Bloody Scotland Debut Shortlist and McIlvanney Long List announced.

SHORTLIST FOR THE BLOODY SCOTLAND DEBUT SCOTTISH CRIME BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 & LONGLIST ANNOUNCED FOR THE McILVANNEY PRIZE 2020

Winners to be presented on Friday 18 September 2020
 

Four years ago the Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award was renamed the McIlvanney Prize in memory of William McIlvanney who is often described as the Godfather of Tartan Noir. Last year Bloody Scotland also introduced a prize for The Bloody Scotland Debut Scottish Crime Book of the Year. This year both are sponsored by the Glencairn Glass. At a time when debut writers have suffered more than anyone else due to bookshop closures the debut prize is more important than ever:

Shortlisted authors 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)

One, Francine Toon, is also longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize which includes:
Time for the Dead by Lin Anderson (Macmillan)
Bad Memory by Lisa Gray (Thomas & Mercer)
Whirligig by Andrew James Greig (Fledgling)
A Dark Matter by Doug Johnstone (Orenda)
How the Dead Speak by Val McDermid (Little, Brown)
The Island by Ben McPherson (HarperCollins)
Bury Them Deep by James Oswald (Headline)
The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry (Canongate) aka Chris Broomyre and Marisa Haetzman
The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing by Mary Paulson-Ellis (Mantle)
The Red, Red Snow by  Caro Ramsay (Severn House)
Watch Him Die by Craig Robertson (Simon & Schuster)
Pine by Francine Toon (Doubleday)

Finalists for the McIlvanney Prize will be revealed at the beginning of September and the winner of both prizes will be revealed on Friday 18 September.

The Bloody Scotland Debut Prize will be judged by a panel including crime writer and founding director of Bloody Scotland Lin Anderson and representatives from Waterstones and the Glencairn Glass.

The McIlvanney Prize will be judged by Stuart Cosgrove, writer and broadcaster, James Crawford, chair of Publishing Scotland and presenter of BBC series Scotland from the Sky and Karen Robinson, Editor of The Times Crime Club.

The McIlvanney award recognises excellence in Scottish crime writing, includes a prize of £1000 and nationwide promotion in Waterstones. The 2020 longlist features established crime writers and debuts, corporates and indies. Previous winners are 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 in 2017, Chris Brookmyre with Black Widow in 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 inaugural Bloody Scotland Debut Prize 2019 was won by Claire Askew with All The Hidden Truths.

Breaking News from St Hilda's Crime

Dear Friends,

I am sad to announce that College events are now cancelled up to September. It’s a disappointment not to be celebrating another Crime Fiction Weekend with you all, but safety remains paramount. All ticket bookings will be refunded automatically, but for accommodation refunds please email Sarah Brett in the Conference Office ( sarah.brett@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk ) We ask for your patience during this process as College staff are working remotely.

In true St Hilda's spirit, however, we carry on!

We are delighted to announce that we are working hard to ensure our virtual doors are wide open with live broadcasts, Q&As, lectures, entertainment, and a packed Crime Fiction Festival.

Crime Fiction Festival

15 August

‘All Our Yesterdays’: historical crime fiction

Details will soon follow for a stellar virtual event with live sessions, Q&As,
 lectures, competitions, reading room, virtual goodie bags, and, of course,
the Whodunnit.
We hope will be able to provide an event as near to the content and atmosphere of the ‘real' thing.
Participating authors already confirmed include:
Val McDermid, Mick Herron, Sarah Hilary, Jill Dawson, Tom Wood, Mary Paulson Ellis, Anna Mazzola, Andrew Wilson, Sara Sheridan, Vassem Khan,
and Andrew Taylor.
(In association with Blackwell’s Bookshop)
As well as our e-newsletters and social media channels, the Crime Fiction Weekend page will be regularly updated with news and content.
So stay at home and watch this space.

Do contact me directly with any questions triona.adams@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk or 01865 276867 and follow us on twitter @hildascrime

Best wishes from the committee:
Triona Adams, Val McDermid, Mick Herron, Jean Harker, Alison Joseph,

Jake Kerridge and Sarah Hilary

Final St Hilda's Crime Fiction post.

