Bloody Scotland announce the Longlist for the McIlvanney Prize 2022

We are delighted to announce the longlist for the McIlvanney Prize 2022. In Bloody Scotland’s 10th Anniversary year, it seems very fitting that a clear longlist of ten books emerged after the prize readers scores were tallied. Six years ago, the Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award was renamed the McIlvanney Prize in memory of William McIlvanney. The Prize recognises excellence in Scottish crime writing, and includes a prize of £1,000 and nationwide promotion in Waterstones.

The longlisted titles are:
May God Forgive by Alan Parks (Canongate)
The Second Cut by Louise Welsh (Canongate)
A Rattle of Bones by Douglas Skelton (Polygon)
From the Ashes by Deborah Masson (Transworld)
A Matter of Time by Claire Askew (Hodder)
A Corruption of Blood by Ambrose Parry (Canongate)
The Heretic by Liam McIlvanney (Harpercollins)
Rizzio by Denise Mina (Polygon)
The Sound of Sirens by Ewan Gault (Leamington Books)
The Blood Tide by Neil Lancaster (Harpercollins)

The McIlvanney Prize will be judged by Ayo Onatade, winner of the CWA Red Herring Award and freelance crime fiction critic, Janice Forsyth, presenter of the Afternoon Show on BBC Radio Scotland and Ewan Wilson, crime fiction buyer from Waterstones Glasgow. The Glencairn Glass, the world’s favourite whisky glass, is again sponsoring both The McIlvanney Prize and The Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel of the Year for 2022.

Finalists for the McIlvanney Prize will be revealed at the beginning of September. The winner will be revealed in Stirling on Thursday 15 September.The McIlvanney Prize recognises excellence in Scottish crime writing, includes a prize of £1000 and nationwide promotion in Waterstones. Previous winners are Craig Russell with Hyde in 2021, Francine Toon with Pine in 2020, Manda Scott with A Treachery of Spies in 2019 (who chose to share her prize with all the finalists), Liam McIlvanney with The Quaker in 2018, Denise Mina with The Long Drop 2017, Chris Brookmyre with Black Widow 2016, Craig Russell with The Ghosts of Altona in 2015, Peter May with Entry Island in 2014, Malcolm Mackay with How A Gunman Says Goodbye in 2013 and Charles Cumming with A Foreign Country in 2012

The initial longlisting is handled by over 100 crime fiction readers from all over Scotland including booksellers, bloggers, librarians and festival-goers and the longlist is then handed to the high-profile team of judges to decide on the eventual winner.

A Crystal Clear Crime - The Glencairn Glass Short Story Competition

 The Glencairn Glass launches its first ever crime short story competition with the theme:

“A Crystal Clear Crime”

For the past two years, the world’s favourite whisky glass – The Glencairn Glass – has featured as headline sponsor of the prestigious McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing prizes, celebrating the finest in Scottish crime writing talent. This week The Glencairn Glass is building on this creative collaboration by launching its very own crime short story competition, in partnership with Scottish Field Magazine.

The Glencairn Glass is looking to celebrate up-and-coming literary talent through this exclusive competition from October to December.

The competition opens for entries on 20th October and runs until 31st December, inviting all budding crime writers to build their stories around the theme: ‘A Crystal-Clear Crime’ in no more than 2000 words.

The judging panel for the inaugural competition will comprise Deborah Masson, 2020 winner of the Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel of the Year with her book ‘Hold Your Tongue’, Peter Ranscombe, Scottish Field’s drinks columnist and author of the historical thriller ‘Hare’, as well as Glencairn’s marketing director Gordon Brown, who has written eight crime novels with his latest, ‘Thirty-One Bones’, written under the pseudonym Morgan Cry. Gordon is also one of the founding directors of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival.

Gordon Brown commented: “We’re very excited to be launching the Glencairn Glass crime short story competition, supported by the team at the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival along with the Culture and Business Fund Scotland, working with Scottish Field. We are delighted to invite both experienced and novice authors, alike, to take a stab at entering (excuse the pun!) and wish all entrants the best of luck.”

