Bute Noir 2026

 

Bute Noir Programme

Friday 7^th August

4.00pm – 5.00pm 

Heard it Through The Grapevine

Craig Robertson & Alexandra Sokoloff

Interviewed by Louise Fairbairn

5.30pm - 6.30pm 

It’s The Police

G.R. Halliday, William Shaw & G.D. Wright

Chaired by Nicola Meighan

7.00pm - 8.00pm 

Hard Truths

Claire McGowan & Andi Osho

Interviewed by Nicola Meighan

8.30pm – 9.30pm 

Criminal Complexities

Louise Candlish & Liz Nugent

Interviewed by Bryan Burnett

10.00pm – 11.00pm 

The Friday Night Quiz

Or it might be a game show, we haven’t decided yet... But there will be a bunch of crime writers and lots of laughs. More to come!

Saturday 8th August

10.00am – 11.00am 

Crime, Coffee and Croissants

Kick off a crime-filled day with a chat, a cuppa, and a croissant or two in the company of Myra Duffy & Alex Gray

11.30am – 12.30pm 

Pride and Prejudice

D.V. Bishop, Allan Gaw & Louise Welsh

Chaired by Bob McDevitt

1.00pm – 2.00pm 

In Conversation:

Harriet Tyce & Erin Kelly

Two of the UK’s best writers talk books

2.30pm – 3.30pm 

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Remi Kone, Jay Stringer & Luca Veste

Chaired by Heather Fitt

4.00pm – 5.00pm

Scandi Noir

Ørjan Karlsson & Jenny Lund Madsen

Interviewed by Craig Sisterson

5.30pm – 6.30pm 

Missing Without A Trace

Tim Weaver

Interviewed by Ayo Onatade

7.00pm – 8.00pm 

21st Century Christie

Ruth Ware

Interviewed by Bryan Burnett

8.30pm – 10.00pm 

Dead Good Anniversaries

Chris Brookmyre & Doug Johnstone

Celebrating 30 years of Brookmyre and 20 years of Johnstone.

Interviewed by Marisa Haetzman

Sunday 9th August

10.00am – 11.30am Island Bus Tour

10.30am – 11.30am 

Hunting Shadows: Peter Tobin

Jane Hamilton

Interviewed by Craig Robertson

12.00pm – 1.00pm 

Thrillers and Killers

Ilona Bannister, Gavin Bell & Ajay Chowdhury

Chaired by Colin Sinclair

1.30pm – 2.30pm 

First Blood

Debut panel with Frances Crawford, Linda Duncan McLaughlin & May Rinaldi

Chaired by Craig Robertson

3.00pm – 4.00pm 

Gangland Girls

Alex Kane & Anna Smith

Interviewed by Alistair Liddle

4.30pm – 5.30pm 

Soldier, Soldier

C.J. Howell & Alan Parks

Interviewed by Craig Sisterson

Bute Museum

7 Stuart Street, Rothesay,

Isle of Bute, PA20 0EP

Opening Times

Summer: April - Sept (incl)

Monday to Saturday ~ 10.30 – 3.30

Sunday ~ 1.30 – 3.30

Winter: Oct - Nov and Feb - Mar (incl)

Tues, Wed, Thurs & Sat. ~ 1.30 – 3.30

Closed : Dec -Jan

Admission: Adults £5.00 ~ Concessions £4.00

Children (15 & under) – Free if accompanied by a paying adult

Bute Museum

Bute Museum, one of our original venues, will continue to host pop-up author events throughout the year and their volunteers remain an integral part of our Bute Noir team.

More information can be found on the Bute Noir website.

The programme can be found here.

Nine Weeks with Twelve Strangers

I wasn’t yet fully qualified. As such, I wasn’t really involved in the case. There was no need for me to address either the jury or the judge, and certainly no need for me to ask questions. My role was simply to take a note of everything that happened during this nine-week trial.