Denise Mina © Ayo Onatade

The Sunday at St Hilda’s is always tinged with sadness as one realises that the wonderful weekend is about to end.  However, one of the best things about the weekend is always the Sunday Lecture by the Guest of Honour. This year prize-winning author Denise Mina gave the Sunday lecture entitled ‘Narrative: How it Shapes The World’.   She spoke about storytelling (which is a single act performed by two brains), crime fiction, (crime writing is the new social novel) neural pathways, and feminism and reader expectations. Along with Christianity, Lenin and Andy Warhol. Quite eclectic! Talking about the narrative it is seen as being very good for small groups but not so good for large ones.  Furthermore, one has to remember that there is crime fiction and the marketing of crime fiction. Denise Mina also expressed the view that crime writers not only write to make a living but also due to the fact that they have the need to write.  Crime fiction is vital, it is about social structure. Our culture is saturated with crime fiction and it is changing the world. There is however certain things that you have to do if you want to break the genre.  UK readers do not appear to be happy with meta fiction  stories as compared to US readers.  True crime is also the outlier child of crime fiction.  What do we talk about when we talk about genre fiction - crime fiction in this case? 

A bit of information – Denise Mina is fascinated by Podcasts. One of the Podcasts that she is particularly keen on is called ‘Stuff to Blow Your Mind’. 

You certainly had to be there to appreciate the lecture and the nuances of everything that was said by Denise.  Totally enthralling. 

Nicci French and Mary Paulson-Ellis gave the final papers of the day.  Nicci French talked

Nicci French (Nicci Gerrard & Sean French)

about The Rise of the Suspense Thriller.  Amongst the things they spoke about was the view that there was a need for crime fiction. There are of course books that were not originally thought to be crime novels and a good example is Jane Eyre, which now reads as a gothic thriller.  Another example is Wuthering Heights, which is also a thriller.  Agatha Christie is seen as a modernist writer specifically with the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.  With this years theme firmly in mind Nicci French expressed the view that Freud’s writing is a ‘gamechanger”.

Mary Paulson-Ellis © Ayo Onatade

Mary Paulson-Ellis in a wide ranging paper spoke about her love of Kate Atkinson with a paper entitled Kate Atkinson, a love story’: the literary, the detective and the journey of the self towards the light’.  One of the things that was stated was the fact meta fiction is one of Kate Atkinson’s hallmarks in her work. Brilliantly illustrated with power point presentation including some small terrier illustrations. 

Both Andrew Taylor and Val McDermid who step down from the Committee were named Emeritus Fellows over the weekend for services rendered. 

Thinking about all the brilliant papers that were given over the weekend it is sometimes hard to put into words how relaxing, refreshing and enjoyable the weekend was.  It has constantly been this way in my opinion and will continued to be.  It was sad to say goodbye but already we know the dates for next year which are from the 14 to 16 August 2020.  The theme will be historical though the exact Crime Fiction Weekend title is yet to be confirmed. Put the dates in your diary!  They are already in mine.  

A big huge thanks to all who were involved in organising the weekend and a special thank you to Natasha Cooper for once again chairing the event with such aplomb and charm.

I am sure that I am not the only one that will be looking forward to next year!

All photographs © Ayo Onatade

In The Spotlight - Mary Paulson-Ellis

Name:- Mary Paulson-Ellis

Job:- Author

Website:- www.marypaulsonellis.co.uk

Twitter:- @mspaulsonellis

Introduction:-

Mary Paulson-Ellis is a Scottish author whose debut novel The other Mrs Walkerwas Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year in 2017.  Her short stories  and non-fiction have been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines including the Guardian Weekend Magazine, New Writing Scotland, Gutter and The Herald.  Her next book is The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing(September 2019)

Current book?

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker.

 Favourite book– 

Impossible to choose! But two that have stayed with me over many years are Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Ali Smith’s Free Love and Other Stories.

Which two characters would you invite to dinner and why?

