***
Born and raised in Scotland, I’ve written
seven books set in France and it has been my
home for more than a quarter of century.
So, why France?
Was it reading about the life of Hemingway?
Expat writers and intellectuals living the high
life in Paris on limited means; self-destruction
and creative genius fuelled by house wine, Gitanes and absinthe.
Was it family vacations? French camping
holidays every year, touring rural France and
walking the cobbled streets of medieval villages where characters, history, and stories fill
every step.
Was it the wonderful rustic cuisine to be
found in country restaurants? Or the chance to
visit legendary vineyards and meet the wine-makers behind iconic labels? What’s better
than lunching in a little bistro in the square of
the tiny village of Puligny-Montrachet and being served its world-celebrated wine in an
earthenware jug?
Or was it the fact that no matter what you
are looking for, France has it? You can laze on
a beach on the Côte d’Azur; rent a fisherman’s
cottage on a Breton island; ski in the Alps;
climb volcanic peaks; take boat trips through
spectacular gorges; stroll through thousand-year-old castles and know that for ten centu-
ries, generations of men and women warmed
themselves by these fireplaces and walked on
these flagstones.
Maybe it was the combination of all of these
things. By the time I was in my mid-thirties, I
had swapped the annual campsites for a 15th-
century bellringer’s house in a village in
southwest France. A vacation retreat, to take
me away from the high-stress world of writing
television drama. Over a period of fifteen years
I escaped there whenever I could with my wife,
writer Janice Hally. We worked together on
more than a thousand episodes of television
serials as creators, scriptwriters, storyliners,
script editors and latterly for me, as a producer.
Rural France was our quiet place, away from
deadlines and viewing figures and ratings wars.
Then, in the midst of loss and grief, France
became a refuge where we would rebuild our
26
lives.
In the mid-1990s, we quit television so that I
could fulfill my lifelong ambition of writing
books. During the four years leading up to the
new millennium, I embarked on researching
and writing my China thrillers. But some
greater force decided I needed other challenges—my father’s dementia, my wife’s mis-
carriage, and the deaths of all four of our parents in a traumatic five year period. It was a
bleak and difficult time. We found ourselves
retreating to France. We bought a bigger
house, not just for vacations, but to live in.
Time to begin a new chapter.
After six China thrillers, I turned my
thoughts to a new setting. Location had always
been important to me, but it was time for a
change.
Looking back on Scotland from afar, gave
me the perspective to write The Blackhouse. I
poured my heart and soul into it, only to have
it turned down by every UK publisher. I was
devastated, until I let my French publisher
read it. She “adored” it. She bought world
rights and published it first in France, and in
French. It was declared “a masterpiece” by the
newspaper L’Humanité and won multiple literary awards in France. It was eventually published around the world and ended up winning
the US Barry Award. That breakthrough
changed my life.
After writing about Scotland, I turned my
sights to my adopted homeland.
Living in a country is different from visiting
it. You absorb its rhythms, its habits, its ways
of thinking, and yet a small part of you always
remains detached, observing. Living in France
has given me an insider’s understanding, but I
still retain an outsider’s curiosity. I notice
things that might escape someone born and
raised in the country. The quirks, the contradictions, the small details that bring a place to
life on the page.
France is a country layered with stories.
Every village square, every crumbling château,
every stretch of vineyard holds secrets. And I
began to wonder what might happen if those
secrets no longer stayed buried, but were in-
stead dug up by some curious investigator.
Someone who, like me, is a bit of an outsider.
Enzo Macleod is half-Scottish, half-Italian,
with a French daughter, and entirely at home
in France—though perhaps never fully belonging. Someone with more than a little pain in
his past, but a survivor, dogged and determined. Formerly a top forensic scientist, he is
now a professor at a university in Toulouse.
France has been his home for twenty years.
The series begins with Enzo foolishly accepting a bet that he could use modern technology to solve seven of France’s most notorious cold cases. Each investigation takes Enzo
to a different corner of France, from the intellectual elite of the École Nationale d’Administration in Paris to the vineyards of the southwest, from the European Parliament in Strasbourg to the headquarters of the Foreign Legion in Provence.
To travel through France with Enzo is to
immerse yourself not only in the investigation
of a crime, but in an exploration of French
life—the history, the landscape, the culture
and the cuisine.
Having taken French nationality, I now hold
a French passport (that’s a whole story for another time). I have gone from what one interviewer described as the “most French of all
Scotsmen” to being the “most Scottish of all
Frenchmen”. And last year, I was awarded the
Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, France’s
top prize for crime writing.
My adopted country has adopted me and I
couldn’t be more proud.
***
This article appeared in Mystery Readers Journal: Mysteries set in France (42:2: Spring 2026)
https://mysteryreaders.org/journal-index/mysteries-set-in-france-2026/
Mystery Readers Journal: Mysteries set in France is available in both print and PDF formats.
Available as a downloadable PDF or in paperback from Amazon.
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