The first DI Alec McKay book, Candles and Roses, ended on a deliberately ambiguous note. The crime was solved, justice was served, but McKay was left with some lingering doubts.
At the time, I hadn't intended to take the story any further. I hoped that the book's resolution was satisfying to the reader, but provided one further twist to reflect the kind of uncertainty that can bedevil any real police enquiry or criminal trial. I didn't know whether or not McKay's concerns were justified, and I assumed I never would.
Then my mum read the book.
She told me she'd enjoyed it (but then she's my mum so she has to say that), but she wanted to know who the killer really was. I replied that I knew no more than she did – I was just the author – but she refused to believe me. 'You must know,' she said. 'You wrote it.' But that's not how it works. The truth was I really didn't know.
You can't ignore your mum, though. So when I sat down to think about the third book in the series, I found I'd also become curious to know what really happened after the end of Candles and Roses. So I decided to revisit the story and find out what happened next. And it turned out that there was a lot more to the story, and to the enigmatic Elizabeth Hamilton, than I'd ever imagined…
I've tried hard to ensure that Their Final Act works as a standalone book, whether or not you've read Candles and Roses (though, like most crime series, you'll probably get a little more out of the books if you read them in order). But if you have read the first book, I hope you enjoy where the story goes next.
So thanks to my mum for making the book possible (and to her and my dad for making everything possible). Thanks as ever to Helen for being my first and best critic, and for the support in writing and everything else. Thanks to all those who advised on the book, and apologies for any liberties I've taken with what you told me. Thanks, as ever, to Betsy, Fred, Sumaira, Sarah and everyone else at Bloodhound Books for their unfailing support. And thanks to all the good people of the Highlands and the Black Isle for allowing me, yet again, to clutter this glorious landscape with fictional corpses.