Here are 100 books that Black and Blue fans have personally recommended if you like
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These books aren't just the best in their field–they're the best at pinpointing the place I am from. Tartan Noir is a rich world, and I'm just about to join it. These books give a sense of place and people and sometimes bring a little laughter in the dark. To me, that's Scotland, in its magnificence, grandeur, and polar opposite of these things. Scotland is a country with two faces, as everyone from James Hogg onwards knew well... Let's see which side you prefer!
Rilke, the auctioneer, finds a collection of photographs that show the death of a young woman. He journeys into the dark heart of Glasgow–and his own desires–to find out who she is.
An amazing debut, looking at the subcultures and twisted alleyways that stitch together every big city. I was compelled by how far Welsh was prepared to go, depicting a city I thought I knew.
'Unputdownable' Sunday Times 'I was hooked from page one' Guardian
When Rilke, a dissolute auctioneer, comes upon a hidden collection of violent and highly disturbing photographs, he feels compelled to discover more about the deceased owner who coveted them. Soon he finds himself sucked into an underworld of crime, depravity and secret desire, fighting for his life.
These books aren't just the best in their field–they're the best at pinpointing the place I am from. Tartan Noir is a rich world, and I'm just about to join it. These books give a sense of place and people and sometimes bring a little laughter in the dark. To me, that's Scotland, in its magnificence, grandeur, and polar opposite of these things. Scotland is a country with two faces, as everyone from James Hogg onwards knew well... Let's see which side you prefer!
Gonzo journalism meets Tartan Noir as Iain Banks ventures into crime. A journalist who’s a big fan of all the bad stuff seems to have a link to a killer picking off members of the establishment.
The second-person narration follows the killer, an unusual stylistic flourish. The answers to the horror lie within, and this book goes to some unbearably dark places. (In theory, The Crow Road is also a murder mystery.)
The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of a modern classic: 'ingenious, daring and brilliant' - Guardian
COMPLICITY n. 1. the fact of being an accomplice, esp. in a criminal act
A few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy for tomorrow's front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source - could be big, could be very big - in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid-up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper.
The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series…
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.
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…
These books aren't just the best in their field–they're the best at pinpointing the place I am from. Tartan Noir is a rich world, and I'm just about to join it. These books give a sense of place and people and sometimes bring a little laughter in the dark. To me, that's Scotland, in its magnificence, grandeur, and polar opposite of these things. Scotland is a country with two faces, as everyone from James Hogg onwards knew well... Let's see which side you prefer!
Maureen O’Donnell’s married lover is found dead in her living room. Suspected of the killing, she decides to find the culprit herself. Along the way, we find out what happened to her and how badly let down she was by the system that should have protected her.
I found this a tough read, a woman’s perspective, casting a forensic eye on male behavior and its consequences.
Maureen O'Donnell wasn't born lucky. A psychiatric patient and a survivor of sexual abuse, she is stuck in a dead-end job and a secretive relationship with Douglas, a shady therapist. Her few comforts are making up stories to tell her psychiatrist, the company of her friends, and the sweet balm of whisky. She is about to put an end to her affair with Douglas when she wakes up one morning to find him in her living room with his throat cut. iewed in turn by the police as a suspect -- aided and abetted by her drug-dealing brother Liam -…
These books aren't just the best in their field–they're the best at pinpointing the place I am from. Tartan Noir is a rich world, and I'm just about to join it. These books give a sense of place and people and sometimes bring a little laughter in the dark. To me, that's Scotland, in its magnificence, grandeur, and polar opposite of these things. Scotland is a country with two faces, as everyone from James Hogg onwards knew well... Let's see which side you prefer!
The seventies. The tough town. Laidlaw, Glasgow’s philosopher detective, is trying to find out who killed the lassie in the park. Arguably the template for Taggart, arguably the starting point for Tartan Noir.
I liked the way its bark was just as bad as its bite. It threatens to explode into violence all the way through, between most of its characters–then it does. Hard cases. And yet, at the very end, incredibly, compassion and sympathy.
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…
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.
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…
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 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.
I love to write thriller/mystery books and the more twists I can come up with, the happier I am. I want the reader to be drawn in, and become a part of the stories. That’s why I picked these five books. I like the way they pull you into the stories, and keep you guessing, sometimes even to the end. I have always been fascinated by the workings of the criminal mind. I worked in Law Enforcement for over 25 years and received my Associate Degree in Criminal Justice Technology/Latent evidence, helping me to spin stories, keeping people guessing, and yearning to find out what’s happening next!
I was hooked by James Patterson’s first book of the Alex Cross series by James Patterson. A predator that enjoys playing mind games with Detective Cross, and a kidnapping that sends one of those thoughts through your mind, “No, they didn’t do that, did they?” One of the things I enjoyed are the short chapters. It’s filled with psychological suspense, a real thriller that I didn’t want to put down. This is something that I crave in books. For it to grab my attention, hold it, and surprise me at the end. And Patterson delivers.
The legendary thriller that launched the Alex Cross phenomenon
Adapted into a major Hollywood movie starring Morgan Freeman _________________________________
Two children have been kidnapped from an elite private school in Washington DC, and Detective Alex Cross is charged with finding them.
The kidnapper's identity is quickly determined as one of the children's teachers. But capturing him is the true challenge.
As Cross gets pulled deeper into the strange world of the kidnapper, it becomes clear he is far more dangerous than anyone could have anticipated. _________________________________
'No one gets this big without amazing natural storytelling talent - which is what…
I’m a taxidermy-loving vegan who had a pet cemetery as a kid. So, I guess you could say I’m a bit of a Wednesday Adams. My airplane reading? Forensic pathology textbooks. When my first thrillers were published, a lot of people were surprised. “You seem so nice!” they said. “You’re so funny and happy!” Here’s a secret: thriller writers are some of the most jolly people I know. We get it all out on the page. We get to murder people for a living. So, if you cut me off in traffic or don’t RSVP to my Evite, it's no big deal. I won’t get upset. I’ll just kill you later...in a book.
I have said this before, but if there had been a fourth book in this series in 2004, I would not have written Heartsick and would not have had a career. I love Val’s Tony Hill/Carol Jordan books. They are the blueprint for all thrillers.
She doesn’t hold back on the violence but finds these incredibly intimate character moments that tremble my heart.
In this special 20th anniversary edition, Lee Child introduces the Gold Dagger award-winning serial killer thriller that began the Number One bestselling crime series featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill, hero of TV's much-loved Wire in the Blood.
You always remember the first time. Isn't that what they say about sex? How much more true it is of murder...
Up till now, the only serial killers Tony Hill had encountered were safely behind bars. This one's different - this one's on the loose.
Four men have been found mutilated and tortured. As fear grips the city, the police turn to…
I’m a thriller writer with civilian protagonists who find themselves caught in situations way outside their comfort zones. They’re not people to whom guns or regular weapons are accessible or familiar. Consequently, I need my characters to have access to other weapons, and I find these in the environments in which I set my stories – elements that offer both defensive and offensive potential. Whether it be a dangerous natural feature (like a chasm), or a deadly creature, (I love a crocodile or snake), there needs to be something on offer. This is also what I admire in other authors – that harnessing of environmental weaponry that can make stories so exciting.
Jo Nesbo needs no introduction as a master of the thriller genre, and The Snowman is a chilling example of his skill.
A serial killer walking among the community, building snowmen that look inside the homes of his victims. As far as weaponising the environment, and specifically the snow, Nesbo has nailed it. The tension is as dark as the long nights, and the terror is all the colder because of that snow.
I read it in a tropical Rio summer, yet still had to wear a jumper for days.
