There are few literary genres in which maps, floor-plans and architectural features matter so deeply as in crime fiction. From the earliest days of ‘Tartan Noir’, Scottish crime writers have exploited the symbolic and structural significance of buildings in framing their various scenes of the crime. In this lecture, crime writer and academic Liam McIlvanney conducts us on a gazetteer of some of the most significant buildings in the Scottish crime canon, drawing on work by writers from Robert Louis Stevenson to Abir Mukherjee.

Liam McIlvanney is Stuart Professor of Scottish Studies at the University of Otago. He is also a Scottish crime novelist, exploring the Bible John murders in his award-winning The Quaker (2018) and delving into darkness in The Heretic (2022).