I’ve always been a keen reader of crime fiction. A huge fan of both Agatha Christie and PD James in the Golden age of English crime fiction. I love American mystery writers too and have attended Bouchercon in New Orleans. Just after Driftnet was published and the Dr. Rhona MacLeod series launched, I was visiting a Crime Writers’ Association conference in Lincoln with my friend and fellow crime writer Alex Gray. That’s where the idea for a weekend promoting Scottish Crime writing began. When we launched it ten years ago, Ian Rankin said, "Scandinavia doesn’t have better crime writers than Scotland, it has better PR." That’s what we set out to change.
I still have my treasured original copy of Laidlaw by Willie McIlvanney, and also the more recently published edition.Laidlaw, as Willie said, is first and foremost a man, who just happens to be a policeman. My father was a detective, working on the front line, and we often saw the effect that had on him. So Laidlaw rang true to me, in its questioning, Who is the true monster among us? In its voice and rhythm, which sounded undeniably Scottish, and most of all, in its humanity.
Laidlaw inspired me to write my book. It also inspired me to help set up Scotland’s International Crime Writing Festival Bloody Scotland and the annual McIlvanney award for the best Scottish crime book.
First in “a crime trilogy so searing it will burn forever into your memory. McIlvanney is the original Scottish criminal mastermind” (Christopher Brookmyre, international bestselling author).
The Laidlaw novels, a groundbreaking trilogy that changed the face of Scottish fiction, are credited with being the founding books of the Tartan Noir movement that includes authors like Val McDermid, Denise Mina, and Ian Rankin. Says McDermid of William McIlvanney: “Patricia Highsmith had taken us inside the head of killers; Ruth Rendell tentatively explored sexuality; with No Mean City, Alexander McArthur had exposed Glasgow to the world; Raymond Chandler had dressed the darkness…
Ian is probably the most famous of all Tartan Noir writers. In fact the term Tartan Noir was coined when Ian met James Ellroy at a crime fiction event in Nottingham many years ago. Ian explained that he too was a crime writer and wrote about Edinburgh and the darker side of Scottish life. He said, you could call it Tartan Noir. Ellroy laughed and signed the book 'To the king of Tartan Noir'.
Black and Blue was Ian’s breakthrough novel and when you read it you can see why. Dark and compelling and complex, with perhaps greater depth than the ones that came before, this was my introduction to Rebus and remains a favourite still.
For anyone about to enter the world of Ian Rankin’s Rebus, Black and Blue is the ideal way in, with plenty more in store.
Special edition of the award-winning Rebus novel from the No.1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES - includes exclusive extra material.
'Britain's best crime novelist' DAILY EXPRESS
'Ian Rankin is a genius' Lee Child
In the 1960s, the infamous Bible John terrorised Scotland when he murdered three women, taking three souvenirs. Thirty years later, a copycat is at work, dubbed Johnny Bible.
DI John Rebus's unconventional methods have got him in trouble before - now he's taken away from the inquiry and sent to investigate the killing of an off-duty oilman. But when his case clashes head-on…
This is a great introduction to one of Val McDermid’s series starring young female police officer Karen Pirie. I loved this book when it came out and it is still one of my favourites. Four students at St Andrew’s university become suspects in a murder. It is a psychological thriller, examining the people they were then and those they are now 25 years later. With a wonderful twist in the tail.
Once you read Val McDermid you will always go back for more. The Queen of Scottish Crime as far as I’m concerned.
The Karen Pirie series has now been filmed for TV.
The first novel in the bestselling Karen Pirie series
The award-winning Number One bestseller and Queen of crime fiction Val McDermid carves out a stunning psychological thriller. The past is behind them, but what's still to come will tear them apart...
From the creators of Line of Duty and Bodyguard, KAREN PIRIE is now on ITV, starring Lauren Lyle (Outlander)
Some things just won't let go.
The past, for instance.
