The Glasgow Smile background

This crime novel was inspired by a series of random events, including a stint working as a nurse with Indigenous communities in the outback, my time in rural Melbourne attempting to be an author as well as my long- standing passion of iconography in Art. These disparate events culminated in a late winter’s night visit to the cobblestoned graffiti-filled art laneways of inner-city Melbourne, where images, slogans and stencils of all shapes and sizes were painted alongside opinions, ideologies, religions and political beliefs. Every available surface, wall, window and darkened recesses were canvasses, covered in a visual cacophony. One particular portrait struck me, and I began to think of how historically, visual images and symbols used art have been deliberately misappropriated or culturally corrupted by the powerful and the powerless and how this can alter a society’s consciousness and lead to destructive forces. The thought of a dead body being discovered resting against one of these images sent shivers down my spine and provided me with the perfect setting for a murder.  The Glasgow Smile is also a story of moral ambiguity, of camouflage, of how we see one image but it hides another and how sometimes we need lies to hold ourselves together simply because the truth isn’t good enough.