ONE of Scotland's leading authors is courting controversy six months before his novel inspired by the Lockerbie bombing hits bookshelves.
James Robertson has been condemned by US relatives of the Lockerbie victims as being part of a "cottage industry of deniers".
The Professor of Truth, due to be published in June, tells the story of a university lecturer who feels deprived of justice after his wife and daughter were killed in the bombing of a plane over Scotland 21 years earlier.
It echoes the real-life story of Dr Jim Swire, whose 23-year-old daughter Flora was one of the 270 people killed in the 1988 terrorist attack.
Last year, the author delivered a lecture entitled The Lockerbie Affair and Scottish Society at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, spelling out why he believed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, the only man convicted of the atrocity, had suffered a miscarriage of justice.
Frank Dugan, president of the US support group Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, said: "If the book is inspired by the Lockerbie bombing and the author believes Megrahi was not guilty I am afraid it will not rise to the top of my reading list."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article