DETECTIVE stories set in Edinburgh are nothing new, Ian Rankin's Rebus being the most obvious and arguably most popular.
But don't forget Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner, the creation of one-time Tory press officer Quintin Jardine, or Allana Knight's Inspector Faro, who did his detection in 19th century Edinburgh.
Add the real-life Victorian city detective McLevy
(the man credited as the father of forensics) to the mix, and Ken McLure's medical investigator Dr Steven Dunbar (another sleuth who frequently finds all roads leading to Edinburgh), Frederic Lindsay's Detective Inspector Jim Meldrum and Joyce Holms' double act, amateur sleuths Tam Buchanan and Fizz Fitzgerald and it's a wonder that any crime in the Capital has ever gone unsolved.
Finally, there's Paul Johnston's private investigator Quintilian Dalrymple, who boasts an Orwellian Edinburgh of the future as his beat. Debuting in 1997, Johnston pitched his detective 25 years into the future and into an Edinburgh where tourists are the city's only source of wealth and 'The Festival' has become an all year-round event put on for their benefit by the fiercely puritanical Council of City Guardians.
Johnston's novels Body Politic and The Bone Yard, painted a startling picture of a future Edinburgh in which the population lived to serve the tourist industry. And while we may not yet be living in the dystopian nightmare he conceived, some aspects of those novels do appear to be becoming reality.
Take, for example, the ever increasing number of Festivals the city now hosts. Everyone from politicians to foodies now have their own event. There's the International Science Festival in March. Then it's the turn of the Imaginate Festival. June, as we have just discovered, is the ideal month for the Film Festival, which this year took the bold step of moving from its normal August slot.
Later this month, the Art Festival kicks off a day head of the Jazz and Blues Festival on July 25, while August brings the amalgamation of festivals that have become known around the world as simply The Edinburgh Festival.
Crammed into 30 or so days there's the Fringe, the Book Festival, the Festival of Spirituality and Peace and, of course, the one that started it all, the International Festival.
Bringing August to close is the Mela, after which there's a brief respite before the Capital starts gearing up for the annual Winter Festival, which transforms East Princes Street Gardens into an glittering wonderland of icy spectacles.
Then, straddling the seeing out of the old and ushering in of the new is Hogmanay and before you know it, it's time for the Science Festival again.
And just think, if the Comedy Festival ever takes off, it too could break away from the traditional Festival month of August to fill one of the voids that still exists. Comedy in February anyone?
And so, one of Paul Johnston's (pictured) predictions begins to come true – although in his Quintillian Dalrymple novels he also foresaw a time when global warming has allowed the Capital to bask in a Mediterranean climate, there are cannabis cafes on Princes Street, legalised brothels and the Scottish Parliament has disbanded.
Could that be what the future holds? We'll need to wait until 2022 to find out.
The full article contains 547 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
