Shetland Noir – Pathologist James Grieve

One of the highlights of Shetland Noir will be the talk on Sunday by respected pathologist James Grieve.

One of the few factual characters to appear in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series of books, Mr Grieve said it was “a privilege” to be a real character within her fictional books.

Speaking to The Shetland Times at the launch on Thursday night, he said: “Shetland is a very special place. Professionally I was the forensic pathologist for Shetland … and it is good for people to see who I am and how important I took the job.

“I met Ann Cleeves many years ago and what a wonderful person she is, and a great friend. It is an extraordinary privilege to be part of the Shetland series.”

Brought up in Motherwell, Prof Grieve graduated in medicine from Aberdeen University in 1977.

He became senior lecturer in forensic medicine at the university in 1989, performing around 550 post-mortem investigations into sudden, unexpected deaths annually.

Despite retirement in 2014, he now assists part-time, regularly giving evidence in major crime cases and fatal accident inquiries.

Shetland Noir runs all weekend at The Mareel in Lerwick, with Prof Grieve speaking on Sunday morning.