Hometown Hero is a series celebrating some of the area's best known and widely-loved names.

Ayrshire crime author Michael J Malone was born and raised in the heart of Burns' country.

Formerly a Faber and Faber Regional Sales Manager he has judged and critiqued countless poetry, short story and novel competitions for a variety of organisations, and for a number of years was the Scottish correspondent for Writers' Forum.

The prize-winning poet and writer has published over 200 poems in literary magazines through the UK.

His crime stories based in Scotland and cover a range of hard hitting topics such as child abuse, murder and male domestic abuse.

Michael's bestselling debut novel 'Blood Tears' won the Pitlochry prize from the Scottish Association of Writers.