Top Scots

Organizers of the annual Bloody Scotland festival—sadly cancelled this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis—today announced their nominees for two awards recognizing excellence in Scottish crime fiction. First we have the shortlisted titles vying for the honor of being named 2020 Bloody Scotland Scottish Crime Debut of the Year:

• Hold Your Tongue, by Deborah Masson (Corgi)
• The Crown Agent, by Stephen O’Rourke (Sandstone Press)
• See Them Run, by Marion Todd (Canelo)
• Pine, by Francine Toon (Doubleday)

Next comes the longlist of contenders seeking the 2020 McIlvanney Prize for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year:

• Time for the Dead, by Lin Anderson (Macmillan)
• Bad Memory, by Lisa Gray (Thomas & Mercer)
• Whirligig, by Andrew James Greig (Fledgling Press)
• 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 (Wildfire)
• The Art of Dying, by Ambrose Parry (Canongate)
• 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)

A short video mentioning all of these hopefuls (and starring Denise Mina, Ian Rankin, Richard Osman and Karen Robinson) is here.

According to a press release, “The shortlist for the McIlvanney Prize will be announced on the 1st of September before the winners of both prizes will be revealed on the 18th of September.”