I wouldn’t mind sharing a drink with Val McDermid’s very first sleuth, Lindsay Gordon. A self-declared cynical socialist lesbian feminist journalist would ensure lively conversation. Also the contrary and passionate Sybylla Melvyn from My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. Somehow I just know they’d get on.

How do you relax?

By reading, of course. Sometimes drinking wine. Also digging potatoes in the sun.

What book do you wish you had written and why?

Well, I don’t suppose it would have been the same book if I had written it, but I do read and read again When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson to try and understand just how she does it. Suspense, mystery and wit combined with startling moments of truth and dark, dark humour. This celebration of life, love and literature is crime fiction at its unorthodox best.

What would you say to your younger self if you were just starting out as a writer.

Work hard. Don’t despair. You will be amazed. 

How would you describe your series character?

My series is as much about a world as it is about one specific character – what I call the territory of the dead in Edinburgh, all those who die without any next of kin to take them on. It is inhabited by a recurring ensemble cast that includes a finder of families for dead people, an heir hunter and an extreme cleaner, amongst others, all shepherding the abandoned and neglected (plus their money and belongings) to their final rest.

The Inheritance of  Solomon Farthing by Mary Paulson-Ellis (Published by Pan Macmillan) 

Solomon knew that he had one advantage. A pawn ticket belonging to a dead man tucked into his top pocket - the only clue to the truth . . .  An old soldier dies alone in his Edinburgh nursing home. No known relatives, and no Will to enact. Just a pawn ticket found amongst his belongings, and fifty thousand pounds in used notes sewn into the lining of his burial suit . . . Heir Hunter, Solomon Farthing - down on his luck, until, perhaps, now - is tipped off on this unexplained fortune. Armed with only the deceased's name and the crumpled pawn ticket, he must find the dead man's closest living relative if he is to get a cut of this much-needed cash.  But in trawling through the deceased's family tree, Solomon uncovers a mystery that goes back to 1918 and a group of eleven soldiers abandoned in a farmhouse billet in France in the weeks leading up to the armistice.  The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing is set between contemporary Edinburgh and the final brutal days of the First World War as the soldiers await their orders.

Information about 2019 St Hilda's College Crime Fiction Weekend and how to book tickets can be found here.

Books to Look Forward to from Pan Macmillan

July 2019

A Nearly Normal Family is a psychological thriller from M. T. Edvardsson and asks what would you do if your child was suspected of murder, how far would you go to protect them? Do you want to know the truth? Every murder case starts with a suspect. What if the suspect is your daughter?   Would you believe her, or the evidence against her?  The Father - Believes his daughter has been framed.  The Mother - Believes she is hiding something.  The Daughter - Believes they have no idea what she's truly capable of . . . There are three sides to the story.  And the truth will shatter this family to pieces.

It is 1949 and handsome, young ex-soldier Aloysius Archer arrives in Poca City, Oklahoma. On parole following a stint in prison back east when he was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, Archer is looking for a fresh start and a peaceful life after his wartime experiences in Italy. However, he soon understands that there’s a lot more going on in this town than he’d bargained for as he meets some very colourful, extremely intriguing and often dangerous residents living above and below the law. All seem to have deeply buried secrets which he must uncover if he’s to avoid going back behind bars.  One Good Deed is by David Baldacci.

August 2019

Time for the Dead is by Lin Anderson and sees forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod discover that a terrifying war is unfolding on Scotland's Isle of Skye.  When forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod returns to her roots on Scotland's Isle of Skye, a chance encounter in the woods behind a nearby activities centre leads her to what seems to be a crime scene, but without a victim. Could this be linked to a group of army medics, who visited the centre while on leave from Afghanistan and can no longer be located on the island?  Enlisting the help of local tracker dog Blaze, Rhona starts searching for a connection. Two days later a body is found at the base of the famous cliff known as Kilt Rock, face and identity obliterated by the fall, which leads Rhona to suspect the missing medics may be on the island for reasons other than relaxation. Furthermore, elements of the case suggests a link with an ongoing operation in Glasgow, which draws DS Michael McNab into the investigation.  As the island's unforgiving conditions close in, Rhona must find out what really happened to the group in Afghanistan, as the consequences may be being played out in brutal killings on Skye . . .