And it was the ninth week – the final stretch in what had been a long and harrowing historical sexual abuse case. There were multiple counts involving a psychiatrist accused of abusing the trust placed in him by vulnerable patients decades earlier. Much of my week therefore had been spent waiting while the jury were deliberating. The deliberations stretched on for days. I took the opportunity to read a Ken Follet novel. 

When we were finally called into court, the atmosphere was tense. The verdicts themselves were mixed: some guilty, some not guilty, and some counts where there was no clear majority (what is known as a ‘hung jury’). None of the verdicts were unanimous. All were majority verdicts, meaning at least two jurors had disagreed on each occasion. This, in of itself, was evidence of a jury who had found it difficult to agree on anything. 

I looked across at the twelve men and women who had spent nine weeks listening to profoundly upsetting evidence while largely cut off from the outside world, unable to tell their friends or family about the case because this would put them in breach of their oath. Most people offload at the end of a stressful day – about the colleague who steals their milk, or about the incompetent boss with unreasonable expectations – the same irritations and gripes can easily arise between members of a jury, who are nothing more than a random assortment of strangers thrown together and asked to decide the fate of another human being. 

Yet that pressure cooker has very few release valves. Jurors cannot go home at the end of the day and decompress over dinner in the way most of us do. They cannot complain about the personalities they are trapped with. This is for good reason; to ensure there is no outside influence from people who have not heard all of the evidence. 

There was one woman sat at the end of the front row. As the foreman was giving the verdicts, I saw that she was crying silently. I wondered whether this was because she felt that they had convicted an elderly gentleman on unreliable evidence, or whether she thought that, in returning some ‘not guilty’ verdicts, they were failing the victims who had so bravely given evidence about some of the most traumatic experiences of their lives.

She wasn’t the only indicator of there being ill feeling between the jurors. Some of them were casting accusatory glances at one another. No one seemed to want to be in another’s space. They were pulling in their arms, avoiding any physical contact, however incidental. I couldn’t help but wonder what had gone on in that deliberation room. Whatever had happened in there might have been every bit as dramatic as the trial itself.

That experience stayed with me for years and eventually became the foundation for One of Your Number, my second novel.

The book follows Leonie, a juror trapped inside a court building with the rest of the jury when the city becomes the target of a chemical attack. Even before the attack, the deliberations are tense. Leonie is convinced the defendant, a nurse accused of murdering his patients, is guilty, but she finds herself battling what she sees as prejudice, wilful blindness, and the strange dynamics that emerge in group situations.

Once the jurors are told that they are unable to leave the building for their own safety, those tensions intensify. The accused has escaped his cell and is on the loose. He's playing twisted games with the group. And Leonie is his next target.

Courtroom dramas often focus on what happens in the courtroom: the cross-examinations, the speeches, the performances of the lawyers. My novel looks at what happens once twelve strangers disappear behind a closed door and are left alone with each other, their consciences, and the responsibility of deciding another person’s fate.

One of Your Number by L.J. Shepherd (Pushkin Press) Out Now

Justice is blind. But someone's watching. Leonie is one of twelve jurors chosen to decide the fate of a nurse accused of murder. But just as deliberations begin, an usher bursts in with news that changes everything. Britain is under chemical attack, and the courthouse is locked down. Ordered to stay put for their own safety, the jurors soon realise that the real danger lies inside the building. The accused has escaped his cell and is on the loose. He's playing twisted games with the group. And Leonie is his next target. Because he knows something about her. She isn't on the jury by chance- and her reasons for being there are far more personal than anyone suspects. As trust fractures, how far will Leonie go to tip the scales of justice in her favour?

More information about LJ Shepherd and her novels can be found on her website.

You can also find her on Instagram @ljshepherdauthor and on FaceBook.

One of Your Number is available to buy here.

    

Octagon – How real is the threat of nuclear terrorism?

Photo by Dan Donovan

It’s not a spoiler to say that my new spy-action thriller Octagon contains a nuclear terror threat. The opening pages tell the story of how a disgruntled Chechen scientist, repeatedly passed over for promotion, steals small quantities of highly enriched uranium from the research facility where he works in Russia, storing it at home until he has enough to make an atomic bomb. Many years later, this material finds its way onto the international criminal market, where a new buyer expresses interest, and a deal is set up. The plot unfolds from there. But how realistic is the threat?

