Profile: Tony Black has come a long way from Highland journalist by brushing up his skills

By Neil Drysdale

November 19 2022, 6:00 am

Tony Black has moved from journalism to literature and now art.

Tony Black’s a hardy chap who can never be accused of resting on his laurels.

Whether working with the Press and Journal and meeting the likes of David Essex or Ricky Ross and covering Madonna’s wedding to Guy Ritchie, or graduating into the world of crime fiction with a series of critically-acclaimed novels, it seemed his speciality was words – but now, he has brushed up his life with a career in art.

If you wanted somebody to encapsulate that grand Scottish phrase, “lad o’ pairts”, then Black fits the mould as somebody who is always seeking fresh challenges and new pursuits and he was even happy to kill off the protagonist in his lucrative book canon.

The author, who collected eight Crime Writers Association Dagger nominations for his Edinburgh-set novels, starring the booze-soaked private investigator Gus Dury, insisted the writing had been on the wall for the detective from the moment his sights moved from page to canvas and he is already reaping the rewards of his leap of faith.

Tony Black has moved from Press and Journal reporter to successful author and has now advanced into art.

Despite maintaining that art was always his first love, the 50-year-old, who enjoyed his stint with the P&J in the Highland capital, admitted that he never dreamed he would be able to make a living from it.

And it seemed all his Christmases had arrived at once when he secured a six-book deal with the then-biggest publisher in the world, Random House, in 2007, as the prelude to his vivid thrillers making a serious impression on the international bestsellers’ lists.

Gus wasn’t exactly a nice guy

He recalled: “I was top 10 in Germany, which is the biggest book market in Europe, and my publisher there, Zsolnay, were sending over journalists and film-makers to interview me about Gus all the time.

“But I really struggled to find nice things to say about him. Gus was a violent alcoholic, whose love life was a shambles, and he was really hard company to keep at times.”

Hence the reason Black turned to painting to avoid burn-out and went so far as to lock himself in the garage and start painting again just as he done as a youngster.

It was a cathartic process, but as word quickly spread of his prowess with a palette, an increasing number of people began turning up to look at the paintings on the walls and Black was shocked when they started buying them.

As a writer, he could have plastered his walls with rejection slips from publishers before finally gaining a break, but the art just happened in a flash. He found it “really incredible to see people quite hypnotised by the paintings”.

As he recalled: “One picture actually caused a bit of a stooshie in the gallery – a man in red underpants – when two women wanted to buy it at the same time. The one who lost out asked if I’d do another one with the red underpants, but I’m a bit wary of becoming known as the red Y-fronts guy!”