QC and author Ross Macfarlane Edward Kane and the Parlour Maid Murderer is the debut novel from Ross Macfarlane, QC, a featured author at this year's Aye Write literary festival. Already well known to readers of the Evening News and The Scotsman, Macfarlane introduced Kane and Mr Horse in a series of short stories in the papers and reveals that the origins of his unlikely double-act lie in his love of Charles Dickens. The Senior Advocate, who lives in the New Town, recalls, "I was researching a story about the visit of Charles Dickens to Edinburgh in 1841 and discovered he had visited the Advocates Library where I was based and had dinner with his friend, Patrick Robertson, in a house just across the way from where I live. It struck me Edinburgh would be a fabulous setting for a 19th century murder mystery. Not only that, I thought it would be fun to incorporate a murder trial set in the period. I say ‘fun’, but remember, in those days, the penalty for murder was death. And that’s how Edward Kane, Advocate, was born."