Thankfully there have been no recorded instances of nuclear terrorism. This is partly because such materials are very highly controlled, and usually in the possession of nation states who know how to guard them. If bad actors were to acquire nuclear materials – which Al-Qaeda, among others, long professed as an ambition – they would still need to know how to produce a nuclear bomb, which is no simple task. They would require at least 25kg of weapons-grade uranium to initiate a self-sustaining chain reaction – the kind of huge mushroom cloud explosions seen in old video clips. And unless they had a very reliable time delay for detonating it, they would need a remote delivery mechanism, which is typically a long-range ballistic missile. Again, not easy to come by, let alone launch.

Much easier, on the other hand, would be detonating an explosive device containing radiological materials. It would be very unlikely to produce a chain reaction, but the psychological impact would be huge. Public terror, blind panic, people fleeing the area where it was detonated. Massive cleanup costs, extensive economic damage, political turmoil. These kinds of devices are called ‘radiological dispersal devices’ and are sometimes referred to as ‘dirty bombs’. Fortunately, there haven’t been any of those either. But not for want of people trying.

The Chechen scientist in Octagon who manages to steal 100kg of communist-era surplus uranium from a poorly administered research facility is based on a real insider case, that of Leonid Smirnov, in post-Soviet Russia during the 1990s. Smirnov found himself in financial difficulties after the breakup of the USSR, and decided to monetise his access to the valuable asset he worked with every day: highly enriched uranium. Luckily, he only managed to steal 1.5kg and ended up being caught – but I wondered what would happen if someone did steal enough to build a bomb and got away with it.

Smirnov’s case is by no means isolated. There have been hundreds of instances of nuclear materials going missing and turning up on the black market over the past 35 years or so. Most involve tiny quantities, sometimes just a few grams. Others involve medical radiological material which is nowhere near as harmful. Most involve the former Soviet Union, which set vast production targets at the height of the Cold War, when they faced the possibility of all-out nuclear war with the US and its Western allies. And the legacy of that still haunts us today. 

Since 2019, the former Soviet republic of Georgia has thwarted three separate multi-million-dollar uranium smuggling plots – including two in 2025 alone. Real fissile material is out there (among the fake stuff no doubt being pedalled) and there are plenty of people who want to get hold of it. None has succeeded so far, that we know of. But Octagon asks the question: what if they did? Fortunately, for now, the answer is still within the realms of fiction.

Octagon by C.J.Merritt (Penguin Books) Out Now

A dying Russian scientist confesses to his children what he did as a young man. A murdered spy shares vital intelligence before he’s ruthlessly assassinated in the English countryside. A hidden ritual killing hidden in a forest clearing in Sweden hints at something much worse. Former MI6 Agent runner Stella McRae is the only person who can be trusted to investigate now her former employer has been compromised. Ex-SAS Operator Tommy Kane has always had Stella’s back, but as the threats against them escalate, will his formidable skills be enough this time? Octagon - A devastating plot against the West is already in train. Only Stella and Tommy stand in its way. And time is running out...

More information about CJ Merritt can be found on his website. He can also be found on Facebook. On X @drcjmerritt, Instagram @chrisjmerritt

Crime Writers’ Association Announce 2026 Dagger Awards Shortlist

 

The shortlist for the Crime Writers’ Association’s prestigious Dagger awards has been announced.

Created in 1955, the world-famous CWA Daggers are the oldest awards in the genre and have been synonymous with quality crime writing for over half a century.

This year’s shortlists showcase the range and depth of the genre, from historical fiction to thrillers and classic whodunnits.

As well as championing established authors of the genre, it also provides a platform for debut and emerging talent.

