Bloody Scotland Influencers Tour

It's the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in Stirling next week end! Woohoo! This is always a highlight in my calendar but it seems to have come around so quickly this year! Family circumstances meant I was unable to attend the Bloody Scotland press launch in June, and I only managed to get a print copy of the programme earlier this week - it's easier to plan the weekend on paper because there is so much to see! I'm thrilled to be on this tour again so huge thanks to Bloody Scotland for inviting me. But they've asked me to pick two sessions I'm looking forward to this year. Just two! There are loads of sessions I want to attend, and some big names coming this year, so picking just two is a big ask! You can see my picks below and I urge you to check out the other posts from this tour to get a wide range of recommendations.

 

Actually, when it came down to it, picking just two I was really excited about wasn't that hard and both my choices are on the opening day of the festival, Friday 12th September. 

I might have squealed a little bit when I saw this first event was happening. I am a big fan of both Thomas Enger and Johana Gustawsson - loved their individual work and they're both lovely people too. So I was super excited when they joined forces to write a new series, starting with Son. I loved it, you can see my review here, and I'm really looking forward to hearing them talking about working together. Need to buy a copy too to get signed! I don't know Karin Smirnoff's work although I do know of the series - mainly because I've seen the film of the first book - so excited to her from her. 

Nordic Chills and Thrills: Karin Smirnoff, Thomas Enger & Johana Gustawsson

Friday 12th September, 3:30pm, The Albert Halls
Tickets: £11 - £12

The chilling allure of Scandinavian crime fiction remains undiminished, a glittering dark star in the noir sky. Three of its finest proponents come together to discuss their new books and the genre’s continuing appeal.

The Girl with Ice in her Veins is the latest in the multi-million selling Millenium series featuring Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomquist and penned by Swedish author Karin Smirnoff. Norway’s Thomas Enger and French-born Swedish resident Johana Gustawsson have achieved notable individual success and have now combined brilliantly on Son, the first in a spectacular new series featuring police psychologist Kari Voss.

This event will feature a Crime in the Spotlight reading from Becky Brynolf (I Found a Body)."

Tickets for this event can be found here

I knew I would be coming to this second event as soon as I knew it was happening. Crime fiction is the perfect genre for reflecting and highlighting social issues, and it is encouraging to see more protagonists coming to the fore who are differently abled, disabled, from the LGBTQ+ community or from a minority group. This session focuses on the first of these, with authors who have given their main characters a mental health issue or mind condition (not the right wording but I am loathed to say 'disability'). I've read both of Daniel Aubrey's novels to date - sorry I have I'd reviewed them yet but the review for The Dying Light (second book) will be up next week). I was particularly interested in these books as I have experience of autism in the family and I am currently on a very long waiting list to discuss an ADHD diagnosis for myself, but I don't see these conditions as entirely bad, there is much that is positive in them. I don't know the books of the other two authors but am so interested to hear what they have to say and how they've dealt with the portrayal of the conditions they feature. I'm always interested in how mental illness is shown in literature and, unfortunately, also have experience in the family of dementia. I think this is going to be a fascinating session and I'm really pleased it's been included in the programme. 

Always on my Mind: Daniel Aubrey, Sean Watkin, Trevor Wood

Friday 12th September, 7:00pm, The Holy Trinity Church,
Tickets: £8 - £9

Meet three authors of intriguing and powerful novels whose protagonists excel despite – and sometimes because of – their brains working differently from what is considered “typical”.

Freya Sinclair, Daniel Aubrey’s autistic and fearless journalist, returns in The Dying Light, set against the unrelenting sunshine of an Orkney summer. DCI Win de Silva is suffering from PTSD but must catch the killer of teenage girls in Liverpool in Sean Watkin’s compelling Black Water Rising. Trevor Wood’s sensitive portrayal of early onset dementia sufferer DCI Jack Parker gets a reprise in the enthralling new thriller The Inside Man.

Tickets for this session can be found here

But these are just two from a huge, wide ranging programme, with three different sessions happening in most of the time slots. You can view the whole programme here and I would urge you to have a look, and also read the recommendations of others on this tour.  I do hope you can come along - come say hi if you do! 

To The Shades Descend by Allan Gaw

Today we have the last, for now, of our Allan Gaw books featuring pathologist Dr Jack Cuthbert, To The Shades Descend. Many thanks to Kelly Lacey at Love Books Tours for inviting me and to the publisher for my review copy. See below for my review and also for details of Allan's appearance at the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival next weekend. 

