Tag: Ann Cleeves

CTG REVIEWS: BLOODY SCOTLAND – the bloody brilliant book! #BloodyScotland

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What happens when top crime writers Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Gordon Brown, Doug Johnstone, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride put together a collection of short stories inspired by some of Scotland’s most dazzling and iconic historical sites?

A bloody brilliant book, that’s what!

Like an adrenaline fuelled road (and across water) trip through Scotland and the islands, the Bloody Scotland book is a heart-pumping exploration of geography, history and breathtaking crime fiction and suspense.

I loved the ancient mystery of the runes in Lin Anderson’s present day/1151 story ORKAHAUGR – evoking the mystical elements of Maeshowe on Orkney as a Professor sets out to experience the phenomenon of the setting sun entering a 5000 year old chambered cairn and discovers the secret within its walls. The heartbreaking ANCIENT AND MODERN by Val McDermid has the intriguing The Hermit’s Castle as the setting for both romance and revenge, and Doug Johnstone’s PAINTING THE FORTH BRIDGE provides a nail-bitingly tense thriller. One of my favourites has to be Chris Brookmyre’s THE LAST SEIGE OF BOTHWELL CASTLE – it’s full of twists and turns, and brilliant dialogue (especially the hilarious discussions about who’s the better character – William Wallace or Legolas – and whether Robin Hood is real!).

So how did the book come about?

Well, Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the lead public body charged with caring for, protecting and promoting the historic environment. 2017 has been designated the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology and The Bloody Scotland book is a part of that. James Crawford, Publisher HES and editor of the book says, ‘I found myself talking to the co-founder of the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival, Lin Anderson, and its director Bob McDevitt, in the Authors’ Yurt at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2016. ‘What if?’ I asked them. ‘What if we asked twelve of Scotland’s top crime writers to write short stories inspired by twelve of our most iconic buildings? What would they think? What would they come up with?’ This book is the answer… Bloody Scotland, then, is a tribute to two of our nation’s greatest assets – our crime writing and our built heritage’.

The Bloody Scotland Book is out today (21st September 2017). You can order it from Amazon HERE and from Waterstones HERE

The Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in Stirling is a must-attend festival for all crime fiction lovers. Next year the festival will run from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd September 2018. Hop over to the website HERE for more information.

And don’t forget to check out all the fantastic stops along THE BLOODY SCOTLAND BOOK blog tour…

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Confessions from the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Harrogate: Part 1

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Going to the crime festival at Harrogate is a bit like entering another world – a world populated entirely by crime writers and crime readers. A perfect place for a crime fiction addict like me to hang out!

The Irish Noir panel

The Irish Noir panel

So I arrived on Thursday afternoon in time for the opening party (of course!) and the announcement of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. This year the highly coveted barrel trophy was won by the fabulous Sarah Hilary for her brilliant novel Someone Else’s Skin. [FYI: the partying went on well into the night/morning]

On Friday I managed to make it to breakfast (just before the food was cleared away) and after a few strong coffees was ready to skip along to the Irish Noir panel. This lively event, with Steve Cavanagh, Stuart Neville, Brian McGilloway, Eoin McNamee and Adrian McKinty, saw the authors discussing why they’d chosen to set their books where they had (in Ireland or not, and in the far past, recent past or present), what their writing influences had been, how the troubles had shaped them as writers, the challenges of research – including the danger of being sucked down the rabbit hole by Google and Wikipedia – and many other topics.

Killer Women

Killer Women

Then it was time for lunch and drinks on the lawn where I caught up with some of the wonderful Killer Women (pictured) Anya Lipska, Helen Giltrow, Louise Voss, and Helen Smith.

Then it was time for the Yorkshire Pride panel with moderator Nick Quantrill posing the questions to Lee Child, Steve Mosby, Frances Brody and Peter Robinson around the central topic of Yorkshire. Lee Child spoke of his fond memories buying sweets with his grandma in Harrogate, Steve Mosby spoke of creating a Leeds-like place to set his novels in, and Peter Robinson and Frances Brody spoke about the Yorkshire settings – both present and past – of their novels.

