Alanna Knight (1923–2020)

Alanna Knight was born Gladys Allan Cleet in Jesmond, a suburb of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Her father was a master butcher. She left school at age 16 and trained as a secretary at a commercial college.
In 1951, she married Alistair Knight, a scientist, and lived in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he had a post at the Macaulay Institute of Soil Research. The couple had two sons. In 1963, her husband's work took the family to Beirut, Lebanon, for a six-month assignment. It was shortly after, in 1964, that Alanna Knight became paralyzed by polyneuritis (neuropathy). Her husband gave her an electric typewriter to help in her recovery, and by the time the paralysis ended five years later, she had written her first novel, Legend of the Loch (1969). Her literary career was launched, and she published another 61 books over the next 50 years, ranging from romantic and historical fiction to gothic suspense, true crime, memoirs, and biography. Some of her books appeared under the pen name Margaret Hope. Her best known series was the Inspector Jeremy Faro mysteries, set in 19th century Edinburgh. She also wrote a series about a time-traveling detective named Tam Eildor, and series about women detectives. Knight was honorary president of the Edinburgh Writers Club, a founder and honorary president of the Scottish Association of Writers, and an active member of the Crime Writers' Association. She taught creative writing and lectured on the topic from universities to Bloody Scotland, a literary convention. She was also a portrait and landscape painter. Knight was made a Member of the British Empire for services to literature in 2014.