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Ms Currie said a government-backed taskforce should be set up to deal with the issue, describing the Scottish Funding Council investigation into the cause of the crisis as "insufficient".

A master of witty, thoughtful fiction who does not retreat from tackling big concepts, Ron Currie explores new physical and emotional territory in “The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.”

Together, they make “The Trouble Up North” a compelling, satisfying read that, like Currie’s Babs Dionne saga, uses crime novel conventions to tell a bigger, more universal story.

A brutal attack by a Franco American cop trying to whitewash his heritage and its aftermath teaches Babs a hard-learned lesson that colors her adult life: “In all the years to come, with all the enemies you were to know,” Currie’s narrator observes, “you would never again assume one was beaten until they were dead.”

"Our hot food menu is proving increasingly popular, with pizza deals driving strong growth," said chief executive Roisin Currie.