Nadine Matheson, Chair of the CWA, said: "This year’s shortlist is a fantastic reflection of the extraordinary breadth and diversity of crime fiction today, and a celebration of authors from debuts to established names, whose creative talents ensure that the genre continues to grow from strength to strength.”

The coveted KAA Gold Dagger, sponsored by Kevin Anderson & Associates, is awarded for the best crime novel of the year.

Shortlisted novels are S.A Cosby with King of Ashes, Abigail Dean’s The Death of Us, Holly Jackson with Not Quite Dead Yet, Vaseem Khan’s The Girl in Cell A, Ariel Lawhon with The Frozen and Lara Shepherd-Robinson’s The Art of a Lie, a novel that also makes the Historical Dagger shortlist.

S.A. Cosby is the only author to be shortlisted for an unprecedented three Dagger awards. As well as Gold, the American author of “Southern noir” is also in contention for the Short Story Dagger and the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, which honours the best thriller of the year.

Also shortlisted for the Steel Dagger is the standalone thriller by BookTok sensation Noelle W Ihli, Such Quiet Girls inspired by the real-life 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping. She’s up against the global bestselling author Karin Slaughter for We Are All Guilty Here, Tariq Ashkanani’s The Midnight King, Robert Crais with The Big Empty, Mark Ezra’s A Sting in her Tale and Liam McIlvanney’s The Good Father.

Joining Laura Shepherd-Robinson, authors Nina Allan, Rob McInroy, Donna Moore, Alan Parks and Sally Smith make the Historical Dagger shortlist. The historical novels span 18th century London to 1920s Glasgow, from stories inspired by gritty true crimes to a cosy Christmas mystery.

The Twisted Dagger for psychological suspense shortlist features Sarah Pinborough, the author behind the New York Times bestselling breakout novel (and hit Netflix show) Behind Her Eyes with a haunting Gothic novel, We Live Here Now. She’s up against Kia Abdullah, Nicci Cloke, Fiona Cummins, Carole Hailey and Sam Lloyd.

The Whodunnit Dagger for books with an intellectual challenge at the heart of a good mystery, sees Alexandra Benedict, Victoria Goldman, Anna Fitzgerald Healy, Robert Holtom, Mel Pennant and CJ Wray in the running.

The global reach of the genre is showcased in the Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger.

International authors include two German writers - Karsten Dusse with his bestselling dark comedy series, Murder Mindfully and Leonie Swann with her mystery novel, Big Bad Wool, the anticipated follow-up to her breakout hit, Three Bags Full that follows a flock of sheep as they try to solve a murder.

The shortlist also sees Norway’s Jørn Lier Horst, the Croatian writer and journalist Jurica Pavicic, Finland’s Antti Tuomainen, and Strange Pictures – a novel from the Japanese YouTuber and writer, Uketsu.

Their translators are also recognised in the award, which is sponsored in honour of Dolores Jakubowski.

The ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction includes The Spy in the Archive by Gordon Corera and Shaun Walker’s The Illegals, profiling Russia’s most audacious spies, reflecting the enduring fascination with espionage and true crime, alongside Shadow of The Bridge by Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee, John Curran’s The Murder Game, Caroline Fraser’s Murderland, and Susannah Stapleton with That Dark Spring.

The Short Story Dagger features S.A. Cosby, alongside the acclaimed Scottish author Denise Mina and the bestselling Abir Mukherjee. The Daggers are one of the few high-profile awards celebrating short-form storytelling.

The Dagger in the Library, voted for by librarians, recognises authors whose bodies of work have resonated with readers over time. On this year’s shortlist are Paula Hawkins, best known for her huge hit, Girl on the Train alongside JD Kirk, Clare Mackintosh, Freida McFadden, Abir Mukherjee and Tim Sullivan.

The CWA Daggers are also known for providing a platform for emerging talent, with the much-anticipated ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger and the Emerging Author Dagger competition, sponsored by Fiction Feedback; over two dozen past winners and shortlisted debut authors have signed publishing deals to date.

