After decades of fighting crime in and around Fife – a wife and husband team have retired from the police to sell fictional books about it instead.
Author Nicola Young, 53, made her transition to writing when she left the force in 2022, going on to publish her debut novel, Damage Limitation, this year.
Her husband Scott, also 53, who she lives with in Lundin Links, joined her in retirement earlier this year and has now taken on the unofficial role of her marketing executive.
Keen to “get her book out there”, he has since bagged her speaking spots at upcoming book festivals, built up her social media presence, and set up her first newspaper interview – which you are reading now.
Love was a secret for the first six months
The couple met in 2009 when Scott underwent motorcycle instructor training under the tutelage of Nicola.
They got together the following year while working at the Scottish Police College in Tulliallan.
Speaking to me on a Teams video call, Scott says: “It was quite secretive for the first six months because they never liked couples working in the same office or team.
“And then it became public, and the bosses were great about it because it hadn’t affected our work.”
The couple built their home together in Lundin Links in 2013 and married the following year.
Nicola led a varied 30-year career in the police, working across Aberdeen and Fife, including stints as a detective constable in the Scottish Crime Squad, as a car and motorcycle instructor at the Scottish Police College and as a sergeant in the criminal justice division.
Latterly, she ran a team of officers whilst managing enquiries into fatal and serious road accidents as a senior investigating officer.
Scott was a firearms officer for the better part of 20 years, before becoming a car and motorcycle instructor.
Nicola brings real-life police experience into crime fiction books
Nicola draws inspiration from her police career when writing.
Damage Limitation follows detective constable Lucy Russell, who is intent on bringing to justice the father and son who head a drug dealing, organised crime group in Aberdeen.
Nicola says: “The benefit of coming from a police career is that it saved me so much research.
“A lot of people who are writing crime fiction don’t know the procedural elements of it, and they’re having to look for somebody to guide them as far as that goes, whereas I already had that.”
Domestic abuse is also a theme in the book, as protagonist Lucy worries that her police officer boyfriend will murder her.
Although multiple publishers were interested in her book, Nicola was repeatedly told it would only be commercially successful without this element.
That is why, she says, she eventually decided to self-publish.
“That was a bit of a wake-up call for me because I had considered that in this day and age, domestic abuse was something that wasn’t taboo and that was widely spoken about,” she says.
“But publishing houses had no appetite for it.”
More than 500 copies of crime book sold
Having seen the impact of domestic abuse first-hand during her policing career, Nicola stuck to her guns.
“I felt that it was an important element of my story that I wanted to tell,” she says.
“And if I lost that, it would have been a completely different book – it would have been a very generic sort of crime novel.”
Nicola published the book in January and has since sold more than 500 copies and received dozens of five-star reviews on Amazon.
This is despite the fact she has keenly avoided promoting her book.
She was even too “embarrassed” to put her full name on the front cover.
But Scott, who typed the manuscript for her (she prefers to write by hand) has always believed it could be a huge success.
“Nicola wrote her book and didn’t want to tell anybody about it,” he says.
“And I always said, ‘You need to tell people about this.’
“And she’d say, ‘Oh no, I always wanted to write a book and I’m just happy I’ve done it.’
“And I was like, ‘But it’s a really good book!'”
Since retiring in April this year, the proud husband has been on a mission to promote Damage Limitation.
“Last week, I decided, ‘Right, Nicola should have her own Facebook account.'”
His wife interjects here. “He set it up and then he said, ‘Look, there you go – that’s it live now.’
“So there was no consultation phase here!
“And I went, ‘Oh my God, there’s a photograph of me on it as well.’
“And he says, ‘Yeah, of course, there is. People want to know what you look like.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Cringe.'”
Scott’s efforts paid off, with more than 800 followers on Nicola’s Facebook page in just two weeks.
He has also secured her a spot to speak at Angus Book Festival in November.
It appears the pair work well together – playing to one another’s strengths and weaknesses.
Scott says: “We just feed off each other, we help each other, and we give each other a wee push.
“But like every married couple, we have our moments.
“We’re both quite strong characters.
“We will often argue about who is the best motorcyclist.”
Couple share a love of motorcycling, travelling and charity work
The couple have not long returned from a motorcycling trip around Borneo, Malaysia and Singapore.
They also enjoy doing charity work together, having helped orchestrate a cycling trip around the North Coast 500 to raise funds for a charity set up in memory of Manchester Arena bombing victim Eilidh MacLeod, from Barra.
Nicola says: “We’ve got quite a lot of hobbies together.
“And we like a laugh. That’s probably the best thing in any partnership – a good sense of humour.”
Nicola is now working on her second novel, which will also explore dark themes.
On her future as a writer, she says: “I’m an independent author, I’m self-published – I’m not looking to be the next JK Rowling or anything like that.
“Success for me means that my book has been read by people that I don’t know and that they’ve enjoyed it.”
Looking playfully at her husband, she adds: “If I was ever wildly successful as a writer, the first thing to do is sack him and get a professional in.”
- Is your family a little bit different? Email poppy.watson@dcthomson.co.uk to share your story
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