Hugh C Rae

Hugh Rae, who has died of pneumonia aged 78, began writing as soon as he could hold a pencil. By the age of 11, he made it into print and subsequently morphed from self-confessed precocious little so-and-so into one of Scotland's most prolific authors.

In between he had worked in a Glasgow bookshop, written some inferior poetry and a cache of short stories - a difficult craft he was delighted to abandon.

His first big success came, in the wake of a series of ghastly murders that paralysed Lanarkshire in the 1950s, with the publication of his novel Skinner, a fictionalisation of the notorious Peter Manuel case.

It allowed him to give up work and concentrate on becoming a full-time writer. The result was a bibliography of more than 70 books - under various pseudonyms, across a range of genres from thriller to science-fiction, fantasy and historical romances - coupled with a reputation as a most professional, gifted author and generous mentor to struggling scribes.

He was a commercial writer, turning his hand to the different categories of fiction as required, due to economic necessity (just about the only thing he didn't tackle was a western).

And though he adored what he did, it was not always easy. As he told his readers in his blog: "It's tough at times and it's hard to make a decent living out of scattering words on a page but, oh boy, when it sings, it really sings - and, like the man says, it sure beats working."

Hugh Crauford Rae (his middle name was his mother's idea and what he was known as by his family) was born in Glasgow's Knightswood, the son of riveter and Glasgow Herald maintenance man Robert Rae and his wife Isobel.

As a youngster he had his first piece of writing published in the comic Robin, followed by numerous other pieces, and some drawings, in the junior pages of national newspapers and magazines.

His first love was art and he had gone to Saturday classes at art school hoping to take it up as a career. However, it was frowned upon as an occupation and at 16 he left Knightswood School to work as an assistant in the antiquarian department of the city's John Smith bookshop.

He spent the next dozen years there, interrupted in 1953-54 by national service in the RAF during which he played in the brass band and had, he joked, "flown an Olivetti". Meanwhile, writing at weekends and in the evenings was no sacrifice as he was ambitious and driven, he said, admitting that he had begun as a poet "with a minimum amount of talent and not enough determination".

However, he persevered writing short stories, producing around 40, which were mostly published in American magazines, a market he specifically targeted because the exchange rate was so good at that time.

When Skinner was published, in the mid-1960s when he was 28, he sighed with relief that he was now able to give up short fiction, a form with which he was never comfortable. By that time he had met and married his wife Elizabeth, a colleague at John Smith's whose uncle had worked with Peter Manuel. Skinner was heavily based on the case of the serial killer who was hanged at Barlinnie for seven murders, including three members from each of two families, a killing spree that terrorised the country.

Rae had learned to write by analysing other writers' styles and picked up much of his knowledge of narrative technique by osmosis as a film buff and, after the success of Skinner, a slew of other novels followed under his own name, including Night Pillow, A Few Small Bones, The Interview, The Shooting Gallery, The Marksman, and Harkfast The Making of a King, a book about Druids.

He also wrote as Robert Crawford, R B Houston and James Albany, the latter the pen name for a series on the SAS for publisher Severn House. In addition he collaborated with Stuart Ungar, producing the Minotaur Factor and The Poison Tree as author Stuart Stern.

It was a desire to get to grips with the "big" novel, resonating with colourful historical backgrounds, a multitude of characters and intricate plotting, that conjured up Jessica Stirling, a nom de plume he was able to embody, undiscovered, for 20-odd years before unmasking himself to his readers.

The transition from Hugh C Rae, a writer who specialised in shooting people in the back and digging up dismembered corpses, came about simply because he was asked. Hodder & Stoughton, a major publisher, offered him a niche on its list aimed at women and he took up the challenge, forging a successful writing partnership with his best friend in Glasgow Writers' Club, Peggie Coghlan.

The two writers complemented each other: she was a short-story writer, a brilliant plotter and researcher who would visit the remains of a novel's location, once touring one of Scotland's deepest pits, to acquire the necessary authenticity for their story; he had 20 novels behind him, an addiction to research and historical fact plus the ability to perfect her draft.

They produced their first novel, The Spoiled Earth, in eight months, and collaborated on several more. Rae went on to pen another 30 Jessica Stirling books on his own for the publisher. The last, The Constant Star, appeared in hardback in August. A murder mystery, set in Dublin, Whatever Happened to Molly Bloom, also by Jessica Stirling, is being published by Severn House at the end of this month. It represents a return to his roots in thriller writing and is based on Ulysses by James Joyce, an author he loved.

"His books were unfailingly both absolutely gripping and wonderfully researched," said Carolyn Caughey, his editor at Hodder & Stoughton since 1983. "He had an exceptional gift for dialogue: you could hear his characters speak as you read their words. And not just the Scottish voices - he was equally at home with London and Irish characters, in particular."

He lectured in creative writing at Glasgow University Adult Education classes and was involved in setting up the series of author talks regarded as being the first Edinburgh Book Festival. He also served on the Scottish Arts Council, on committees of the Scottish Association of Writers and Society of Authors in Scotland; he was a lead organiser of writers' conferences, and was particularly well-known for his appearances at Swanwick Writers' summer school.

Away from literature he was a huge sports fan, had played basketball in his youth and coached a women's basketball team semi-professionally in the 1960s. Latterly he enjoyed golf and tennis but it was writing that suffused his life to the end - he sent his daughter a chapter of his latest book shortly before falling ill.

Widowed nine years ago, he is survived by his daughter Gillian.