Has the killer in DC Maggie Neville's cold case returned after a decade of silence?  Katy Pope was seventeen when she was brutally murdered on a family holiday in Majorca. Despite her mother's high rank in the Met and the joint major investigation between the British and Spanish police, Katy's killer was never caught. Ten years later, Katy's family return to the Spanish island to launch a fresh appeal for information, taking with them the now skeletal team of investigating Met detectives, and newly seconded Maggie as the family liaison officer.  But Maggie's first international investigation quickly goes from being more than just a press conference when another British girl there on holiday goes missing, and Katy's killer announces that it's time for an encore . . .  Dead Guilty is by Michelle Davies.

Desperate to put her past in the rearview mirror, Finn Hunt leaves the Midwest for Phoenix, Arizona, where no one knows her story.  While she's working a dead-end job, a chance meeting with Philip Martin, son of a prominent US Senator, leads Finn to a position as nanny for Amabel, his precocious four-year-old daughter. Quickly seduced into the Martins' privileged world, Finn can almost believe she belongs there, almost forget the dark past that haunts her.  Then, in the stifling heat of a desert summer as the Senator's re-election looms, a strange woman begins to follow Finn, claiming a connection to Philip and threatening to expose the family to scandal. As Finn tries to protect Amabel, and shield the Martins, she's inadvertently drawn deeper and deeper into their buried secrets.  The family trusts Finn, for now, but it will only take one mistake for everything she holds dear - the Martins' world, her new life - to fall apart . . .  Girl in the Rear View Mirror is by Kelsey Rae Dimberg

September 2019

Blood in the Water by Jack Flynn is a thriller set in Boston in the gritty world of mob bosses, con artists and gangs, where allegiances are formed with law enforcement and criminals just as easily as they are broken.   Homeland Security agent, Kit Steel, is committed to avenge terrorism. And she's after the blood of her nemesis, one of world's most ruthless and dangerous criminals, Vincente Carpio. He has the blood of her husband and young son on his hands, and Kit is unwavering in her determination to see him kept behind bars forever. Clever, calculating, and manipulative, Carpio has aid and influence on the outside, and he's waiting for the perfect moment when the final pieces of the jigsaw fall into place.  Harbour Union chief, Cormack McConnell, has lived his life close to the wire above and below the law, and he controls everything that happens on Boston's waterfront. Someone wants him out of the way, fast. After he narrowly survives a brutal attack on his bar, The Mariner, complications arise when Cormack believes he's been betrayed by one of his crew - a young man, Buddy Cavanaugh, who he's shocked to discover is the love of his precious nineteen-year-old daughter, Diamond.  Everyone has a game to play until it becomes apparent that there are much darker, far-reaching forces of evil at work which look to be preparing for the international stage. What follows is a gripping race against time, a rollercoaster action-packed story with international terrorism at its core and family at its heart.

The Long Call is the first book in a brand new series by Anne Cleeves.  In North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too.  Now he's back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region; a complex place not quite as idyllic as tourists suppose.  A body has been found on the beach near to Matthew's new home: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.  Finding the killer is Venn's only focus, and his team's investigation will take him straight back into the community he left behind, and the deadly secrets that lurk there.

This is not a detective story, this is a story about the making of a detective . . .  William Warwick has always wanted to be a detective, and decides, much to his father's dismay, that rather than become a barrister like his father, Sir Julian Warwick QC, and his sister Grace, he will join London's Metropolitan Police Force.  After graduating from university, William begins a career that will define his life: from his early months on the beat under the watchful eye of his first mentor, Constable Fred Yates, to his first high-stakes case as a fledgling detective in Scotland Yard's arts and antiquities squad. Investigating the theft of a priceless Rembrandt painting from the Fitzmolean Museum, he meets Beth Rainsford, a research assistant at the gallery who he falls hopelessly in love with, even as Beth guards a secret of her own that she's terrified will come to light.  While William follows the trail of the missing masterpiece, he comes up against suave art collector Miles Faulkner and his brilliant lawyer, Booth Watson QC, who are willing to bend the law to breaking point to stay one step ahead of William. Meanwhile, Miles Faulkner's wife, Christina, befriends William, but whose side is she really on?  Nothing Ventured is by Jeffrey Archer.