Three prizes will be available for the winning trio of authors: the first prize winner will receive £1000, whilst the two runners up will each receive £250. All three winners will also receive a set of six bespoke engraved Glencairn Glasses to enjoy their favourite dram with. The overall winning entry will be published by Scottish Field in spring 2022 as well as on The Glencairn Glass website.

All short story entries must be uploaded at www.whiskyglass.com/crime-short-story-competition with the competition closing at midnight on the Friday 31st December 2021. Details can also be found at www.scottishfield.co.uk. The winners will be announced in March 2022.

Bloody Scotland Book Club

 

Announcing: Bloody Scotland Book Club!

Bloody Scotland have launched a new initiative to keep crime fans entertained! Every month, They will be hosting an exclusive discussion with a variety of journalists, bloggers, podcasters and booksellers. Their guests will hand-pick a selection of crime novels, from exciting new works to old favourites.

We invite you to read along and join our Facebook Group for discussion, then tune in to Facebook Live as we broadcast the panel’s discussion on the last Wednesday of every month.

Head over to their new Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/bloodyscotlandbookclub/

Craig Robertson will be hosting the first event and he says -

I'm delighted to be hosting our first live event at the end of March and really looking forward to getting stuck into our first three books.

So, this month we're reading Laidlaw by William McIlvanney; Worst Case Scenario by Helen FitzGerald; and Deborah Masson's Out For Blood. It took a lot of discussion to whittle all our thoughts down to three books but we got there, and I think It's a good mix to get us started.

If you want to read one, two or all three, then we can chat in here, spoiler free of course, then have our live discussion at the end of the month.

This is going to be your book club and I'm sure things will change along the way, so let us know what you think.

Winners of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Fiction Prizes revealed!!

BLOODY SCOTLAND INTERNATIONAL CRIME FESTIVAL REVEALS THE WINNERS OF THE BLOODY SCOTLAND DEBUT PRIZE AND THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2020 TO BE TWO DEBUT WOMEN WRITERS

Sponsored by The Glencairn Glass with match funding from Culture & Business Fund Scotland

It has been a rollercoaster year for debut writers. Closed bookshops meant that they could have sunk without trace but reviewers, innovative booksellers, established authors and the media have been incredibly supportive and at Bloody Scotland we have been hugely grateful for the enthusiasm shown for the finalists in our second Bloody Scotland Debut Prize – Francine Toon, Deborah Masson, Stephen O’Rourke and Marion Todd.

The prize was judged by Lin Anderson, author and co-founder of Bloody Scotland, Ewan Wilson from Waterstones and Kenny Tweedale from sponsors the Glencairn Glass, who at the opening of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival on Friday evening revealed the winner of the Debut Prize to be Deborah Masson with Hold Your Tongue.

The judges described Hold Your Tongue as a 'well written, fast paced and gritty thriller with a strong female protagonist, who will stop at nothing to find the killer'.

The finalists of the prestigious McIlvanney Prize included established names Ambrose Parry and Doug Johnstone (both of whom were finalists last year) alongside relative newcomer Andrew James Greig and debut author Francine Toon who had also featured on the Bloody Scotland Debut shortlist.

Judges Karen Robinson (Times Crime Club) and James Crawford (author, TV presenter and chair of Publishing Scotland) were chaired by writer and broadcaster Stuart Cosgrove who revealed the winner of the McIlvanney Prize 2020 to be Francine Toon with Pine.

He described her book as‘an extraordinary novel which stood out because of the sheer quality of the writing and the dark brooding atmosphere of the remote rural Scottish village in which it is set. The book merges the supernatural with real crime in a very memorable way and brings an exciting new talent to Scottish crime writing.’            

Both winners are debuts. Both are published by Transworld, who coincidentally also published last year’s winner Manda Scott. It is the first year that the Glencairn Glass have sponsored the prizes. Kirsty Nicholson, Glencairn Crystal's Marketing Manager said:

‘First time authors winning both prizes this year highlights what a bright future the fantastic tradition of Scottish crime writing has.We are delighted and proud to sponsor such prestigious awards with the Glencairn Glass and would like to congratulate both Francine and Deborah, while wishing them all the best for the future.'