The Best Crime and Mystery Publisher category recognises the publishers behind the genre’s success, with leading imprints including Faber & Faber, Pan Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster shortlisted against Bitter Lemon Press, No Exit Press and Viper.

The CWA Diamond Dagger, sponsored by Karen Baugh Menuhin, is awarded to an author whose crime-writing career has been marked by sustained excellence, is announced in early spring and in 2026 was awarded to Mark Billingham.

The winners are announced at the CWA gala dinner awards night in July.

The shortlists in full:                

CWA KAA Gold Dagger

King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Headline)        

The Death of Us by Abigail Dean (HarperCollins/Hemlock Press)

Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson (Penguin Random House/Michael Joseph)

The Girl in Cell A by Vaseem Khan (Hodder Fiction).

The Frozen by Ariel Lawhon (River Swift Press)          

The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Pan Macmillan/Mantle)

          

Ian Fleming Steel Dagger

The Midnight King by Tariq Ashkanani (Profile Books/Viper)

King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby (Headline)

The Big Empty by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster UK)

A Sting in her Tale by Mark Ezra (Bedford Square Publishers/ No Exit Press)

Such Quiet Girls by Noelle W Ihli (Pan Macmillan/ Pan)

The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney (Bonnier Books UK/Zaffre)

We Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter (HarperCollins Publishers)

ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction

Shadow of The Bridge: The Delphi Murders and The Dark Side of The American Heartland by Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee (Pegasus Books/Pegasus Crime)          

The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB by Gordon Corera (HarperCollins/ William Collins)

The Murder Game by John Curran (HarperCollins/Collins Crime Club)

Murderland by Caroline Fraser (Little, Brown Book Group/Fleet)

That Dark Spring by Susannah Stapleton (Pan Macmillan/Picador)

The Illegals by Shaun Walker (Profile Books)

Historical Dagger

A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (Quercus/riverrun)

Barvick Falls by Rob McInroy (Tippermuir Books)

The Devil's Draper by Donna Moore (Fly on the Wall Press)

Gunner by Alan Parks (John Murray Press/Baskerville)

The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson (Pan Macmillan/Mangle)

A Case of Life and Limb by Sally Smith (Bloomsbury Publishing/Raven Books)

Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger

Murder Mindfully by Karsten Dusse (Faber) translated by Florian Duijsens

The Lake by Jørn Lier Horst  (Penguin Random House) translated by Anne Bruce

Red Water by Jurica Pavicic (Bitter Lemon Press) translated by Matt Robinson

Big Bad Wool by Leonie Swann (Allison & Busby) translated by Amy Bojang

The Winter Job by Antti Tuomainen (Orenda Books) translated by David Hackston

Strange Pictures by Uketsu (Pushkin Press) translated by Jim Rion

Whodunnit Dagger

The Christmas Cracker Killer by Alexandra Benedict (Simon & Schuster UK)

Little Secrets by Victoria Goldman (Three Crowns Publishing UK/self-published)

Etiquette for Lovers & Killers by Anna Fitzgerald Healy (Little, Brown Book Group/Fleet)

A Queer Case by Robert Holtom (Titan Books)

A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant (John Murray Press/Baskerville)

Bad Influence by CJ Wray (Orion Fiction)

Twisted Dagger

What Happens in the Dark by Kia Abdullah  (HarperCollins/HQ Ficiton)

Her Many Faces by Nicci Cloke (Penguin Random House UK/Harvill)

Some of Us are Liars by Fiona Cummins (Pan Macmillan/Macmillan)

Scenes From A Tragedy by Carole Hailey (Atlantic Books/Corvus)

The Bodies by Sam Lloyd (Transworld/Bantam)

We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough (Orion Fiction)         

ILP John Creasey (First Novel) Dagger

The Peak by Sam Guthrie (HarperCollins Publishers)

The Lost Detective by Elspeth Latimer (Story Machine)

The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey (HarperCollins/Hemlock Press)

The Vanishing Place by Zoë Rankin (Profile Books/Viper)

Coram House by Bailey Seybolt (Bloomsbury Publishing/Raven Books)

