I went to Bloody Scotland and I was just knocked out….this event was so friendly, so supportive I was honestly overwhelmed’
William McIlvanney – speaking on BBC Scotland, 2012
Three 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 his son, Liam McIlvanney, won the prize and led the torchlit procession through the streets of Stirling alongside Denise Mina who was appearing at the first event.
This year David Baldacci is opening the festival and will be leading the torchlit procession flanked by the winners of the McIlvanney Prize and the inaugural debut prize for Scottish crime book of the year but who will they be? The longlist for the McIlvanney and the shortlist for the debut prize are revealed today:
McIlvanney Prize 2019:
All the Hidden Truths, Claire Askew (Hodder)
No Man’s Land, Neil Broadfoot (Little, Brown)
Fallen Angel, Chris Brookmyre (Little, Brown)
Breakers, Doug Johnstone (Orenda)
All That’s Dead, Stuart MacBride (Harper Collins)
In the Silence, M R Mackenzie (Bloodhound Books)
Broken Ground, Val McDermid (Little, Brown)
A Breath on Dying Embers, Denzil Meyrick (Polygon)
Conviction, Denise Mina (Vintage)
The Way of All Flesh, Ambrose Parry (Canongate) aka Chris Brookmyre and Marisa Haetzman
In a House of Lies, Ian Rankin (Orion)
A Treachery of Spies, Manda Scott (Transworld)
Thunder Bay, Douglas Skelton (Polygon)
McIlvanney Debut Prize
Of the five authors shortlisted for the debut prize, two – Claire Askew and M R Mackenzie – have also made the longlist for the McIlvanney Prize:
All the Hidden Truths, Claire Askew* (Hodder)
From the Shadows, G R Halliday (Vintage)
Black Camp 21, Bill Jones (Polygon)
In the Silence, M R Mackenzie* (Bloodhound)
The Peat Dead, Allan Martin (Thunderpoint)
They were chosen by an independent panel of readers and booksellers. The finalists for the McIlvanney Prize 2019 will be revealed at the beginning of September and selected by Alison Flood, books reporter for The Guardian and a former news reporter for The Bookseller; James Crawford, chair of Publishing Scotland and presenter of BBC series, Scotland from the Sky and Stuart Cosgrove, writer and broadcaster who was formerly a senior executive at Channel 4. The debut prize will be judged by a panel from the board of Bloody Scotland including crime writers Lin Anderson, Craig Robertson, Gordon Brown and Abir Mukherjee. Everyone on the debut shortlist will be invited to join the debut panel at the festival on Saturday 21 September.
The longlist features established crime writers and debuts, corporates and indies and intriguingly Chris Brookmyre twice (as himself and as Ambrose Parry with his wife Marisa). The award recognises excellence in Scottish crime writing, includes a prize of £1000 and nationwide promotion in Waterstones.
Both the opening ceremony and the torchlight procession are open to the public but tickets are selling fast so people are urged to book them now. All longlisted authors are invited to join the procession and will get a complimentary ticket to the reception.
Previous winners are 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.
Live and Deadly 