Francine Toon was brought up in Sutherland and Fife. She has lived in Dornoch, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Canterbury, London and Portugal.

Deborah Masson was born and bred in Aberdeen. She and her children now live in the family home where she grew up.

Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize Finalists revealed

BLOODY SCOTLAND INTERNATIONAL CRIME WRITING FESTIVAL REVEALS FOUR FINALISTS FOR THE MCILVANNEY PRIZE 2020

sponsored by The Glencairn Glass with match funding from Culture & Business Fund Scotland

The annual McIlvanney judges lunch was a virtual Bank Holiday breakfast this year with Karen Robinson in London, Stuart Cosgrove in Glasgow and James Crawford in Edinburgh.

All were impressed by the variety and diversity of the finalists, with titles of dark humour, historical research, ambitious and innovative writing which demonstrate the sheer range of the crime genre and continuing strength of Scottish crime writing.

The list includes two who were finalists / bemused winners last year when Manda Scott announced that she was sharing the prize (Ambrose Parry & Doug Johnstone); an author who is also shortlisted for the 2020 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize (Francine Toon) and someone who provided and operated the audio, lighting and staging for the first Bloody Scotland Festivals and only started writing three years ago (Andrew James Greig). When he heard he was a finalist he said: “As a sound engineer I pinned a lapel mic on William McIlvanney at what was to be his last appearance at Bloody Scotland in 2014. I never imagined that in six years time I’d become a writer myself and be a finalist for the prize that bears his name."

The Shortlist for the McIlvanney Prize 2020 are

Whirligig by Andrew James Greig (Fledgling Press)

A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)

The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry (Cannongate Books)

Pine by Francine Toon (Transworld)

The judges praised Whirligig by Andrew James Greig (Fledgling Press) for an ‘ambitious, innovative concept and the most intricate modus operandi for killing the victims of any book this year..... a real page turner'

They described Pine by Francine Toon (Transworld) as ‘an impressive and atmospheric novel, with a portrait of remote rural Scotland, bringing in issues of school bullying, mental health and alcoholism. Very readable and engaging, It's also beautifully written.’

It’s the third time in five years that Doug Johnstone has been a McIlvanney Finalist. A perennial favourite at the Festival his latest book, A Dark Matter (Orenda) was described by the judges as ‘a brilliant idea, a heartwarming portrait of a family with three generations of women set in an undertakers. A confident, entertaining novel with dark humour, pace and energy'.

The Art of Dying is the second collaboration by husband and wife team, Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman. Chris won the McIlvanney Prize in 2016 with Black Widow and as Ambrose Parry they were finalists for the McIlvanney Prize last year. The judges loved the ‘original setting in Victorian Edinburgh’ and praised the ‘fascinating medical research’ and the ‘implicit love affair building between the two main characters – the medically trained man, and the untrained women (who is clearly the smarter of the two).’

The winner will be revealed from Stirling on Friday 18 September at 7pm and all the finalists are involved over the festival weekend. Andrew James Greig is on The Never-Ending Panel as is Doug Johnstone and Ambrose Parry; Chris Brookmyre (50% of Ambrose Parry) and Doug will also be participating in The Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers – Behind the Music and Crime at the Coo Online and Francine Toon has contributed to the debut short story in association with new sponsors of the two prizes, the Glencairn Glass.

Marisa Haetzman (the other 50% of Ambrose Parry) summed it up when she said “It’s little surprise to say that this is the best news we’ve had all year.”

Shortlisted authors for the Debut Prize 2020 are:-

Hold your Tongue by Deborah Masson (Transworld)

The Crown Agent by Stephen O'Rourke (Sandstone)

See Them Run by Marion Todd (Canelo)

Pine by Francine Toon (Doubleday)

The authors shortlisted for the Debut Prize will collaborate on a short story to be co-ordinated by author and board member, Gordon Brown aka Morgan Cry, in association with The Glencairn Glass.