40 Fun Facts About Quintin Jardine

In Quintin Jardine's novels, the narrator Oz Blackstone is said to bear an uncanny resemblance to which Hollywood actor?

Keanu Reeves is the running joke of the series: Oz grows so famous that, in the author's telling, Reeves ends up being the one who resembles him.

In Quintin Jardine's A Coffin for Two, set on the Costa Brava, Oz and Prim try to authenticate a masterpiece by whom?

Salvador Dalí is the name attached, and the previously unknown work was bought by a gullible client at a highly unconventional auction.

Quintin Jardine's The Roots of Evil opens with two men killed in Edinburgh on which night of the year?

Hogmanay is the night ex-policeman Terry Coats and Griff Montell are murdered, dragging Sir Bob Skinner away from the New Year celebrations.

In Quintin Jardine's Game Over, the prime suspect in a supermodel's murder is defended by which relative of Bob Skinner?

His daughter, Alex, leads the defence, so parent and child work opposite sides while the old police team builds the case against her client.

After retiring from the police, Quintin Jardine's Sir Robert Skinner takes charge of what kind of organisation?

A media group is the surprise second act: by Deadlock the former chief constable heads an international organisation, later given a Spanish base.

Which Quintin Jardine novel has a top crime writer found dead in the author tent at Edinburgh's book festival?

Fatal Last Words turns the Edinburgh International Book Festival into a crime scene, and a second victim suggests the authors themselves have become targets.

Quintin Jardine's For the Death of Me opens with Oz Blackstone watching Roman Abramovich's yacht from a mansion where?

Monaco is where Oz keeps one of his three homes, until a struggling author sells him the rights to a novel for $50,000 and springs a trap.

In Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Festival, a blast during the Edinburgh Festival rocks which famous thoroughfare?

Princes Street is the target, and a faction claiming to want separation from Britain takes responsibility, though it proves to be a highly professional team.

In Quintin Jardine's Mathew's Tale, Mathew Fleming returns to Lanarkshire in 1818 after heroic service at which battle?

Waterloo made Mathew a hero, but after seven years away he is a ghostly presence in Carluke, and a murder soon sets him on a journey of vengeance.

Which nickname does detective Harold Haddock carry throughout Quintin Jardine's Bob Skinner crime novels?

Sauce is the name Haddock keeps as he rises to Detective Superintendent, still turning to his old boss as a mentor when an inquiry runs into the sand.

Crime writer Quintin Jardine was born in which Lanarkshire town, whose football club he still supports?

Motherwell is where what he calls his escape tunnel began: he left in 1968, surfaced briefly in a neighbouring town and then moved east for good.

Which subject did crime novelist Quintin Jardine study at Glasgow University, although he never graduated?

Law was the official subject, though he jokes that he really studied snooker at Glasgow and saw he would never turn professional at either.

Before writing crime fiction, Quintin Jardine began his working life in 1964 as a trainee in which trade?

Journalism came first: he trained on his hometown paper, then seven years later joined the Government Information Service.

Long a Conservative, Quintin Jardine stood unsuccessfully for which party in a 1999 East Lothian council election?

The SNP won him over around the 1997 general election, after his backing for devolution estranged him from the Tories, but he later left it as too left wing.

Quintin Jardine divides his time between Spain and which East Lothian village, his home since the early 1970s?

Gullane became home three years after he left his birthplace, and he has lived there ever since while keeping a second base on the Catalan coast.

Quintin Jardine keeps a second home in which Costa Brava town, the setting of his novel On Honeymoon with Death?

L'Escala is, as he puts it, the only north-facing town on the Costa Brava, celebrated for its anchovies and notorious for a north wind, the Tramuntana.

Skinner's Rules, Quintin Jardine's 1993 debut, was nominated for which prize for the best first crime novel?

John Creasey Award recognition came at once for the book that introduced Bob Skinner, then a Detective Chief Superintendent heading Edinburgh's CID.

Which publisher, part of Hachette, has issued every one of Quintin Jardine's crime novels?

Headline also gave his hero a billing: its marketing team called Bob Skinner Scotland's toughest cop until the author asked them to widen the claim to Britain.

Which Quintin Jardine standalone is styled as the ghosted autobiography of a half-Scottish, half-Spanish journalist?

The Loner follows Xavi from an Edinburgh childhood with a ferocious grandmother, through a short football career, into newspaper work.

In Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Round, a letter sent to a newspaper quotes a legendary curse laid down by whom?

Witches are said to have cursed anyone who desecrates their place of worship, and the anonymous letter arrives a day after a murder at a new golf club.

Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Ordeal begins with which disaster that kills the British and American Defence Secretaries?

