Tartan Noir is a relatively new label, but Jack Dickson was writing Gay Tartan Noir back in the late 1990s. Jack is a novelist, screenwriter and currently playwright working in east end Glasgow; he hails from, and his heart belongs to, coastal town Ardrossan.
He wrote a trilogy featuring Jas Anderson, a gay cop working seedy parts of Dennistoun, who faces down deceit, drugs, violence, blackmail and betrayal. Corruption within the establishment, sometimes unseen, is always close at hand … and holds the keys to his fate. In FreeForm, the first book, Jas’s lover Leigh is brutally murdered. Jas is set-up, eventually arrested and disgraced. This is Glasgow of the 1990s, before AIDS anti-retro viral treatments existed. In the words of Clive King, who wrote the foreword to a new 2019 edition, “the spectre of AIDS hangs over the novel in a haze of dry ice”.
What sets the writing apart is its deft style and language: it’s cinematic, quirky, compelling. Nor has Dickson shied away from native Glaswegian accents — daunting, perhaps, for those outside of Scotland, but adding intensely to the atmosphere. It is dark writing, with some graphic but always organic sex; the nail-biting violence and closing in of the State around Jas is terrifying. Yes, an anti-hero: but one you can’t help but want to prevail.
“A reflection of the darker side of our desires” wrote Gay Scotland when the series debuted. The List commented on “a breath-taking, rapid-fire style”. Scholar Drewey Wayne Gunn, in Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film wrote: “More than any other sleuth, Jas Anderson demonstrates the complex circuitry that connects brain, heart, and penis and exemplifies how the power of the last can sometimes short-circuit the other two.”
You can find more background about Jas Anderson in a new Facebook page providing background about the character including videos like this one: Jas Anderson Investigates – Glasgow
A California-based partnership, ReQueered Tales, tracked Dickson down and acquired world rights to republish the series in e-book form (with an option for print). FreeForm was released in June, Banged Up is set for October and the conclusion, Some Kind of Love will follow in winter 2020. The titles are being released at Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FreeForm-Jas-Anderson-Book-1-ebook/dp/B07T2F8B96/