Holy City by Henry Wise (Bedford Square Publishers/No Exit Press)

Short Story Dagger

‘Split Your Silver Tongue’ by SA Cosby in Birds, Strangers and Psychos (No Exit Press)

‘The Karpman Drama Triangle’ by Denise Mina in Birds, Strangers and Psychos (No Exit Press)

‘Full Circle’ by Abir Mukherjee in Playing Dead: Short Stories by Members of the Detection Club (Severn House)

 ‘The Apple Falls Not Far’ by Ambrose Perry (Canongate)

 ‘Strangers on a School Bus’ by Peter Swanson in Birds, Strangers and Psychos (No Exit Press)

 ‘Waiting’ by Michael Wood in Criminal Pursuits: This Is Me (Telos Publishing)

Emerging Author

Ill Met By Murder by Rod Cookson, 

 The Man Who Fit the Case by Sophia Georghiou

Just a Simple Wedding by Kate Koester

The Fixer by Lorna Mathew, 

The Madam of Morningside by Rebecca McFarland

Blind Side of the Sun by Michael Nikitin

The Pattern of Absence by Melisssa Smith

Dagger in the Library

Paula Hawkins   

JD Kirk  

Clare Mackintosh             

Freida McFadden             

Abir Mukherjee 

Tim Sullivan       

Best Crime & Mystery Publisher

Bitter Lemon Press

Faber & Faber

No Exit Press (Bedford Square)

Pan Macmillan

Simon & Schuster

Viper (Profile Books)

Totem - Having a story of it own

Some books have a story of their own. Totem, my latest novel, has one that stretches back 19 years.

Back in 2007, I made a trip to the mountainous wilderness of British Columbia to research a potential drama series for the BBC. I wrote a script, but as with nine out of ten promising drama projects, it didn’t go any further. Nevertheless, I had been entranced by this landscape and its people.

Hiking in country accessible only by float plane more than fifty miles from the nearest dirt road, without guns or even bear spray (more likely to antagonise than placate, apparently), our guide pointed out fresh grizzly scat and for the first time in my life I experienced the feeling of not being at the top of the food chain. It heightens the senses and places you in a different relationship with nature: it’s no longer something you observe, you are a part of it.

 Deep in the woods, we came across the skeletal remains of a teepee that had probably stood there for decades. The forest had never been managed and existed as nature intended – fallen, dead trees were nurse logs for new saplings in a life cycle that operates at many times that of a human span.

I went on to visit remote outposts, met indigenous people and began to learn something of the process of cultural renewal and restoration that is taking place in small communities dotted across the vastness of Canada. Some indigenous peoples are engaged in the sensitive process of negotiating treaties with the government that give them partial autonomy and a share in the natural resources in their ancestral lands.

It set me thinking about a novel that would explore the complex tensions between all that is good in modernity and all that is precious in our pasts, in our ancient cultures, ancestral memories and deep connections with homelands. Some of us live in landscapes in which our ancestors dwelt – in the Welsh borders, I count myself lucky to be one of them. Many of us don’t and are a fusion of many histories and influences. Some of us have a deep and profound sense of connection to place, but many of us feel indifferent to our immediate surroundings or even displaced from somewhere lost to us.

These tensions increasingly suffuse our politics and culture and raise deep questions: we all share a sense of common humanity but at the same time value our unique heritages, all God-given and part of our collective journey into an unknown future.

I sketched an outline for the novel in 2010 but my then publisher encouraged me in another direction. A blow at the time but in publishing, timing is everything. I’m glad I didn’t know that the journey would take 16 more years.

Another 12 years had passed when I chanced upon Charles Joseph, a renowned indigenous artist who chiefly works as a wood-carver. I heard his moving personal testimony on a podcast and managed to make contact. His traumatic life-experiences involved his sexual abuse, aged 5, at the hands of a nun at residential school. In adulthood, his healing began by making connection with the culture of his ancestors. His life story inspired a pivotal character, Eldon, who had been missing from my original idea and around which a new narrative began to take shape.

