Allan Massie RIP

Allan Massie, the author, columnist and The Scotsman’s chief literary critic who wrote for the paper for 50 years, has died aged 87. Mr Massie had been suffering from cancer and passed away on Tuesday at the home of his daughter, Claudia, surrounded by his family.

It is estimated Mr Massie reviewed some 3,500 books for The Scotsman since starting at the paper in 1975, and he also contributed to the sports pages, where his columns on rugby and cricket ran for over three decades.

Mr Massie wrote more than 25 novels, starting with Change and Decay in All Around I See in 1978. The Last Peacock (1980) won a literary award and was followed by The Death of Men, a thriller based on the 1978 kidnapping and murder by terrorists of Italian statesman Aldo Moro.

His mid-European trilogy of A Question of Loyalties (1989), The Sins of the Father (1991) and Shadows of Empire (1997), was considered by the author to be among his best work.

Widely published in France as well as the UK, he was honoured with a Knighthood of the Order of Arts and Letters and then a CBE six years later, in 2013.

He is survived by his three children Alex, Claudia and Louis.

He will be missed. Rest in Peace.



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