Skeleton Blues (A Quint Dalrymple Mystery)
- Submitting institution
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Liverpool Hope University
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- PJ11B
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Severn House Publishers
- ISBN
- 9780727885784
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
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This novel is the seventh in a series that started with Body Politic, winner of a Crime Writers’ Association award (1997). The series was in abeyance from 2001 until 2015. On restarting with the previous novel, Heads and Hearts, the futuristic setting of independent Edinburgh under a supposedly benevolent dictatorship based on Plato’s Republic was moved forward by five years. The series combines crime with political and social satire, as well as metafictional elements.
The main challenge was to bring the series up to date in terms of its reflection of Scottish politics, especially the independence debate – this required substantial research, both of Scottish politics and revolution, especially Trotsky. In Skeleton Blues, Edinburgh citizens rebel against the regime and vote on joining a reconstituted Scotland. The title reflects the inadequacy of the corrupt ‘republic’. Throughout the series, the novel titles refer to parts of the body, emphasising the deleterious effects of power and ideology on the individual.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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