Bloody Scotland

Various venues, Stirling, until September 23

Six years ago, Alex Gray and Lin Anderson set out to change the face of Scottish crime literature. While the world was still enjoying the ‘Tartan Noir’ of Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Denise Mina and Chris Brookmyre, the Scandi new wave was in full flow with bestseller lists being dominated by the likes of Sweden’s Stieg Larsson (eight years after his death) and Norway’s Jo Nesbø. At the time, Gray noted the words of Rankin: “Scandinavian crime writers are not better than Scottish ones; they just have better PR.”

And so Gray and Anderson came up with the idea of the Stirling-based Bloody Scotland as a means of giving the Scottish crime-writing scene a fresh injection. “Bloody Scotland has grown a lot since we first dreamed it up,” recalls Gray, who is appearing in three events herself this year. “Year one saw us write proper letters to authors, find our own sponsors, do our own financial affairs. At the beginning it was a group of friends who determined to make Bloody Scotland different and quirky, and establish a festival that both celebrated the best of crime fiction while giving a leg up to aspiring authors.”

This year, as with every year, the emphasis is on fun and inclusivity. Readers have good access to authors, and writers mingle merrily with publishers and PRs. “The best thing about Bloody Scotland is the atmosphere,” insists Gray. “We have devised all sorts of entertaining events, plus drama, open-mic blethers and repartee with different events each year that refuse to follow any sort of formula.”

The search for big names, of course, is one thing that unites most literary festivals, and this year Bloody Scotland have secured the likes of Irvine Welsh, Ann Cleeves, Frank Gardner and Peter James, while there’s also a torchlit procession, the Two Crime Writers And A Microphone live podcast, and the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers supergroup led by McDermid and Brookmyre.

For Alex Gray, there is one story that sums up the spirit of Bloody Scotland. “Picture a wee old lady tottering up a cobbled street accompanied by a man in an old-fashioned homburg hat, his moustache bristling with mirth. Photographers are snapping away merrily as Miss Marple and Poirot pose for photographs. In reality that was Chris Brookmyre and myself dressed up to launch our programme a few years back.

“We had such fun doing this, not taking ourselves seriously in the least, yet still paying homage to the great Agatha Christie. In a lot of ways that encapsulated the spirit of Bloody Scotland: our willingness to create something amusing, yet with a serious undertone.”

Two Crime Writers and a Microphone event in The Golden Lion Hotel in Stirling at Bloody Scotland 2017.