What is the title of your latest release?
THIS HOUSE OF BURNING BONES
(or THOBB for short, which has the bonus of sounding a bit rude…)
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
In the heat of a blistering summer, Aberdeen’s police are struggling: half the force is off sick, all leave has been cancelled, someone’s firebombed a hotel full of migrants, and there’s a massive protest march happening this Saturday. But, as bad as everything seems, it’s all about to get much, much worse . . .
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
That’s an easy one – this book marks the 20th anniversary of my Logan McRae series, so it had to be set in Aberdeen, like the first one. Plus, I grew up in the northeast of Scotland, so this landscape and its people are scrimshawed into my bones.
Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Yup. Unlike a lot of crime-fiction protagonists, Logan is a normal guy. Nearly all the big detectives are weird, larger than life characters, who’d probably get a bit wearing in normal life, but Logan’s just like you and me – only caught up in a series of abnormal (and frequently horrible) events.
And hanging out would be even better if he brought his sometimes-sidekick Tufty with him. As Tufty’s a bit silly, a complete geek, funny, and smart as a box of crackers.
What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Doing his best.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That no matter how horrible I think something I’ve made up is, real life can always trump it.
I was two days away from finishing the book, when there were race riots in the UK, stirred up by the right-wing press. And the chinless thugs who went out to smash, and loot, and burn, set fire to a hotel with migrants inside. Which was pretty much the skeleton I’d draped my novel’s flesh over.
So perhaps the lesson should be: “Never underestimate the awfulness of stupid people.”
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I’m an inveterate fiddler and edit everything all the time. Even when it comes to page proofs, I’m wielding the red pen (I’ll normally go through two full Biros when making changes to the proofs). When I’m writing: what happens now changes what happens next, so there’s no point me charging ahead when I know something is wrong and could be better. Which is why my first draft usually takes me four months.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
One doesn’t get to be the shape I am (picture a hairy beanbag) by discriminating on the food front! There are loads of things we like as a special treat. The problem is that as cooking is my only real hobby, there are a lot of special treats on the plate…
Describe your writing space/office!
The Oubliette.
It’s a horrible little room at the front of the house, and it’s south facing, so if the sun’s shining – which does occasionally happen in Aberdeenshire – I have to close all the blinds, otherwise I can’t see the computer screens. Which essentially means I write in a near permanent state of gloom.
It also needs a damn good tidy.
Who is an author you admire?
I don’t think “admiration” is a good thing when it comes to writers. It’s fine to enjoy people’s work, but writers are every bit as fallible as everyone else and putting them on pedestals isn’t necessarily a good idea. As recent events have so ably demonstrated…
But I enjoy the work of people like Marian Keyes, R.D. Wingfield, Adrian Hyland, M.C. Beaton, and Tad Williams (and many, many others). I’m just hoping none of them turn out to be/have been serial killers.
Is there a book that changed your life?
Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne. I was just a wee boy at the time and it’s the book that lives deep in the depths of my sticky black heart, because it’s the book that made me realize READING IS GREAT!!! Those pages contained a magical world, completely different to the one I lived in, and every other book was the same. From that moment on, the school library contained entire galaxies, universes for me to explore. Which is why it’s so infuriating to see governments and councils and morons trying to tear our libraries down.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I was sitting in a meeting room, about 430 miles from home, surrounded by miserable computer programmers (working to produce a massive hydrocarbon-accounting system {which is every bit as exciting as it sounds}), when the email came in from my agent that HarperCollins had offered a three-book deal for world rights. That was quite a surreal day.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I don’t have one. I know you’d expect me to shout, “CRIME FICTION FOR THE WIN!” but I like horror, fantasy, historical, autobiography, cookbooks, travelogues, essays, comedy, graphic novels, children’s books, YA, and what gets disparagingly referred to as “women’s fiction” too. There are universes to explore, remember?
What’s your favorite movie?
Frank Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace, with Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane (based on the play by Joseph Kesselring). It’s as comforting as it is silly, and it is very, very silly. In the best possible way, of course. If you haven’t seen it, rectify that immediately!
What is your favorite season?
Autumn is nice: not too hot, not too cold, not too much mud, not snowing yet… The only downside is all the midges – vampiric little sods that they are.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I don’t always bother, but if I’m the mood for it: a nice meal at home with my wife, Fiona; and cats, Onion, Beetroot, and Gherkin, is good. With plenty of lovely wine.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Not being a podcast person and having indulged in a bit of nostalgia on the TV-and-film front recently, I’m going to recommend a book – Jay Rayner’s NIGHTS OUT AT HOME. His part memoir, part recipe book, reflecting on 25 years as a restaurant critic. Rayner is a greedy writer, and it’s no surprise that the food here sizzles on the page, wafting its delicious scent to tempt the hungry reader. We’re slowly working our way through the recipes, and so far, they’ve all been winners.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Japanese! I am a fiend for sushi. We make it at home, from time to time, but nothing beats a lovely feast of raw fish and things in tempura.
What do you do when you have free time?
Cook, eat, sleep, annoy my cats, and make up silly songs to sing at Fiona. Not necessarily in that order.
What can readers expect from you next?
Another book, which will be out next year if I can get it written in time. And I can’t tell you anything about it, because I’ve been sworn to secrecy.
THIS HOUSE OF BURNING BONES by Stuart MacBride
Don’t stoke the flames unless you want to get burned . . .
It’s not going well for Aberdeen’s NE Division: half the force is off sick, all leave has been cancelled, someone has firebombed a hotel full of migrant and there’s a massive protest march happening this Saturday.
With officers dropping like flies, Detective Inspector Logan McRae has to kick off a major murder investigation with a skeleton staff of misfits, idiots and malingerers until the top brass can arrange back-up from other divisions.
But, as bad as everything seems, things are going to get much, much worse . . .
Thriller [Pan, On Sale: January 27, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book (reprint) , ISBN: 9781035064878 / eISBN: 9781035064885]
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About Stuart MacBride
All about Stuart and his beard…
Stuart MacBride was born in Dumbarton, but ran away to join the circus at the age of nine, where he specialised in wrestling bears for money (Going on to represent Great Britain at the Atlanta Olympics). In 1975 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his revolutionary work on Irn-Bru, then went on to create the world’s biggest ball of bellybutton lint. In 1989 he joined the secret intelligence service, but was later invalided out due to a back injury sustained while performing a reverse-overhead-piledriver on a grizzly bear. Now confined to his pyjamas, Stuart fritters away his time writing crime novels set in Aberdeen and lying to journalists.
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