I wrote the book on spec in 2022 and 2023 in the aftermath of the death of our youngest son. Quite how, I don’t know. It was the darkest of times. Charles was hugely encouraging and I fancied I had a story that would find a home but it received a string of rejections and another year went by.

It was never said out loud, but I wondered if the rejections were partly out of fear that as a British writer I didn’t have the right to tell a story that involved indigenous people. Maybe I didn’t?

The gloom set in.

Fate intervened again in the strangest of circumstances. In 2024, my aunt, an artist who lived in Ontario and who was suffering the early stages of motor neurone disease, asked me to be with her when she ended her life through euthanasia. I didn’t want her to go through with it, but she was resolved.

During the few days before she left this life for the next, we made a trip to the beach at Lake Huron and my cousin, Dion, remarked that a painting had caught his eye in a fish smokery on a nearby reserve where he had gone for the cheap, tax free cigarettes - another strange link in the chain.

We went to see the picture – it was by an indigenous artist, Jeff ‘Red’ George, and I knew I had

to meet him. Two days later, I tracked him down to the lakeshore house where he was staying.

Like Charles, Jeff has his own deeply-troubled life story and had found his redemption in his art. Within minutes of meeting, Jeff had started to draw the image of a bear and her cub with which the book opens. He agreed to illustrate the text and the book instantly became something else – a collaboration and fusion of his form of artistic expression with mine.

It was the missing piece. Not long after, Totem found a home with Eye Books, a wonderful, smaller publisher not afraid to take creative risks.

Totem explores the idea that we live in a world of unknowable connections and boundaries; of both unique and common experiences. Its own long story certainly bears that out.

Totem by Matthew Hall (Eye-Books) Out Now

The day Jessie Cunningham achieves her life’s goal and is made partner in an ultra-powerful Toronto law firm, she suffers a catastrophic burnout. While attempting to recuperate, she volunteers for a charity preserving ancient trees in the wilderness of British Columbia. There she meets Todd Samson, a man with a troubled past and a wounded soul. The attraction is instant, but they’re from different worlds… that are about to collide. When Todd is falsely accused of murdering a local conservation  officer and his beleaguered community in the Three Valleys Reserve comes under pressure from the government to swap its ancestral territory for land on the outskirts of Vancouver, Jessie is drawn into their struggle against greed, corruption and injustice. Forming an unlikely alliance with Chief Ray Squinas and wood carver and shaman Eldon Marshall, Jessie joins them in the fight of their lives – against just the kind of dark forces she has spent her career serving.

Totem is available for pre-order from the publisher: Eye Books, Amazon and all the best bookshops.

Website: www.matthewhallbooks.com

X: @matthewh_books

Substack: substack.com/@viewfromthewoods

 

Shortlist for McDermid Debut Award 2026 Revealed

                                                                    

Showcasing ‘original’ and ‘highly entertaining’ new crime fiction from rising star authors

Festival Dates: 23-26 July 2026

www.harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com

#TheakstonsAwards #TheakstonsCrime

 Thursday 21 May 2026: Harrogate International Festivals has announced the shortlist for the McDermid Debut Award for new UK and Irish writers. The winner will be revealed on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Thursday 23 July.  

The shortlist for this year’s McDermid Debut Award, named in recognition of world-famous crime writer Val McDermid, showcases ‘original and assured’ new voices writing across a broad range of subgenres - including serial killer thrillers, detective fiction, cosy crime and dystopian chillers - and introducing a range of unforgettable protagonists, including a 12-year-old Glaswegian dog walker and a Windrush generation retiree who is Birmingham’s answer to Miss Marple. Now in its third year, the award has established a successful track record for discovering emerging talent, with the two previous winning books, Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney (2024), and A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman (2025), going on to become bestsellers.

