As the fight against Covid-19 intensifies, author Lesley Kelly finds herself living in the pandemic hit Edinburgh of her fictional Health of Strangers novels

Actually, the Edinburgh author has already written not one, but a series of books based on just such a scenario. Consequently, she has been living with the concept of a Capital in the grip of a pandemic for the best part of a decade now. The first book in her Health of Strangers series was published in 2017, with the latest, and fourth, Murder at the Music Factory, due next month.

Prior to that Twitter exchange, Lesley had taken to the social media platform herself, tweeting: ‘Long before coronavirus I wrote a series of crime novels set in a pandemic...

‘I got many things right about how world governments and society would respond - and also some things very wrong. The Health of Strangers series are crime novels, featuring the Health Enforcement Team, who deal with a full range of fraudsters and charlatans who play on the vulnerable. Sadly, it looks like I called that correctly.

‘I called it right about the difference in responding to a pandemic in a democracy and in other regimes. I was also right about: Government campaigns re sneezing considerately and washing your hands; restricting people’s rights to meet up in large groups; stockpiling and hoarding; and obsessive use of face masks. I totally failed to predict that people would go batshit crazy about buying toilet paper.

‘In fairness, it was difficult to predict as the virus in my novels was a respiratory one, a bit like, you know coronavirus...’

Lesley finished the thread with the question, ‘Are you concerned about The Health of Strangers?’ A question that, just a few weeks later seems more pertinent than ever. The 49-year-old, who was born and raised in Trinity, reflects, “It’s quiet sinister really, we have no interest in the health of strangers until something like this happens, then it very much comes into focus... someone on the bus coughs and everybody is concerned.”

Life has certainly taken a surreal twist for the writer since the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic and she found herself living the fictional Edinburgh of her books.

Health of Strangers is a series of political crime thrillers set in a near-future Capital in which Health Enforcement Teams are employed to ensure citizens attend monthly health checks and behave appropriately - sound familiar?

Acclaimed for their attention to detail, the author draws on her experiences as the Chief Officer of an umbrella organisation that co-ordinates voluntary groups and volunteers in Midlothian to ensure her novels are authentic. “The original idea was strongly informed by the planning meetings I go to,” she reveals, as she recalls the origins of the series, “And then the Spanish flu of 1918 piqued my interest. With that, we would have all the issues we are having at the moment, but I never thought for a minute that we would find ourselves doing the things I write about for real.”

By day, the mother of two now finds herself spending more and more time in those meetings that sparked her imagination. She says, “At the moment I am involved in emergency planning which, in the past, has always been to do with bad weather, but I was very quick off the mark this time because I knew what we needed to do in a pandemic. In the office we are down to a skeleton staff, people are leaving one by one to work from home, which is sad because as they leave, you’re thinking, ‘I’m not really sure when I’ll see you again’.”

If that comment only serves to highlight the challenge that lies ahead for us all, Lesley adds that she has been impressed by the public reaction to the current crisis. “The response we’ve had has been amazing, people’s first thought has been to think of their neighbours,” she reveals. We have a lot of people calling and saying that they want to volunteer and there are lots of staff shortages right now which volunteers could fill. However, we also have to be conscious of how we keep people safe - not only do we want people to volunteer, but to do so in a way that doesn’t make things worse for them or the public in general.

“We will need volunteers, The NHS has already said that it is going to need volunteers to support it, and we are currently looking at whether there will be a role for volunteers when it comes to things like Council services.”

She adds, “And if people are looking to volunteer in Edinburgh, their first point of contact should be the Volunteer Edinburgh web site for details of how to go about it.”

As Edinburgh, the UK and the rest of the world strive to stem to flatten the curve of infection, Lesley concedes that the measures currently being taken in reality far outweigh those in her novels.

“Real life measures have been far more draconian than those in the books,” she says. “Schools weren’t shut and there had been no lock down, in fact, in the books it is mentioned that China does that kind of thing, but we don’t. Also, I think I hadn’t factored in the emotional response of people living through a pandemic. The books are quite stoical, with people keeping calm and carrying on. Now that we are where we are, you realise just how many people have underlying conditions that doesn’t affect their day to day life, but now puts them in a high risk category."

Noting how much she had predicted and what she had got wrong in those aforementioned Tweets, Lesley admits, “There was quite a polarised reaction when I tweeted about what I got right and what I got wrong. The response was great but when I checked, I found I’d also lost between 15 to 20 followers overnight, so obviously, some people are thinking, ‘I don’t what to know any more about the virus than I absolutely have to’.”

With Murder at the Music Factory due for publication on 23 April, the author is acutely aware that it’s a launch that has to be pitched correctly.

“It’s very difficult because, while you have to promote it, people are suddenly very vulnerable and you must be sensitive to that, it’s going to be a challenge for my publisher. But my books are set after an outbreak, six months after the pandemic has hit when, although the virus hasn’t gone away, normal life has kind of resumed. In this one, the conspiracy theories are ramped up and some very bad things happen to civil servants... but now that everybody is going to be an armchair expert on pandemics, it’s going to be very different when I write the next one. I’ll need to stay one stop ahead.”

Returning to present day reality, Lesley is keen to impress her belief that despite fast-changing developments, there’s good reason to be optimistic.

“I reiterate what I’ve always said, people plan for pandemics and I am very hopeful we will see the best of human nature coming to the fore and the best of our public services stepping up.”

Murder at the Music Factory is published on 23 April, by Sandstone Press, £7.99