If you were wondering when organizers of the annual Bloody Scotland international crime-writing festival would release their shortlist of nominees for the 2026 McIlvanney Prize, well, the answer was apparently yesterday. Here are the five fortunate finalists:
• The Hollow Boys, by Tariq Ashkanani (Viper)
• 138 Main Street, by Gavin Bell (Simon & Schuster UK)
• A Bad, Bad Place, by Frances Crawford (Bantam)
• The Diary of Lies, by Philip Miller (Polygon)
• The Vanishing Place, by Zoë Rankin (Viper)
The winner of this award, as well as the 2026 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize, are set to be revealed at the festival on Friday, September 18.
READ MORE: “What I’m Looking Forward to at Bloody Scotland 2026—Murder, Mayhem & Impossible Choices!” by Noelle Holten (CrimeBookJunkie).
Wednesday, September 09, 2026
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What a nice touch that the Bloody Scotland/McIlvanney shortlist landed the same week the novelist himself passed — I had not realized the final selection was drawn up before McIlvanney's death, with Laidlaw among his favorites. There's something fitting in the prize bearing his name doing exactly what he argued for in that 1991 essay: treating crime writing as "serious writing about serious things in a serious way." The whole literariness debate always struck me as circular — the best Scottish crime novels never needed permission to count as literature. It will be interesting to see how the judges weigh the two Laidlaw-inspired installments against a strong field in September.
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