s idea. Her thinking being: while we still have the use of our faculties, we should chalk off some bucket-list destinations. I now reckon she was right, too – I’ve lost too many people this year, family members, author friends, and drinking pals. And meantime, I’ve visited some wonderful places.
We started at a run, flying to Miami mid-January and hopping on a ship that would take us around South America. I loved Rio and Buenos Aires especially, plus Lima, but two highlights stand out in my memory: Iguazu Falls and the Panama Canal. I’d revisit both in a heartbeat. It takes a while to circumnavigate South America though, with plenty of days spent entirely at sea. Luckily I’d taken paper and pen with me so I could busy myself with a writing project. It’s still hush-hush but there will be news soon. When the book does appear, it will feature a thank you to one of the ship’s other guests, who loaned me a notebook computer so I could type up my notes.
We were away two months in total, and on my return to Edinburgh I began turning those notes into a novel, to be published in 2026. But if I say any more, my publisher will rap my knuckles with a ruler.
2025 also saw a lot of hard work behind the scenes to ensure that season two of the Rebus TV reboot (starring Richard Rankin) will happen – something else to look forward to in 2026. And having enjoyed writing my previous stage play, Rebus: A Game Called Malice, I’ve been trying to conjure its successor to life, so far falling just short – but one more lightbulb over my head might be all it requires.
I celebrated my 65th birthday (April 28th) in Lisbon and it was decided that this should coincide with a country-wide power cut which necessitated a celebratory slap-up dinner of bread and cheese. It’s not an occasion I’m likely to forget. Top tip: always take a power-bank on holiday. And don’t book hotels with no natural light…
At the start of May I was in Cromarty for the annual Cromarty Crime shindig and soon after I was back on an airplane, this time heading for New Zealand and Australia. I appeared at book festivals in Auckland and Sydney and also did events in Brisbane and Canberra. My first morning in Brisbane, I tripped while out jogging, which meant spending more time than intended at the mercy of various doctors and nurses. I still carry the scars, and some of the books I signed might bear the slightest smudge of blood… It was a great trip though. We toured the wineries of Marlborough, Adelaide Hills and Margaret River, and took The Ghan (a well-appointed train) from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the far north. My top-secret-hush-hush novel travelled with me, but I confess I never really got time to work on it. While I was in the Antipodes, however, Midnight and Blue kept my spirits up due to the newly-released paperback spending five weeks in the UK top ten. Cheers!
Back home, a few weeks ‘off-grid’ in Cromarty gave me the chance to finish polishing the 2026 novel, and once I’d sent it off to my publisher I was free to begin travelling again, taking another much shorter cruise around Ireland. This meant I missed the Edinburgh Book Festival, possibly for the first year ever, but needs must, and I was back home in time to be the inaugural guest curator of Bloody Scotland. What a weekend that was, starting with a procession that included a mahoosive effigy of your truly – I was worried they were going to burn it at the end, possibly with me trapped inside. But instead we celebrated with a series of fantastic talks and related events, covering everything from whisky to war crimes.
And then I was off again – this time to Trieste to board another ship, destined for Barcelona. I like days at sea. I get to ‘switch off’ and when I do that sometimes fresh ideas flow. Things don’t always work out – a couple of projects this year have failed to come to fruition. But if nothing else, at least I’ll have got a wheen of reading done! Anyway, it was a short cruise but it allowed me to disembark at Barcelona and take a train (okay, three trains) to Pau in southwest France for their annual crime fiction festival. For whatever reason, my fellow author Abir Mukherjee seemed to be the festival’s ‘godfather’ and he kept the laughs (and the wine and beer) flowing. At the signing table I was next to Dominick Nolan, a writer I’d long admired but hadn’t met. If you’ve not read him – or Abir come to that – they’re well worth checking out.
Then it was back to the UK and the Cliveden Literature Festival where I was on a very jolly panel with Anthony Horowitz and Hallie Rubenhold. After which I managed a brilliant week in Berlin with my son Jack, and one last crime fiction festival of the year – in Venice. I have to say, Venice Noir is the most beautiful book festival I’ve ever attended. So much so, I’m planning to return next year as an audience member.
So, yes, all in all a year of travel. But also one book written and one paperback published. I’m confident I’ll be doing less travelling in 2026, which means more time for writing – but let’s see.
Meantime, here are my favourite five films, albums and books of 2025:
The first film I watched this year was also one of the best – Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes. Proper grown-up storytelling. I also really enjoyed Flow, ostensibly a cartoon film for kids, but with charm, warmth and wit to spare, along with drama and adventure. The Ballad of Wallis Island won me over by never quite going where I thought it would, and eschewing obvious saccharine along the way. Then I watched Sinners, which was amazing up until the horror tropes kicked in. But still, two-thirds of a truly great movie. I had a similar feeling while watching Weapons: it was brilliantly conceived but the sudden change of gears at the end didn’t work for me, though I know many other viewers disagree!
Although I’ve been away a lot, and record shops were often thin on the ground, streaming kept me in touch with new releases, the best of which I then bought on vinyl or CD when the chance presented itself. Van Morrison’s Remembering Now was an astonishing return to form and an album that started strongly then got better as it went on. Aged 80, his voice is still the best in the business. Gogo Penguin were new to me, but I loved Necessary Fictions, which fuses electronica with jazz and funk to thrilling effect. Greg Foat’s Opening Time is another album that takes jazz in an interesting direction, often sounding like a noir movie waiting to be made. It’s probably a couple of years since I saw the Colin Steele Quartet play the music of The Blue Nile live. The studio version was released this year and it’s terrific. Dave Milligan’s arrangements capture the mood of the band’s output but leave space for jazz solos and improvisations. A tasty treat. Finally, it’s always a good year when Kathryn Williams releases a new record and Mystery Park is an outstanding addition to her catalogue. A voice and lyrics to melt the heart and salve the troubled mind – but beware the occasional sliver of ice…
And so to books. Sue Prideaux’s Wild Thing is a biography of artist Paul Gauguin. Prideaux does a restoration job on his reputation in prose that zips along. I learned that he had been left in pain most of his life after a gang of ruffians attacked him while shod in clogs; that he once visited Aberdeen during his time as a seaman; and that he helped build the Panama Canal. The Two Roberts by Damian Barr is a novel about a pair of real-life Scottish painters who found success in London despite the best attempts of their fiery relationship to derail them. Beautifully written and poignant. You will want to search out their artworks afterwards. Kate Atkinson’s Death at the Sign of the Rook is an ingeniously-constructed whodunnit that also manages to be a critique of the form. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny, with moments that could have come from a Joe Orton farce. Atkinson is always stretching herself – and the reader. She’s just brilliant. There are some similarities with another pick, Ragnar Jonasson’s The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer. Set in Iceland, a famous author has vanished and a cop must solve the case while trying to avoid falling foul of an abusive ex-partner. Jonasson is a huge fan of Agatha Christie and it shows, but he also writes clever and playful stories which manage to be as affecting as they are effective. My son bought me Geoff Dyer’s But Beautiful for Father’s Day. It’s a linked sequence of fictional vignettes bringing to life some of the great jazz musicians of the twentieth century. Dyer writes poetically and with great insight – you just wish some of these geniuses had enjoyed happier lives and more glorious final acts.
If you’ve read this far, I doff my pork-pie hat to you.
Have a great Christmas and New Year. Here’s to 2026…
Ian
