Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Meet the author: Helen Fields on new book One For Sorrow

Helen Fields
Helen Fields

Giving up a life of crime paved the way to authorship for mum-of-three Helen Fields. The former barrister, who practised criminal and family law for 13 years, left the profession after the birth of her second child.

It was the horror of dealing with cases of child sex abuse – and long hours away from her family – that was the catalyst to forging a new path in life.

Tartan Noir luminary Fields, who divides her life between Scotland, England and the US, this week launches the latest novel in her Edinburgh-set crime series featuring handsome, half-Scottish, half-French DI Luc Callanach and tough DCI Ava Turner.

She tells The Sunday Post: “As a female criminal barrister you tend to end up doing a lot of sex cases, prosecuting and defending. I was doing back-to-back rape cases, child molestation and sex abuse cases. At the time, if your client was accused of downloading and watching child porn videos you had to categorise those. I would sit sometimes for hours going through evidence and watching videos of children being abused.

“When I was pregnant for the second time I just couldn’t do it. It nearly broke me at that stage. My husband said, ‘When you’ve had our second child don’t think about going back to work. Let’s see how you feel.’

“You have to be pretty tough to be a barrister and certainly I found that being a mum in the way I wanted to meant that I didn’t want to switch myself off from work or put up the barriers that I had to put up.

“I was working a 60-hour week to do that job properly and it was too much of a compromise.”

So Fields decided to join her husband David’s media company. It was a successful and exciting move but importantly it meant she could spend more time with her children, Gabriel, now 18, Sololmon, 16, and Evangeline, 12. But her dream was always to write. “I have always loved writing, since I was five years old,” she says. “I didn’t know as a child about becoming a writer but I knew I loved stories.”

Her husband helped her to make her dream come true: “We were on holiday in Portugal, in the swimming pool.

“He asked me what I really wanted to do and I said I wanted to try writing. He said he would give me ‘the gift of six months’. He said, ‘You do not have to work, make money or even do any housework. Try to write a book.’”

Fields’ aim was simply to start and finish one work. She self-published two fantasy novels followed by a historical crime novel and was finally on her way to authorship. One For Sorrow is her 10th book overall with a further two novels, including a first in hardback, on the way.

The seventh in the Callanach and Turner series can easily be read as a stand-alone. The run has sold more than half-a-million copies since its launch in 2017 and is set in Edinburgh where Fields, twice long-listed for the McIlvanney Scottish Crime Book of the Year, feels “most at one with the world.”

Fields’ latest edge-of-the-seat story with its dark and tortuous plot sees Callanach and Turner on the trail of a lone bomber targeting victims across the city, but with every tip-off it becomes clear they are walking into a trap to kill them.

As the threat and the body count rises, neither knows if they’ll live long enough to tell the tale. “I write dark crimes that are fairly gory,” says Fields. “I do not pull any punches.”


Helen Fields – One For Sorrow, Avon, £7.99