Award-winning British crime writer Ann Cleeves worked as a cook on Fair Isle, part of the Shetland archipelago, when she was a young woman.
The place got under her skin. It’s part of Scotland, but until the fifteenth century it ‘belonged’ to Norway, so it has an in-between culture and history.
Cleeves has written a number of books in her Shetland series, featuring detective Jimmy Perez, whose name comes courtesy of a shipwrecked sailor from the Spanish Armada.
The ITV series based on the books and shown in the UK on the BBC has just become available on DVD in Australia.
Kate Evans spoke to Cleeves about her books, their transformation to screen, and what the Scottish independence referendum might mean for a place like this, with such a powerful regional identity.
Cleeves was speaking from the International Agatha Christie Festival in England.
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