That night in the cemetery.
The girl's body in the snow.
On a freezing Fife morning four drunken students stumble upon the body of a woman in the snow. Rosie…
The Long Drop is a Scottish crime book like no other.
It features an imagined night featuring two key figures in the terrible world of one of Scotland’s most notorious murderers Peter Manuel.
In this long night of the soul Peter Manuel and William Watt wander through Glasgow and its underbelly as Manuel leads Watt on a journey of lies, drink, and trickery.
It is Tartan Noir at its most terrifying. A Jekyll and Hyde story of a night based on true events.
'A masterpiece by the woman who may be Britain's finest living crime novelist' Daily Telegraph
'Absorbing... this is a bravura performance, a true original' Ian Rankin
Glasgow, 1957. It is a December night and William Watt is desperate. His family has been murdered and he needs to find out who killed them.
He arrives at a bar to meet Peter Manuel, who claims he can get hold of the gun that was used. But Watt soon realises that this infamous criminal will not give up information easily.
Inspired by true events, The Long Drop follows Watt and Manuel along back…
I remember to the moment I opened this book. It was on a train to Inverness.
This was Chris’s first novel starring journalist Jack Parlabane and it had garnered great reviews. I couldn’t put it down, although I had to close it on occasions to recover myself from its hilarity and gruesomeness.
Dark irreverent Scottish humour, it began Chris’s fabulous career in crime and thriller writing which continues to this day.
Chris Brookmyer is a genius, and we at Bloody Scotland can all agree on that.
Yeah, yeah, the usual. A crime. A corpse. A killer. Heard it. Except this stiff happens to be a Ponsonby, scion of a venerable Edinburgh medical clan, and the manner of his death speaks of unspeakable things. Why is the body displayed like a slice of beef? How come his hands are digitally challenged? And if it's not the corpse, what is that awful smell? A post-Thatcherite nightmare of frightening plausibility, QUITE UGLY ONE MORNING is a wickedly entertaining and vivacious thriller, full of acerbic wit, cracking dialogue and villains both reputed and shell- suited.
Driftnet is the first novel in the best-selling forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod series.
Summoned in the early hours of the morning to a Glasgow flat, Rhona MacLeod is confronted by a horrific crime scene. A teenage boy mutilated and strangled to death. A boy who bears a remarkable resemblance to her. Might he be the baby boy she gave up for adoption seventeen years ago? Overcome by guilt, Rhona sets out to find the boy’s killer. In doing so, she finds herself immersed in an investigation that seeks to expose a dark underworld that preys on the young and vulnerable. It soon becomes clear that some very powerful men have a lot to lose if she succeeds, and everything to gain if she dies.
I read and write to better understand people. Why do we do what we do, feel what we feel, hide what we hide? Any book that illuminates these questions and their answers draws me in. Reading and writing are ways that I can attempt to walk in someone else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes, expanding my own understanding of the world. Perhaps the books on this list will offer you the same opportunity.
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Then a tornado blows it away. Ava is safe in the basement, but when she emerges, only one corner of her home stands. Rather than crumbling under the loss, she feels a load lifted. Maybe something beyond the familiar is calling to her. Ava seizes the opportunity to find the owner of a suitcase that landed on her lawn during the storm. Meanwhile, Juniper urges her to rebuild, Ava’s employer doesn’t want her to quit, and her ex-husband invites her back into his life. Ava must be courageous if she’s…
"A loving coming-of-age story for women in mid-life. Brava!" -Adriana Trigiani, Author of The Good Left Undone
". . . captures the true meaning of resilience-something so many women strive to know in the depths of their inner-self." -Sister Robbie Pentecost, OSF former Executive Director of the New Opportunity School for Women
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Each day, she goes to the place she's worked for twenty years, then returns home. On Sundays, she has dinner with her daughter, Juniper. It's a little boring, but as Ava nears fifty-five, she deserves a bit of…
