He was the youngest son of Eric Linklater, a poet, and Marjorie MacIntyre, an arts campaigner.
[1] At the end of the 1960s he lived in the United States, but returned to Britain to teach in Scotland and London, before turning to writing after his father's death in 1974.
[2] Linklater's book Why Spencer Perceval Had To Die focuses on the assassination of British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, looking at the conspiracy theories surrounding it, and revealing the historical context.
Linklater was married to photographer Marie-Louise Avery and lived in rural Kent.
He had a heart attack after a day of typically strenuous cycling while researching his next book on the island of Eigg,[1] and died in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary a week later.