Bloody Scotland - Past Present Future

Bloody Scotland 2017 was our biggest and best yet. Walking down from Stirling Castle in a sea of flaming torches with Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Denise Mina at our head, celebrating 30 years in the business for Ian and Val, and Denise as the latest winner of the McIlvanney prize, was a magical moment for Alex Gray and myself.

Lin Anderson and Alex Gray

Here was the result of an idea, born nine years ago, in all its wonder.

The conception, birth and success of the Bloody Scotland festival is, like all good stories, entirely dependent on the characters involved.

For those of you who don’t know the whole story, let me give you the bones of it.

The idea for a Scottish Crime Festival was born in Lincoln, England at a Crime Writers’ Conference in 2009 famously after a couple bottles of Prosecco. At its conception were myself, Alex Gray and Alanna Knight. The question which prompted it… why, when we have such a wealth of crime writing talent in Scotland, do we not have our own festival?

Having the idea is the easy bit of course. After that you have to persuade other people that it is a great idea. Fortunately that wasn’t difficult. The first to join our trio was Jenny Brown, our Chair for the past six years. This was swiftly followed by Gordon Brown. Alex came up with the brilliant name, Bloody Scotland, and we were on our way.

Our initial committee was formed and we lost and found members en route. One of the most successful decisions we made in those early years, apart from the name, was to make Stirling our home, which led in turn to us welcoming Stirling-based Craig Robertson onto our committee.

And at the heart of our project was always the late great William McIlvanney, who had inspired us all to become crime writers in the first place.

Lee Randall explains the judging of the 2017McIllvanney Prize

As I said, it’s all about character.

We launched in 2012 after three years planning and hit the ground running and we have gone from strength to strength, thanks to the passion and commitment of all our past and present Board Members and of course, our current and former festival directors, Bob McDevitt and Dom Hastings.

However, as Alex and I walked from Stirling Castle to the Albert Hall, one thing was clear. Bloody Scotland now belongs to everyone – our Bloody Scotland team (including our sponsors), the wonderful authors, the readers, the bloggers, the volunteers, and of course the welcoming people of Stirling, of Scotland and beyond.

The BLOODY SCOTLAND book launched at the 2017 festival

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Bloody Scotland 2018 runs from 21-23 September, 2018. 

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Related Links:

Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival

Reading the Past – Imagine the Future  (Bloody Scotland book 2017)

Hurricane Book Club - FOLLOW THE DEAD

Book 12 in the Forensic Scientist Rhona MacLeod series FOLLOW THE DEAD is featured as the Summer Pick in the 31st August 2017 Hurricane Book Club event.

Any reader can take part from 6pm by following and participating in the discussion through Orkney library’s twitter account @orkneylibrary, the Glasgow libraries twitter account @glasgowlib and the hashtag #hurricanebookclub.

Lin Anderson will be taking part from the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. See more details HERE.

In the YouTube video above Alex Saunders of Pan Macmillan introduces FOLLOW THE DEAD.

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There is a Storify of this FOLLOW THE DEAD Hurricane Book Club HERE.

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Hashtags: 

#HurricaneBookClub #FollowTheDead #FusionNoir #Cairngorm #Norway

Related Links:

Buy FOLLOW THE DEAD on Amazon:-

UK : amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01MZCTCG9
USA :  amazon.com/-/e/B01MZCTCG9

'The Bridge' without a bridge: FOLLOW THE DEAD

On the Road at Thunder in the Glens

I headed into Aviemore on 26th August 2017 to watch the 'Thunder in the Glens' motor bike ride-out, part of at Europe's biggest Harley-Davidson rally, organised by Dunedin Scotland Chapter.

I had the good fortune of being in the first car stopped by the Police and asked to wait, to allow the ride-out to funnel back into a single lane as they headed north out of Aviemore. (Honestly, I didn't arrange this with the Aviemore Police!)

So the video below is a single shot from the centre of the road towards the oncoming thousands of bikers as all of them pass.

If you were in the ride-out, then there is a pretty good chance you will be able to spot yourself. I was watching out for biker girl Ellie from my FOLLOW THE DEAD book, but I didn't see her :o)

(It takes 20 minutes for the ride-out to pass)

BTW: There is a fine display of my books in Waterstones Aviemore.

Reading the Past – Imagine the Future

Tomorrow, I fly to Kirkwall to take part in Monday's launch of the Scottish Library promotion Reading the Past – Imagine the Future, which is part of Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology. 