As soon as the panel ended it was a quick sprint along the corridor to the Dead Good Reader Awards – luckily not arriving too late for one of the special ‘The Widow’ themed cocktails (pictured) of blood orange and bubbly!

'The Widow' cocktails

‘The Widow’ cocktails

From the thousands of votes, the winners of the first ever Dead Good Reader Awards were announced as …

  • The Dead Good Recommends Award for Most Recommended Book: The Girl on the Train (Paula Hawkins)
  • The Lee Child Award for Best Loner or Detective: Vera Stanhope (Ann Cleeves)
  • The Val McDermid Award for Fiendish Forensics: Time of Death (Mark Billingham)
  • The Reichenbach Falls Award for Most Epic Ending: The Skeleton Road (Val McDermid)
  • The Dr Lecter Award for Scariest Villain: You are Dead (Peter James)
  • The Patricia Highsmith Award for Most Exotic Location: Amsterdam – The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die (Marnie Riches)
Award winner Marnie Riches with her agent

Award winner Marnie Riches with her agent

And there was still much to come. The next event was Mark Billingham in conversation with Eddie Izzard. This session, to a packed out audience, was one of the major highlights of the festival. With great banter, packed full of anecdotes and laughs, they talked about some of the stranger venues they’d played on the comedy circuit, what it’s like to die on stage, how to deal with hecklers, through to the need to continuously challenge yourself, and how everyone can keep learning – even if they’re 90. The hour seemed to pass in a flash, and I for one could have continued to listen to them all night.

The final session of the day (starting at 10pm) was The Black Art of Criticism panel with moderator N.J. Cooper posing the questions to panellists Jake Kerridge (the Telegraph’s book reviewer), and authors S.J. Parris, Stav Sherez and Ann Widdecombe. It was a playful panel who debated how they approached reviewing, and how they took being reviewed, with plenty of entertaining discussion.

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The Black Art of Criticism panel

And so, at 11pm as the events of the day drew to a close, I headed to the bar – where I stayed until the early hours of the next morning.

To be continued …

Events Alert: Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival, Stirling on 11 – 13 September 2015

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This week the marks the official launch of the 2015 Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival. The wonderful event runs this year from 11-13 September in the historic Scottish town of Stirling and is fast becoming one of the top crime writing festivals.

The fabulous programme, announced this week, features exclusive appearances from Martina Cole and Linwood Barclay, and a brilliant range of events from interviews to panel sessions with best selling authors including Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Ann Cleeves, Arne Dahl and over 50 other authors.

There’s also some great evening entertainment including ‘Whose Crime is it Anyway?’ with Hardeep Singh Kohli, Christopher Brookmyre, Kevin Wignall and Caro Ramsey, ‘Crime at the Coo’ – an evening of readings, poems, stories and songs hosted by Craig Robertson – and the gala dinner where the fourth annual Bloody Scotland Crime Book of the Year Award will announced. On Sunday lunchtime, there’ll be the return of the infamous Scottish vs English All-Crime-Writers football game, with the English team hoping to settle some of last year’s scores!

The festival will also celebrate Agatha Christie’s 125th anniversary with an spellbinding event looking at the grande dame of crime fiction’s obsession with poisons. Dr Kathryn Harkup, author of the book A is for Arsenic, and Christie expert Ragnar Jonasson, who has been Christie’s Icelandic translator since he was seventeen, will discuss the art of chemistry Christie used to kill the vast majority of her ‘victims’.

For those looking to write crime fiction there’s the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Masterclass – a full day of workshops including ‘The Craft of Crime Writing’ with Denise Mina, ‘Self-Editing for Crime Writers’ with Allan Guthrie, and ‘Screenwriting for Crime Writers’ with Alexandra Sokoloff. And for those ready to pitch their novel, there’s the popular ‘Pitch Perfect’ session where a line-up of unpublished authors get the chance to ‘live pitch’ to a panel of industry experts.

I’ve been to this fantastic festival twice before and I’ve already booked my tickets for this year. Always a super-friendly festival, and with such an amazing star-studded programme, Bloody Scotland 2015 is going to be tremendous.

