As the photographer for Bute Noir, I was all geared up for Karen’s summons to the library to take photos of the authors and I had in my head what I wanted to do: take pictures of them all as if they were in the movie The Usual Suspects – a line up of our motley crew!
Unfortunately, not all the authors were able to be present for the photo session because of travel hiccups, so I ended up going for something much more traditional – a group photo.
The observant reader will spot that in the group photo Steve Cavanagh is clutching a Mason Cross book. That’s because Steve Cavanagh’s book was out on loan!
Once the photos were taken, we hot-footed it along to Bute Museum, which is, thankfully, just next door to the library and there we all settled down for the first session of this year’s Bute Noir event.
I took a nice candid shot:
Soon it was 4.30 and we were OFF!
The Museum was full – our first event was sold-out!
Ann Spiers from the Bute Museum team introduced Bute Noir’s founder, Craig Robertson, and then Craig welcomed everyone to the event and introduced the speakers.
The talented and funny Caro Ramsay then lead the chat between Myra Duffy and Alex Gray. Myra and Alex are both well-known and loved on Bute. Myra writes ‘cosy crime’ fiction and sets all her novels about Alison Cameron here on Rothesay and Alex Gray has family connections here and sets her DI Lorimer novels just up the river, in Glasgow.
As the ‘Opening Up’ session for the whole weekend, the conversation was varied and – with Caro in the chair – affectionately irreverent!
It was a lovely opening session for what turned out to be a wonderful – and packed – weekend.
Then for us it was a jog home for some food and a swift return to the library for the next session at 6pm. Yeah, when you go to every event, you need to exist on white wine and cupcakes for 72 hours!
