Mea culpa
Sorry I’m not on the newly launched programme for Bloody Scotland 2015. My fault, I guess.
Last year I was booked in to share a platform with the brilliant Caro Ramsay, but had to pull out, to my great regret, because of my wife’s illness. This year I was hot to trot, naturally, and waited for my hoped for invite with suitably bated, and fresh, breath. Very late in the day, the Director, offered me, by email, a panel. It was an exact repeat of one I was two days away from doing at another venue. I didn’t think that was a good idea from anyone’s POV, so I said so and turned it down.
No alternative was offered, so I won’t be there. Regardless, I urge you to give Scotland’s own crime festival your full support. It won’t be the worse for my absence, but let nobody be in any doubt, I am enormously pissed off to be missing it.
Quintin Jardine's blog 