The Fifth Column is a novel about the only man who can thwart a Nazi sympathizer uprising in New York during the Second World War, by Andrew Gross.  A Man in Trouble - February 1939 and Europe is on the brink of war. Charles Mossman is in a bar in Hell's Kitchen, New York, reeling from the loss of his job and his failing marriage, whilst outside thousands of Nazi sympathizers are attending a hate-spewing rally. As he confronts one, Charles makes a horrendous mistake with deadly consequences.  A City of Secrets - Two years later, Charles is released from prison and tries to reunite with his family. The US has kept out of the war for now but the pressure in the city is rising as those sympathetic to the Nazi cause lay the foundations for what lies ahead.  The Enemy Within -   As he tries to make amends with his wife and daughter, Charles starts to understand that surrounding them there are forces that will use any means necessary to bring about the downfall of his nation. And when his daughter is befriended by a seemingly amiable Swiss couple, it brings to the surface his fears of a 'Fifth Column' of embedded German spies in their new neighbourhood. All Charles wants is to redeem himself as a husband and father, but sometimes a man must do questionable things to stand up for his family and what he believes, even sacrificing his life to do so . . .

Solomon knew that he had one advantage. A pawn ticket belonging to a dead man tucked into his top pocket - the only clue to the truth . . .  An old soldier dies alone in his Edinburgh nursing home. No known relatives, and no Will to enact. Just a pawn ticket found amongst his belongings, and fifty thousand pounds in used notes sewn into the lining of his burial suit . . . Heir Hunter, Solomon Farthing - down on his luck, until, perhaps, now - is tipped off on this unexplained fortune. Armed with only the deceased's name and the crumpled pawn ticket, he must find the dead man's closest living relative if he is to get a cut of this much-needed cash.  But in trawling through the deceased's family tree, Solomon uncovers a mystery that goes back to 1918 and a group of eleven soldiers abandoned in a farmhouse billet in France in the weeks leading up to the armistice.  Set between contemporary Edinburgh and the final brutal days of the First World War as the soldiers await their orders, The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing is Mary Paulson-Ellis and shows us how the debts of the present can never be settled unless those of the past have been paid first . . .

The Other End of The Line is by Andrea Camilleri.  In Inspector Montalbano's coastal town of Vigata, a surge of migrants have been coming in by boat, and all the town's hands are on deck to help the arrivals. At the heart of the scene are the police - on the lookout for the people smugglers responsible - and long night-shifts are rendering Inspector Montalbano and his officers exhausted.  Then one night, while Montalbano is enduring yet another gruelling stint at the port, a separate crime is committed - unexplained, unexpected, and unpleasant. Elena, the dressmaker at the town's famous tailors, has been found dead - slaughtered by her own scissors . . .   As a swell of desperate people arrive in search of a better life, Inspector Montalbano finds himself trying to unravel the mystery of who murdered the dressmaker. But as he makes his enquiries, the Inspector can't help but wonder: what will happen if he keeps tugging on this thread? And what will he find at the end of the line?

December 2019

When the body of twenty-nine-year-old social worker Gloria Montoya, seven weeks pregnant with her first child, shows up on Chief New York City Medical Examiner Laurie Montgomery’s autopsy table, she’s baffled to find no apparent causes of death. With no clues to go on, Laurie enlists the help of Dr Tricia Albanese, a forensic pathology resident with a background in genetic science, to help her trace the identity of the unborn baby’s father using DNA from the mother and child. But when Tricia is found dead in her apartment in a manner strikingly similar to Gloria’s death, Laurie realizes she might have two linked homicides on her hands . . . and now it’s up to her, with the help of her husband, ME Jack Stapleton, to continue the tracking work Tricia had begun before a killer can strike again.  Genesis is by Robin Cook