Your first choice is by Eric Ambler – Topkapi: The Light of Day.

This really is the funniest, best-written book ever. It’s about a wee silly man called Arthur, a sneak thief, who gets caught up in a plan to rob the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Peter Ustinov was in the film of the same name and he did it brilliantly. The book is written in such a way that you end up rooting for this awful little man. He’s a great craftsman, Eric Ambler: I think he’s better than John le Carré. 

You also like Josephine Tey’s The Franchise Affair.

This book is just so well crafted. Everything seems to be building up against the two women, that it looks as if they really did kidnap this girl, and keep her locked in the attic – and how on earth are they going to get out of it? It’s just very, very well done.

So do you admire Josephine Tey partly because her books are cleverly plotted?

It’s more than that, it’s the charm of the writing. The Daughter of Time was a classic, where her detective goes out to prove that Richard III didn’t kill the Princes in the Tower, but The Franchise Affair remains my favourite. It’s just lovely writing. 

What about Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson?

Being Scottish, it’s one I can read again and again. I think the difference between the Lowland Scot and the Highlander is really brought out between Alan Breck and David Balfour. It’s very well written, very well done – and I think Robert Louis Stevenson has great charm. He’s very hard on marriage, you know. He seems to be rather sour about marriage, but not in this book.

Isn’t it more of a teenage book?

I suppose it would be, but it still captures my heart – particularly as I write about the Highlands in the Hamish Macbeth stories. The fact that he’s captured the character of the Highlander – which is still a different creature to the Lowland Scot.