A mid-air explosion sends a plane plunging from the Scottish skies, and the detective leading the inquiry is himself soon left on the brink of death.

In Quintin Jardine's Skinner's Mission, which business owned by villain Jackie Charles is torched with a body inside?

A car showroom goes up in flames, but the charred body is Charles's wife Carole, which puts the detective on the same side as his old enemy.

In Quintin Jardine's Head Shot, Bob Skinner's wife's parents are found strangled at a lakeside cabin in which US state?

New York State is where he must identify the bodies, before linking the deaths to three other killings too professional to be burglaries gone wrong.

In Quintin Jardine's Stay of Execution, Edinburgh plans a huge rally to welcome home which fictional native son?

The Pope in question is the invented John the 25th, an Edinburgh native, and the police must make security for his homecoming bulletproof.

In Quintin Jardine's Death's Door, the two young women murdered in ritual-style killings share which profession?

Artists are the targets, and when one victim's father turns out to be millionaire businessman Davor Boras, the Home Office, MI5 and the CIA all step in.

In Quintin Jardine's Hour of Darkness, a murdered woman washes up on which island near the mouth of the River Forth?

Cramond Island is where the body is found, and the dead woman's name stirs unwelcome memories for Bob Skinner, by then based in Glasgow.

In Quintin Jardine's State Secrets, who is found in her Westminster office with a letter opener through her skull?

The Prime Minister is attacked hours before a controversial statement, and Bob Skinner, who happens to be in the building, gets forty-eight hours to crack the case.

In Quintin Jardine's A Brush with Death, poisoned millionaire Leo Speight was a national hero in which sport?

Boxing made Speight a champion and a rich man, so a long list of lovers and friends stood to gain when he was found dead at his Ayrshire mansion.

In Quintin Jardine's Cold Case, the reopened Body in the Quarry murder of thirty years earlier had which victim?

A priest, and a popular one, was found dead in a frozen quarry, and new evidence now threatens the reputation of Bob Skinner's old mentor, Jimmy Proud.

In Quintin Jardine's Blackstone's Pursuits, what is Oz Blackstone's job when he is hired to find a missing half million?

Private investigator Oz, billed as a private enquiry agent, expects a healthy finder's fee but instead finds the would-be embezzler with a knife in his back.

In Quintin Jardine's Wearing Purple, Oz Blackstone poses as a Master of Ceremonies to probe sabotage in which sport?

Pro wrestling is the world of seven-foot champion Everett Davis, whose televised European tour is dogged by technical hitches and accidents that turn into murder.

In Quintin Jardine's Unnatural Justice, Oz Blackstone and Susie Gantry move into a country house near which loch?

Loch Lomond is the setting for the couple's dream home, which sours when blackmailers target Oz's father and an incendiary bomb reaches Susie's offices.

Across Quintin Jardine's Oz Blackstone novels, the narrator's unplanned rise makes him internationally famous as what?

A movie star is what he becomes after an undercover job reveals a hidden theatrical talent, and by Alarm Call he also has wealth and a successful marriage.

What relation is Primavera Blackstone, heroine of Quintin Jardine's Spanish-set series, to his earlier hero Oz?

His ex-wife picks up the family name after Oz dies off-stage, raising their son Tom on the Catalan coast while solving murders of her own.

Which novel opened Quintin Jardine's Primavera Blackstone series by sending her to Seville after a missing cousin?

Inhuman Remains begins when her formidable aunt arrives in Spain because her roguish son Frank has gone missing, and soon the aunt vanishes as well.

In Quintin Jardine's As Serious As Death, millionaire Jack Weighley, whose property is being attacked, owns what?

An airline is his empire, and Primavera must work out whether the assaults on his aircraft are vandalism or the work of Catalan extremists.

Which Quintin Jardine novel begins when Lord Archergait collapses during an armed robbery trial in Parliament House?

Murmuring the Judges reveals that his apparent heart attack may have been murder, and that he is not the only member of the bench whose life is in danger.

Which Quintin Jardine novel, seen through the eyes of each leading player, opens with a body dug from a shallow grave?

Funeral Note keeps the police digging even though the man in the grave died of natural causes, while corruption inside the force threatens the Chief's career.

Which Quintin Jardine novel pairs a terrorist threat to a summit of world leaders with the hunt for a mercy killer?

Gallery Whispers opens with a terminally ill woman's apparent suicide, which bears the marks of an assisted death and proves the start of an ominous pattern.

In Quintin Jardine's Blood Red, a powerful councillor is found dead after refusing to allow which village event?

The wine fair row makes Primavera the prime suspect once the councillor's body turns up with its head caved in.