Margaret Kirk - Editor
Margaret Kirk writes ‘Highland Noir’ – Scottish fiction with a gothic twist, set in and around her home city of Inverness.
Her debut novel, Shadow Man (Orion), won the Good Housekeeping First Novel Competition in 2016. ‘A harrowing and horrific game of consequences’ according to Val McDermid. What Lies Buried, book 2 in the DI Lukas Mahler series, was described as ‘an absolute cracker’ by Caroline Green and ‘Tartan Noir at its very best’ by the Daily Mail. Book 3, In The Blood, was released in April 2021.
Margaret is also the writer of several award-winning short stories. ‘Still Life’ was broadcast on Radio 4 as part of their ‘Scottish Shorts’ series, and ‘The Seal Singers’ (Das Lied der Seehunde) has been published in translation in Germany and Switzerland.
Find Margaret on Twitter here: @HighlandWriter
Testimonials
– Neil Lancaster, best-selling author of the Tom Novak series
- Cathy Y
- Sue Tort
- Robert Wicker
- E. Olgeirsson
- Jayne A.
- Jeremy W.
- Mary M.
- Jack R.
WHY WE LOVE MARGARET
Neil Lancaster, bestselling author of the Tom Novak series, says: ‘Margaret offered honest and incisive feedback on my first book. Her advice was crucial in me securing a publishing contract’.
WHAT MARGARET SAYS ABOUT EDITING
I know from personal experience just how invaluable it can be to get feedback on your writing – and just how much of a difference the right kind of feedback at the right time can make.
I hadn’t been writing for long when I attended a crime-writing course tutored by the amazing Val McDermid. I had no idea whether my work was any good and I had zero confidence, but her perceptive comments and encouragement gave me the boost I needed to keep going. So when I won the Good Housekeeping First Novel Competition, I promised myself I would do whatever I could to help others in return.
Whatever your eventual writing goal is, my aim is to give you the tools you need to take the next steps towards it. I’ll offer honest and supportive feedback, in clear and concise language, based on everything I’ve learned since my first book was published.
I’m particularly fond of crime or suspense with a gothic vibe/hint of the supernatural.
What Margaret works on
Manuscript assessment
Developmental Editing
Agent Submission Pack assessment
Post-editorial guidance
Line-editing
Copy-editing
Proof-reading
Genres Margaret specialises in
Margaret's published books
In the Blood
‘The Queen of Highland Noir gets spookier and darker with every book’ Lilja Sigurdardottir
THE COMPELLING, GOTHIC, BRILLIANTLY ATMOSPHERIC THIRD NOVEL IN THE DI LUKAS MAHLER SERIES
Some cases are personal…
Tied to a derelict pier on Orkney, the bloated remains of a man bob in the waves, under the shadow of forbidding Sandisquoy House. The locals know him as William Spencer.
But DCI Lukas Mahler identifies him as Alex Fleming – his former boss.
Unable to step away from the case, Mahler tries to piece together why Fleming would retire to such a remote location. But the deeper he digs, the more disturbing the investigation becomes.
Seal bones, witches’ salve, and runic symbols appear everywhere he looks, ushering Mahler towards Fleming’s most notorious unsolved case: the ‘Witchfinder’ murders. And towards a dark and uncomfortable truth someone has gone to great lengths to bury…
‘Margaret Kirk is one of the strongest voices in the current crop of excellent Scottish crime writers’ ALISON BELSHAM
‘Deliciously dark and pulse-pounding’ HELEN FIELDS
What Lies Buried
Ten year-old Erin is missing; taken in broad daylight during a friend’s birthday party. With no witnesses and no leads, DI Lukas Mahler races against time to find her. But is it already too late for Erin – and will her abductor stop at one stolen child?
And the discovery of human remains on a construction site near Inverness confronts Mahler’s team with a cold case from the 1940s. Was Aeneas Grant’s murder linked to a nearby POW camp, or is there an even darker story to be uncovered?
With his team stretched to the limit, Mahler’s hunt for Erin’s abductor takes him from Inverness to the Lake District. And decades-old family secrets link both casesin a shocking final twist.
Shadow Man
Two sisters
Just before her wedding day, Morven Murray, queen of daytime TV, is found murdered. All eyes are on her sister Anna, who was heard arguing with her hours before she was killed.
Two murders
On the other side of Inverness, police informant Kevin Ramsay is killed in a gangland-style execution. But what exactly did he know?
One killer?
As ex-Met Detective Inspector Lukas Mahler digs deeper into both cases, he discovers that Morven’s life was closer to the Inverness underworld than anyone imagined. Caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, is Lukas hunting one killer, or two?
