McSorley, Darwent and Foster longlisted for McIlvanney Prize alongside Rankin and McDermid

Heather Darwent, Kate Foster and Callum McSorley have been shortlisted for both the 2023 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize and longlisted for this year’s McIlvanney Prize alongside Ian Rankin and Val McDermid. 

Darwent is in contention for her suspenseful debut The Things We Do To Our Friends (Penguin), while Foster is up for The Maiden (Mantle), the outline of which landed her Pitch Perfect at Bloody Scotland in 2020. McSorley has been selected for Squeaky Clean (Pushkin).

Heather Critchlow was also featured on the Bloody Scotland shortlist with Unsolved (Canelo), alongside Fulton Ross with The Unforgiven Dead (Inkshares). All of the shortlisted authors have been invited to attend the programme launches in London and/or Stirling and to appear on a Debut Prize panel on the 15th September, the opening day of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival.  

The 2023 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize will be judged by BBC Scotland’s arts correspondent Pauline McLean, new product development manager from sponsors Glencairn Crystal Kenny Tweedale, and journalist and editor Arusa Qureshi. 

Rankin is on the The McIlvanney Prize longlist, the shortlist for which will be announced at the end of August, for A Heart Full of Headstones (Orion), alongside McDermid for 1989 (Little,Brown). Mark Leggatt was longlisted for Penitent (Fledgling Press) alongside S G Maclean with The Bookseller of Inverness (Quercus) and Douglas Skelton for An Honourable Thief (Canelo).

A previous winner of the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize, Robbie Morrison, is among the other three authors on the list, in the running for Cast A Cold Eye (Macmillan). He is longlisted alongside previous winners of The McIlvanney Prize Craig Russel, this year competing with The Devil’s Playground (Little,Brown), and Denise Mina, on the list for The Second Murderer (Vintage).

According to the organisers, two contenders for the 2023 McIlvanney Prize have made the list as a result of the new, wider criteria for the award. This year the McIlvanney Prize will be judged by BBC Scotland presenter Bryan Burnett, former editor of the Sunday Times Scotland Jason Allardyce, and category manager for Watersones Angie Crawford.  

In previous years, the longlist has been determined by a panel of readers. This year, the reader scores have been referred to an academy led by crime reviewer Ayo Onatade, Waterstones category manager for crime fiction Gaby Lee, and journalist and author Craig Sisterson.  

The McIlvanney longlist and the Bloody Scotland shortlist will be promoted in bookshops throughout Scotland in the period between the announcement and the presentation on 15th September. The presentation of both prizes will take place after the torchlight procession through Stirling in order that all shortlisted authors can take their place at the front. The procession will conclude with a formal event at The Albert Halls, where the two winners will be revealed and interviewed live on stage.