麻豆社

Phil Rickman talks to Ian Rankin and Michael Davies about their experiences of working on another author's novel after they've died.

One of Michael's literary heroes as he grew up was thriller writer Desmond Bagley so he was delighted to receive the first draft and notes for one of the late author's unfinished works, 'Domino Island', and a request to complete the novel - a process he describes as 'curation'.

Ian Rankin was asked to complete the fourth Jack Laidlaw novel, 'The Dark Remains' by his late friend William McIlvanney. To do it Ian had to put aside his encyclopaedic knowledge of the streets of Edinburgh frequented by his own hero John Rebus and instead immerse himself in the underworld of Glasgow in the 1970s. We also hear from William McIlvanney himself in an archive 'Phil the Shelf' interview from 2013.