A Wander from Culross to Glasgow with Neil Lancaster

Submitted: 20th November 2024

The Devil You Know by Neil Lancaster

Let’s head to Culross in Fife!

Map of locations in Devil You Know

Culross

DS Max Craigie is a Scot to his very bones. He’s a Black Isler by birth, who left aged 16 to join the army, and then later the Metropolitan Police in London. Now, as he’s hitting middle-age, he’s returned to Scotland, where he’s settled in Culross in Fife with his wife and dog. He’s now tackling police corruption wherever it happens throughout the country.

Map of locations in Devil You Know

Culross:

Map of locations in Devil You Know

In The Devil You Know, Max is faced with a new challenge, when a dangerous criminal that Max convicted not so long ago makes an offer via his solicitor to reveal the location of the murdered body of a woman who went missing six years ago, who he claims was murdered on the orders of a powerful individual. He has one stipulation. DS Max Craigie and his team must have no involvement.

Now, I’m a Scottish based crime writer, who writes about a Scottish detective in Scotland, but unlike my contemporaries, I don’t like to limit myself to one city, such as Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh. Scotland is a huge, florid canvas, with locations as diverse, and beautiful as anywhere else in the world, so I want to lean into this, and try my best to show it all off, from the wild mountains, to the grimy cities. They all have their own characteristics, beauty and ugliness, and they can all add to any story.
I view Scotland to be a character in its own right, and it sits at the heart of every book I write.

Map of locations in Devil You Know

Glasgow

The Devil You Know begins in Glasgow. A city full of beauty and ugliness in equal measures, from the stunning architecture, through to the poorly conceived housing schemes. It then progresses to other more picturesque locations, such as the White Loch, which I visited during my research phase. It’s a wonderfully wild location, despite its comparative location to Glasgow, and as such was perfect for my story, as major twists happen there.

Map of locations in Devil You Know

White Loch

Map of locations in Devil You Know

Max’s sanctuary is his home, in a rural spot a short hop outside the village of Culross (pronounced locally as Coo’riss) Interestingly, the village was featured multiple times in the hit US TV series, Outlander. It’s a stunning village, in the beautiful Fife countryside, and Max’s home (which is a product of my imagination) has stunning views all the way down to the Forth of Firth. In my head it’s outside of the village, up on Gallows Loan:

Map of locations in Devil You Know

A great deal of the action in the story happens in prison, specifically the notoriously tough, modern HMP Shotts. Again, much is down to my imagination, but Google is a rich source of research for getting a feel for the place.

Map of locations in Devil You Know

As I love to use really diverse locations, I always seek out somewhere particularly remote for some of the book’s more intense action scenes, and the tiny police station at Lochinver was absolutely perfect for my purposes. It’s just so typical of the type of police stations in the remote Highlands, where historically they’d be policed by a lone cop, often who would both live, and work at the station, often assisted by their spouse.

Imagine having a view like this at work!

Then we have Tulliallan Police College. It’s right next to this grand place:

Tulliallan Castle

Map of locations in Devil You Know

Max and his team, Policing Standards Reassurance, are based in a dingy office in the bowels of the Police HQ, at Tulliallan Police college. The office is dim and depressing, and always seems to be falling to pieces, much to the chagrin of the team’s boss, DI Ross Fraser. It is one of Police Scotland’s training sites and holds historical significance to training police officers and staff in Scotland.

It is set in 90 acres of parkland in the centre of Scotland. The early 19th century Tulliallan Castle is at its heart. It is the United Kingdom’s only central Police College which provides all police training in one establishment.