Who would you like to see playing you in the movie about your life?
Marisa: Julianne Moore.
Chris: Stanley Tucci.

Who do you think the casting people would choose?
Marisa: Kelly Macdonald.
Chris: Stanley Baxter.

What’s the punchline to your favourite joke?
Marisa: Hello Keith.

Chris: What, in this weather?

If you were to return in a future life as an animal, what would it be?
Marisa: Something that flies or swims. Maybe a dolphin.
Chris: A gay panda. So that I could be fed and pampered in a zoo, adored by my public, all the while frustrating the hell out of the keepers who are trying to get me to shag a potential mate.

If you were playing in an escape room, name two other people (well-known or otherwise) you’d recruit to help you get out?
Marisa: Professor Brian Cox and Dara Ó Briain. I think they’d be an unstoppable combination.
Chris: Mark Billingham and Val McDermid. Two quiz addicts who are also equipped with highly devious minds.

When was the last time you were mistaken for someone else and what were the circumstances?
Marisa: The Irish writer Liz Nugent apparently thought I was [Scottish author] Caro Ramsay when she saw me chatting to Chris outside the Old Swan in Harrogate at the crime festival.
Chris: The birthmark makes this question non-applicable in my case. Though you’d be amazed how many people, after I tell them what it is, ask how long I’ve had it.

What’s the best cover version ever?
Marisa: Biffy Clyro’s cover of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Modern Leper’.
Chris: Same. Though The Afghan Whigs’ version of The Clash’s ‘Lost In The Supermarket’ is a close second, blending ‘Train In Vain’ and ‘Stand By Me’ into the mix.

Whose speaking voice soothes your ears?
Marisa: David Attenborough or the guy who does the shipping forecast.
Chris: Regé-Jean Page. Even the sound of him playing angry makes me feel more relaxed.

Tell us something you wish you had discovered sooner in life?
Marisa: That happiness is your own responsibility.
Chris: That Marisa Haetzman can write half your book while you do something else.

Describe your perfect Saturday evening?
Marisa: Dinner (cooked by Chris) and a movie.
Chris: That works for me too. As long as the movie doesn’t turn out to have had five stars from Peter Bradshaw.

If you were a ghost, who would you haunt?
Marisa: Someone who deserved to be frightened. At the moment that’s a long list.
Chris: If I had that kind of freedom to roam in the after-life, I’d be too busy rooting through official secrets to be haunting anybody.

If you could relive any day of your life, which one would it be?
Marisa: My wedding day. Uncomplicatedly happy from start to finish.
Chris: Our joint 50th birthday party at Òran Mór, featuring a set from the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. Playing music surrounded by family and friends, the latter boosted by it being the night before Bloody Scotland, so the place was filled with my favourite crime writers on their way to Stirling.

What’s your earliest recollection of winning something?
Marisa: Miss Brownie 1977. I had to wear a sash and a tinfoil tiara. It was mortifying.

Chris: I won the PE medal for effort in my first year at secondary. I was so shit at sports that when my name was called at the prize-giving, I didn’t go up because I thought it was a mistake.

Did you have a nickname at school that you were ok with? And can you tell us a nickname you hated?
Marisa: I was too boring and swotty to have a nickname at school.
Chris: I went to the kind of school where you got nicknamed Professor if you had read a whole book.

If you were to start a tribute act to a band or singer, who would it be in tribute to and what would it be called?
Marisa: The Skids. We’d be called the Skid Marks.

When were you most recently astonished by something?

Marisa: Watching our son perform stand-up comedy at The Stand for the first time. We were vicariously anxious in the run-up, but he utterly smashed it.

What tune do you find it impossible not to get up and dance to, whether in public or private?
Marisa: ‘Uptown Funk’ by Bruno Mars.
Chris: It’s a rule in our house that you have to hold up your arms and go for it during the synth break in ‘Perfect Blue’ by Chvrches. Even if you’re driving. To a funeral.

As an adult, what has a child said to you that made a powerful impact?
Marisa: ‘I’m still working on my sense of humour.’ Said to me by my eight-year-old son who was trying to explain why he was having yet another meltdown about something relatively trivial.
Chris: ‘I haven’t done a poo.’ Said by same son as a toddler, teaching me a valuable lesson about what it means when people volunteer information they don’t need to.

Tell us one thing about yourself that would surprise people?
Marisa: I’m a black-belt catastrophiser.
Chris: I’ve never seen Casablanca.

When did you last cry?
Marisa: Watching the new Bridget Jones movie.
Chris: Same.

What’s the most hi-tech item in your home?
Marisa: That belongs to me? My phone.
Chris: Marisa’s apple peeler/corer. It will be a long time before AI can pull off what that wee gizmo does.

What’s a skill you’d love to learn but never got round to?
Marisa: Portrait painting and speaking another language.
Chris: Dancing with marginally greater elegance than a newly born giraffe.

By decree of your local council, you’ve been ordered to destroy one room in your house and all of its contents. Which room do you choose?
Marisa: The attic bedroom where all the junk lives.
Chris: They’re called guitars, honey, and I’m keeping them.

Ambrose Parry: The Death Of Shame is published by Canongate on Thursday 5 June; Haetzman and Brookmyre appear at Surgeons’ Hall, Edinburgh, Monday 2 June; Drygate Brewery, Glasgow, Tuesday 3 June; Portobello Bookshop, Tuesday 10 June; main picture: Chris Close.