Published June 22, 2017 by Katherine Cowdrey on The Bookseller
MacLehose Press is reissuing books in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy to complement the jacket of The Girl in the Spider’s Web and has revealed ‘Queen of Crime’ Val McDermid is contributing an introduction to the new issue of The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo.
The new-look cover designs use colours from the original jackets but “apply them in a fresh way” by revisiting the image of the woman and her tattooed back, which adorns the cover of The Girl in the Spider’s Web. They will be available on 1st July.
McDermid is also contributing to the introduction to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo after her novel The Wire in the Blood was mentioned as being read by co-lead character Michael Blomkvist in it.
In McDermid’s introduction she will discuss her relationship with Larsson’s work, his literary influences and her take on his graphic and explicit descriptions of the exploitation of women in the novels.
The second Millennium novel by David Lagercrantz, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye will be published worldwide on 7th September.
Published June 20, 2017 by Katherine Cowdrey
From The Bookseller
Bloody Scotland today (20th June) revealed the longlist for the McIlvanney Prize Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award 2017, which will see crime-fiction heavyweights, Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, competing with debuts writers, Helen Fields, Claire MacLeary and Owen Mullen.
Queen of Crime McDermid is longlisted for her 30th novel
The longlist for the award, recognising excellence in Scottish crime writing, was chosen by an independent panel of readers and features six male and six female writers, from both small Scottish publishers and large London houses. The winner will receive £1,000 and nationwide promotion in Waterstones.
Queen of Crime McDermid is longlisted for her 30th novel, suspenseful thriller Out of Bounds (Little, Brown) and Chris Brookmyre is also in the running for his psychological thriller Want You Gone (Little, Brown).
Macmillan also has two authors longlisted – Ann Cleeves’ murder mystery Cold Earth featuring Shetland detective Jimmy Perez and Lin Anderson who is recognised for her 11th book in the Rhona MacLeod series, None But the Dead.
Rankin, who will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of his first John Rebus novel at RebusFest in Edinburgh, is longlisted for Rather Be the Devil (Orion).
Several new voices are also celebrated on this year’s longlist.
Helen Fields is down for Perfect Remains, the first in a new crime series set in Edinburgh, following French lead character Detective Inspector Luc Callanach, a former Interpol officer. Claire MacLeary meanwhile is longlisted for Cross Purpose (Contraband), a debut “combining police corruption, gangs and murder with a paean to friendship, loyalty and how women of a certain age can beat the odds”, and Owen Mullen for Games People Play (Bloodhound).
Former journalist Craig Robertson is in the running for Murderabilia (Simon and Schuster), Denise Mina for her CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger-longlisted book The Long Drop (Random House), and Craig Russell for his detective noir, set in 1950s Glasgow, The Quiet Death of Thomas Quaid (Quercus).
Rounding off the set is Jay Stringer with How To Kill Friends And Implicate People (Thomas & Mercer), in which one of the main characters is a hitman looking for love.
Bob McDevitt, director of Bloody Scotland, said: “In what is shaping up to be a record-breaking year at Bloody Scotland (we sold twice as many tickets on our first day as last year), I’m pleased to see so many of the highlights of the 2017 programme featured on this longlist. It’s also brilliant to see a few debut novels on there slugging it out with the more established names. I certainly don’t envy our judges the task of picking a winner from this excellent crop of crime novels.”
The winner will be announced at the opening reception at Stirling Castle on 8th September, followed by a torchlight procession – open to the public – led by longlisted author Rankin.
Last year the Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award was renamed the McIlvanney Prize in memory of William McIlvanney who, says Bloody Scotland, established the tradition of Scottish detective fiction.
The election of Donald Trump last November had an unexpected result in my household. My 16-year-old son developed a fascination with systems of governance. The disparity between the popular vote – won by Hillary Clinton – and the electoral college that propelled Trump into office offended his sense of justice.
It’s been a recurring topic of conversation ever since. We discussed monarchy versus republicanism over pizza. It took several breakfasts to cover communism satisfactorily. I hadn’t even had my second cup of coffee the morning we moved on to Julius Nyerere’s dream of pan-African socialism.
forced me to re-examine tenets I’ve tended to take for granted. Sure, I’ve grumbled about disproportional representation, raged over democratic deficits and moaned when the verdict of the people didn’t coincide with mine. But it took those conversations with a 16-year-old to remind me of the idealist I used to be, and to consider what true reformation might mean.