It’s always a pleasure to return to Orkney, and to my friends at Kirkwall Library in particular, who have been great supporters of the Rhona MacLeod series, but this event also has resonance for this year's Bloody Scotland crime writing festival.

In a chance encounter with James Crawford (publisher with Historic Environment Scotland) last August in the EIBF author’s yurt, we chatted about the possibility of a 'Bloody Scotland' book of short stories by twelve of Scotland’s leading crime writers, which would celebrate the 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology, each story featuring one of Scotland’s historic and iconic built locations. I loved the idea and promptly offered to write a story set in Orkney.

With its inimitable Professor of Criminal Psychology Magnus Pirie, Orkney already stars in two of the books in my Rhona MacLeod series: in Paths of the Dead, when a body is found in the Ring of Brodgar,  and more recently in None but the Dead, which takes place mostly on Sanday. So I jumped at the chance to weave a story featuring Magnus for the collection.

My choice of location was Maeshowe, the 5,000 year old burial mound, known in old Norse as Orkahaugr, and I took this quote from the wonderful writings of George MacKay Brown as my inspiration:

 In my Orkahaugr story, Magnus solves a cold case from the time when the Vikings were making their mark in runes on the inside walls of Maeshowe.  

The book also features stories by Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina, G J Brown, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Doug Johnstone, Craig Robertson, E S Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride, all of whom explore the thrilling potential of Scotland's iconic sites and structures.

The book will launch at the opening night of Bloody Scotland in September this year, but you can pre-order on Amazon now.

The Bloody Scotland 2017 festival programme will launch on June 1st in Stirling, and on 6th June in London.

We have a magnificent line up for readers this year, with fabulous and unique events, which you could only find at Bloody Scotland.  So, remember to sign up for the Bloody Scotland newsletter to be the first in the know.

And of course watch out for tweeting from Kirkwall Library on Monday afternoon around 3pm, where we celebrate, at one of the best libraries and archives in Scotland, how important libraries are to our country’s history and heritage.

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Related Links:-

Pre-order the Bloody Scotland collection of short stories on Amazon

Order Lin Anderson Rhona MacLeod series books on Amazon

Scottish Crime at a Confluence of Cultures

There are 14 million people living in Kolkata, and around 5 million living in the centre of the city. The Kolkata Book Fair is the biggest in the world, with 2.5 million people visiting it to buy books as well as to attend the festival events.

It’s hard to believe those numbers until you step inside one of the numerous entrances and see the hoards of enthusiastic readers who throng the multitude of bookshops. Indians love reading and all age groups were in the packed book tents.

My favourite memory was of a boy of about ten who had chosen his book from a selection of classics. Clutching it to his chest like a prize possession he was approaching the pay desk with a broad smile on his face. The book he had chosen was Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott – not the easiest of reads in English for any ten year old, but Indians love the classics as well as contemporary fiction.

Many people speak five or six languages including English. In India there are 1000 languages spoken. A melting point for different cultures, Kolkata is the most diverse city I’ve ever visited. Its inhabitants are aspirational and see reading as the doorway to knowledge about everything.

We were involved in three events at the festival. Jenny Brown our Bloody Scotland Chair spoke at a translation event. Crime books are very popular in India in particular Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. However we did spot books by Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith too.

The aim of our visit was of course to promote Bloody Scotland and Scottish crime writers in general. At our second event, Bloody Scotland took centre stage with Doug Johnstone and myself plus two Indian crimewriters, Monabi Mitra and Krishnendu Mukhopadhyay, chaired by Jenny Brown. It was a lively and well received event. We even managed to teach them a few words in Scots.

The third event I was involved in was entitled Who Are My Readers.  The six person panel included Egyptian lecturer and writer Khaled Alkhamissi, Vivek Shanbhag who writes in Kannada (one of India’s languages), poet and dramatist Nishi Chawla and Natalie Holborrow from Wales who is a poet.

It was chaired by Denes Gazsi, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Languages at the university of Iowa.  It was a fascinating discussion during which I learned that over 75% of people in Egypt are under 25 years of age, all potential readers.

As well as the festival itself, Doug and I were involved in the British Council outreach programme. We visited the Shri Shikshayatan Girl’s school where we gave a talk to seventy eager readers. I can honestly say we’ve never had such informed and searching questions about being a writer and how to tell stories.

Like Scotland storytelling is very much a part of the Indian culture. At the end we were treated to the Indian version of Auld Lang Syne, beautifully sung by the girls… I think Robert Burns himself would have been delighted.