To find out more about this wonderful festival pop on over to their website at www.bloodyscotland.com

And be sure to follow them on Twitter @BloodyScotland for all the latest updates

Event Alert: Iceland Noir Festival of Crime Fiction

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Iceland Noir Poster

Iceland Noir Poster

Fancy a weekend away?

Love crime fiction?

If the answer to both those questions is YES then this is the perfect event for you: the first Iceland Noir Festival of Crime Fiction is taking place from the 21st – 24th November in Reykjavik, Iceland.

As well as a stellar line-up of fabulous crime writers appearing in the interviews and panels including Zoe Sharp, Quentin Bates, Ragnar Jonasson and Nick Quantrill, there’s a special screening of Ann Cleeves’ Shetland TV series pilot, a crime writing workshop hosted by author William Ryan, and the chance to go on a whole bunch of tours to some of the stunningly beautiful Icelandic locations nearby including whale watching trips and a hunt for the Northern Lights.

It sounds amazing.

For more information, pop over to the Iceland Noir website at www.icelandnoir.com 

Today is Get Writing 2013 Day!

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Get Writing 2013 logo

Get Writing 2013 logo

Today I’m at Verulam Writers’ Circle’s Get Writing 2013 Conference at the University of Hertfordshire’s De Havilland Campus.

As well as attending many of the wonderful workshops and sessions at the conference, I’ve got the pleasure of chairing the Crime Panel in the Main Hall.

The four fabulous crime writers on the panel are:

ANN CLEEVES

Ann is the author of the books behind ITV’s VERA and BBC One’s SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

LESLEY HORTON

Lesley’s books have been described as interesting, serious and gritty. After a career in teaching, Lesley took early retirement and has written five novels featuring DI (now DCI) John Handford and has completed her sixth. Her next novel will be a psychological suspense stand-alone. She is a founder member of the Airedale Writers’ Circle set up in 1995.

ADRIAN MAGSON

Adrian is the author of 13 crime/thriller novels and hundreds of short stories and magazine articles. His latest novels are ‘ Retribution’, the fourth in his Harry Tate spy series, and ‘Death on the Pont Noir’, third in his Inspector Lucas Rocco French police series. He’s a reviewer for Shots Magazine, he writes the ‘Beginners’ and ‘New Author’ pages for Writing Magazine, and is the author of ‘Write On! – The Writer’s Help Book’ .

CLARIE McGOWAN

Claire is the Director of Crime Writers’ Association and teaches on the new Crime Fiction MA at City University, London. Her first novel, The Fall, was published in 2012. Her second novel, The Lost, featuring forensic psychologist, Paula Maguire, was published earlier this month.

I’m really looking forward to it.

You can follow Get Writing 2013 on Twitter at @GetWriting2013

Events Alert: Get Writing 2013

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Get Writing 2013 logo

Get Writing 2013 logo

The 20th April 2013 is the date of the Verulam Writers’ Circle annual writing conference ‘Get Writing’.

Held at the University of Hertfordshire campus in Hatfield, England, this friendly and variety-packed conference is a one-day event and a must-attend for all writers aspiring to publication.

This year there’s a wide variety of sessions to pick from including workshops and panel discussions on childrens’ fiction, crime writing, historical fiction, writing drama, and some fabulous ‘how to’ sessions on editing, creating tension and a whole bunch of other essential writerly skills. For the conference fee of £55 you also get the opportunity to pitch your novel to an agent of your choice and, for those looking for more detailed feedback, you can pay a little extra and book a longer ‘Face Time’ slot.

I’m especially excited about this years’ event as I’ve been asked to chair the Crime Panel. I’ll be talking with the wonderful crime authors Claire McGowan, Adrian Magson, Ann Cleeves, and Lesley Horton. I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun, and I’m really looking forward to picking their brains on how they get their ideas, their writing process, the essentials of crime thriller writing, and any tips and advice they have for those aspiring to publication.

Also, for those with a novel, or the opening of a novel, ready to go there’s the ‘First Three Pages’ competition. It’s open to all attendees and requires you to submit the first three pages of a novel of any genre. So, Get Writing!

Booking is open now at http://vwc.org.uk/getwriting2013.php

Perhaps I’ll see you there?