Sponsored by The Glencairn Glass
Winner to be presented on Friday
12 September 2025
The 2025 Bloody Scotland Debut
Prize shortlist is revealed today.
Three of the authors have appeared previously at Bloody Scotland in the final
of Pitch Perfect, two appeared at the 2024 festival in Crime in the Spotlight
and four have been interviewed in the first season of the Bloody Scotland
podcast https://bloodyscotland.podbean.com/ which launched in March.
Bloody Scotland prides itself on
supporting new talent and The Bloody Scotland Debut Prize which began in 2019
has launched the careers of numerous Scottish crime writers. Last year’s
winner, self-published author Allan Gaw, went on to get a multiple book deal
with Polygon and rights have already sold to the US.
The 2025 Debut shortlist is
diverse with even more diverse subject matter ranging from queer cosy crime to
heart stopping espionage and literary mystery.
The full shortlist for the 2025 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize is:
Natalie Jayne Clark with The Malt
Whisky Murders (Polygon) She was runner up in Pitch Perfect in 2023 and had an
agent and a book deal less than a month later. Rights for her darkly comic
novel about two women who have just taken over a distillery in Kintyre have
already sold to Spain and Hungary. Natalie has won various poetry slams and is
a certified whisky ambassador. She lives in Perth.
David Goodman with A Reluctant
Spy (Headline). He was selected for Crime in the Spotlight, reading ahead of
Frank Gardner at Bloody Scotland 2024. Film & TV rights to his thriller
about a successful Scottish sales exec who finds himself inadvertently pitched
into a deadly mission in hostile territory in Tanzania have been sold in a
hugely competitive auction. David lives in East Lothian.
Foday Mannah with The Search for
Othella Savage (Quercus). He was a finalist in Pitch Perfect and in 2022 won
the Mo Siewcharran Prize which was established to discover new underrepresented
talent. It is fiction based on a real case and is set in the Sierra Leone
community in Edinburgh, revealing a different side to the Edinburgh usually
found in Scottish crime writing. Foday is an English teacher at a High School
in West Lothian.
Richard Strachan with The Unrecovered (Raven / Bloomsbury). A former bookseller, Richard has worked in a host of bookshops including John Smiths Glasgow, Waterstones Notting Hill, George Street, Argyle Street and Stirling and Blackwells in Edinburgh. He lives in Edinburgh with his family. His haunting literary mystery set in a requisitioned stately home outside South Queensferry during the First World War has drawn comparisons with James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson. He was the first guest on the Bloody Scotland podcast with Val McDermid.
Claire Wilson with Five by Five
(Michael Joseph). Claire is the ultimate product of the Bloody Scotland school
of supporting new writers. She was a finalist in Pitch Perfect 2022, went on to
appear in Crime in the Spotlight with Chris Whitaker and Abir Mukherjee and was
a guest on the Bloody Scotland podcast. Her debut is inspired by her own job as
an intelligence analyst in a Scottish prison and has been shortlisted for the
CrimeFest Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award, Capital Crime’s Debut Award and longlisted
for the CWA New Blood Dagger. Claire lives in Central Scotland.
On the opening day of the
festival, Friday 12 September, the shortlisted debut authors will appear on a
free but ticketed Debut Prize panel at Central Library in Stirling at 3.30pm
interviewed by festival co-founder Alex Gray. The presentation of both prizes
will take place in the ballroom of The Golden Lion Hotel at 5.15pm where the
winners will be interviewed on stage by TV and radio presenter Bryan Burnett,
after which they will join the new ‘Day of the Deid’ procession led by Ian
Rankin to the first event of the evening at The Albert Halls.
Kirsty Nicholson, Design and
Marketing Manager at Glencairn Crystal – sponsors of The Bloody Scotland Debut
Prize with The Glencairn Glass, the official glass for whisky, said:
“We’re excited to see such a
compelling and diverse shortlist for this year’s Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.
It’s a privilege to sponsor these awards and to be involved in supporting such
talented crime writers. We congratulate all the shortlisted authors and wish
them the very best of luck."
Bloody Scotland | International Crime Writing Festival
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