The Blurb

The dead all have stories to tell.

Glasgow 1931

Visiting from London, Dr Jack Cuthbert unexpectedly finds himself at the centre of a horrifying crime. As an experienced pathologist, the local police call upon him to lead the forensic investigation and identify the victims of a bombing in the city. But this is no ordinary crime scene.

Cuthbert must navigate a political as well as a pathological minefield, with British fascists and the city's notorious razor gangs in the frame. To solve the case, Cuthbert needs to gather all the expertise he can from those around him. But, out of his usual surroundings and working with strangers, who can he trust?

My Review

It's great to read more on this series, I'm loving it. The characterisation, particularly of Jack Cuthbert, but throughout, is wonderful. So in depth, but without feeling heavy or clunky. The reader will crepe about these characters, feel their joy, feel their pain. And that's so important. 

In To The Shades Descend, Jack (an Edinburgh man but we'll forgive him) is visiting Glasgow, finding out about a possible career move. Whilst there he is called upon to work alongside the Glasgow police after a bomb explodes at a political event on Glasgow Green. It's a mess, with many dead, of all ages, and not all are intact. Jack has a huge job ahead of him, whilst working in unfamiliar surroundings with unfamiliar colleagues but he has to make it work...

Dr Jack Cuthbert is a tall, upright (in every sense) man, handsome and polite, charming when he needs to be. He's very efficient and thorough, and very, very good at his job. Most people like Jack but even those that don't, the majority respect him because he commands their respect. In Glasgow, he's astute enough to work out who the best people are to work with him on this case and sets up his own little team. That team features a woman police constable, working at a time when women weren't given much responsibility, so I loved that Cuthbert recognises her skills and gives her responsibility. But we also see the quieter, private side of Dr Jack Cuthbert, which is darker than his more public persona, haunted as he is by memories of the war and his own emotions and feelings. Ones he pushes down, tried not to acknowledge. 

This was difficult reading at times, the aftermath of the bombing was nasty and brutal and Cuthbert and his team have a lot to deal with. Identifying the victims is the most important thing, and one of those victims throws up an additional angle to the main investigation.  The inquiry itself is suitably twisty with lots of potential suspects, including members of a local gang, all leading to an unexpected denouement which Jack finds very difficult. 

To The Shades Descend is another great story, a satisfying mystery, and I enjoyed that it was in Glasgow, my adopted home. The author's pathology background and detailed research are evident through the detail. But for me, the most impressive part of this is the characterisation, particularly of Jack Cuthbert. Always the most important part of the story and it's bang on here. Loved it, looking forward to Jack's next outing. 


The Author

Allan Gaw is a Scot who lives and works near Glasgow. He studied medicine and is a pathologist by training but a writer by inclination. Having worked in the NHS and universities in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and the US, he now devotes his time to writing.

Most of his published work to date is non-fiction. These include textbooks and regular magazine articles on topics as diverse as the thalidomide story, the medical challenges of space travel and the medico-legal consequences of the Hillsborough disaster.

More recently, he has been writing short stories, novels and poetry. He has won the UK Classical Association Creative Writing Competition, the International Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, the International Globe Soup 7-day Writing Challenge and was runner-up in the Glencairn Glass/Bloody Scotland Short Crime Fiction Competition. He has also had prose published in the literary journal, From Glasgow to Saturn and anthologies from the Edinburgh Literary Salon and Clan Destine Press in Australia. His poetry has been published by Dreich, Soor Ploom Press and Black Bough Poetry. His debut poetry collection, Love & Other Diseases, was published in 2023 by Seahorse Publications.

The Moon's More Feeble Fire is the second book in the Dr Jack Cuthbert Mystery series and has been longlisted for this year's McIlvanney Prize.

You can read more about him and his work at his website: https://researchet.wordpress.com/ .


Bloody Scotland Panel

Allan will be appearing at Bloody Scotland this year. You can book your tickets here.

We make a deep incision into the world of crime fiction and science fact as we talk forensics with three authors whose books deliver thrills, chills and blood-spattered spills.

A gangland slaying and a missing movie star are at the heart of Whispers of the Dead, the sensational new Rhona MacLeod thriller from Lin Anderson. Forensic criminologist Laughton Rees faces a race against time to stop a killer in Simon Toyne’s exhilarating new novel Dead Water. Allan Gaw’s pathologist Dr Jack Cuthbert runs the gauntlet between fascists and razor gangs in 1930s Glasgow in To the Shades Descend.

This event will be chaired by Professor James Grieve.