Perhaps my most abiding memory will be of our Confluence Of Cultures walking tour of old Calcutta. Kolkata has witnessed many more cultures in its past than most other cities have in our globalised present.

Communities of Chinese, Parsis, and Armenians who gave the city its oldest surviving Christian church, live alongside Anglo-Indians, Muslims, Marwaris, Biharis and the many more that made this city a great melting pot of diverse cultures.

One interesting fact I learned was that India was the only country that did not persecute the Jews.
It was these immigrants that made this great city bringing their knowledge, skills, literature, and cultures to make Kolkata the City of Dreams.

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Hashtags: #KLF17 #KLF2017 #BloodyScotland

Bloody Scotland goes to India

Thriller writer Doug Johnstone and I are heading to the 4th Kolkata Literature Festival 2–4th February 2017 to promote Scottish Crime Writing,  and in particular the annual Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival which takes place this year in Stirling 9th-11th September 2017.

Kolkata Literature Festival is a relatively young literature festival that takes places within the folds of the International Kolkata Book Fair (world's largest book fair), to celebrate the written word, and the different facets of it – publishing, story telling, theatre, documentaries to name a few.

Doug and I will be accompanied by Jenny Brown, Chair of the Bloody Scotland committee, and the trip has been made possible by a partnership between the British Council and Creative Scotland. 

Former Bloody Scotland Festival Manager Dom Hastings, who now works for the British Council,  will meet us there. We look forward to seeing a reciprocal visit by Indian writers to our Bloody Scotland festival in a future year.

I have never visited India before, although both Jenny and Dom have, for various festivals and book trade fairs. I have however lived in the tropics, having worked for five years in Northern Nigeria, alongside other expats from the Indian subcontinent. In fact when I began my writing career it was with short stories set in this setting in Nigeria. So I’ll be looking for inspiration during my Kolkata visit.

I am at present thoroughly enjoying the detective novel, A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee which is set in Kolkata (Calcutta) in 1919. Abir, a London based Scot has already appeared at Bloody Scotland to great acclaim and I would highly recommend his novel which won the 2014 Telegraph Harvill Secker crime writing competition.

We have individual author events and a Bloody Scotland event at the festival, and will be reporting our experiences on social media (main festival hashtag is #KLF17).

Related links:-

Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival

Kolkata Literature FestivalKolkata Book Fair

'The Bridge' without a bridge: FOLLOW THE DEAD

 

 
Although my home village of Carrbridge is in the Spey Valley, I’ve never set a Rhona MacLeod novel there until now.

When my children were young they spent a great deal of time on Cairngorm with the Cairngorm Ski Club, in all weathers I might add. Me, not so often, and usually only when there was little wind and the sun came out.

The idea for the book came to me on Hogmanay 2015 when the whole family was back at home in Carrbridge, and since we don’t have a TV, we were playing daft games while waiting for ‘the bells’ at midnight.

I suddenly imagined what it might be like to spend Hogmanay on Cairngorm in a blizzard and what might happen there and thus the story was born.

I was helped in my research by Willie Anderson, Leader of Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team, and many of their amazing stories of survival and death in what is Scotland’s Arctic. The truth is far stranger and more wonderful than anything we can create in fiction.

The forensic side of the investigation led by Rhona is always for me the most fascinating aspect of the story. Holidaying in Aviemore where Sean is playing a Hogmanay gig, Rhona joins Professor Charlie  Robertson, former colleague and pathologist who’s part of CMRT, to investigate a downed plane on frozen Loch A’an.  CMRT being the first onto any scene of death on the mountain, are resposible for the initial forensic examination. What Rhona and Charlie find is not what they expected.

I knew shortly after I began Follow the Dead that the case would be a joint investigation with Norway. Five years ago I was asked to give a talk at the Edinburgh Film Festival about Nordic and Tartan Noir.

I had always known of the close connections between Norway and Scotland, mainly because I lived and worked in Orkney for a time and the idea of a joint investigation fascinated me. Think of  The Bridge but without the bridge ... just miles of North Sea.

I contacted the Norwegian Consulate in Edinburgh and they put me in touch with the Cultural Centre in Stavanger who in turn set up meetings with Stavanger Police Force. I flew to Stavanger from Aberdeen, a short hop of 50 minutes and spent four days there.

Police Inspector Egil Erikson and his team couldn’t have been more helpful and as a result, the character of Police Inspector Alvis Olsen in Follow the Dead was created.

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Update 4th September, 2018: Follow the Dead is shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of 2018.

Order on Amazon