The full McDermid Debut Award 2026 shortlist (in alphabetical order by surname) is:  

A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford (Transworld, Penguin Random House)  

The Exes by Leodora Darlington (Penguin Michael Joseph)  

Innocent Guilt by Remi Kone (Quercus)  

The Quiet by Barnaby Martin (Pan Macmillan)  

A Murder for Miss Hortense by Mel Pennant (Baskerville, John Murray)  

How to Get Away With Murder by Rebecca Philipson (Transworld, Penguin Random House)  

The shortlist in more detail:  

Award winning playwright Mel Pennant is shortlisted for A Murder for Miss Hortense, a warm, witty crime novel introducing a formidable retired nurse turned amateur detective. Her sharp eyes and sharper wit uncover truths buried deep within the quiet Birmingham suburban community she’s belonged to since emigrating from Jamaica in the ‘60s. Also shortlisted is The Exes by writer and editor Leodora Darlington, a serial killer thriller with a twist as a young woman with a history of blackouts begins to wonder if she is responsible when her new husband winds up dead – just like all her exes. Both Leodora Darlington and Mel Pennant have been selected for Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival’s prestigious Critics New Blood panel for 2026.

British Nigerian Emmy-nominated producer, Remi Kone, who has worked on TV dramas such as ‘Killing Eve’ and ‘Spooks,’ is shortlisted for Innocent Guilt, a suspenseful cat-and-mouse thriller where a detective and a journalist compete to solve the puzzling case of woman who appears at a police station covered in blood that isn’t her own and refuses to disclose what’s happened. Also shortlisted is A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford, a gritty and heartfelt thriller set in 1970s Glasgow about the far-reaching effects of murder on a community. A 12-year-old dog walker discovers the body of a murdered woman - the daughter of a local gangster - on an abandoned railway, and becomes tangled up in the police investigation. Scottish writer Frances Crawford graduated from Glasgow University aged sixty, before started her writing career.

Award-winning composer, video essayist and writer, Barnaby Martin, has been shortlisted for engrossing science fiction thriller, The Quiet. Set in a dystopian future where humans are forced to live at night to avoid the deadly daytime heat, a mother must do everything to protect her son from an autocratic government, while keeping the truth about her own past a secret. Completing the list is writer and true-crime blogger from County Durham, Rebecca Philipson, who has been shortlisted for How to Get Away With Murder, a propulsive thriller which follows a detective investigating the connection between the murder of a teenage girl and a chilling manual for aspiring killers written by an elusive serial killer. Rebecca is an alumnus of Creative Thursday, an immersive and inspiring day of workshops and talks designed to nurture new crime writing talent, which takes place annually on the opening day of the Festival. 

Honouring internationally bestselling crime writer, Val McDermid, who co-founded the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2003 and whose dedication to fostering new voices in crime fiction is legendary, this Award seeks to continue her legacy, celebrating and platforming the best debut crime writers in the UK. The shortlist was selected by a panel of established crime and thriller writers, and the winner will be decided by a panel of expert judges, chaired by Val McDermid. All shortlisted authors receive a full weekend pass to the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and the Winner will receive a £600 cash prize and an engraved, handcrafted beer barrel from T&R Theakston.  

Val McDermid said:

“This festival has a rich and long-established reputation for plucking out the debut gems from the crime writing pack. This year is no exception. Dive into the Debut Award shortlist and I guarantee you'll find six novels with something special to offer.”

Simon Theakston, Chairman of T&R Theakston, said: 

“Congratulations to all the talented writers shortlisted for the McDermid Debut Award this year. The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival has always celebrated the very best in crime fiction and thriller writing, and we are proud to turn the spotlight on a new generation of rising star debut authors. Readers are in for a real treat with these six new extraordinary novels to enjoy.” 

Sharon Canavar, Chief Executive of Harrogate International Festivals, said:
“We’re delighted to reveal the shortlists for the McDermid Debut Award, celebrating new talent. The six shortlisted books are compelling and highly entertaining novels by truly original and assured rising star authors. Supporting and platforming exciting new authors is at the heart of the festival, and we can’t wait for readers to discover these wonderful new novels.”

 The winner will be revealed on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Thursday 23 July.