A festival celebrating the best in international crime writing has a line-up to die for, organisers have said.
Lee Child, author of the bestselling Jack Reacher novels, is among those appearing at the second Bloody Scotland event in Stirling in September.
Val McDermid, Stuart MacBride, William McIlvanney, Quintin Jardine and Louise Welsh are also appearing, alongside Nordic crime writers Jo Nesbo, Arne Dahl and Mons Kallentoft.
Festival-goers can hone their writing skills in workshops or try their hand at forensics to solve a murder.
The Deanston Scottish Crime book of the year award will also be announced over the weekend, with journalist and former newspaper editor Magnus Linklater on the judging panel.
Scottish author Christopher Brookmyre joined festival founders and fellow authors Alex Gray and Lin Anderson to unveil this year's programme which features 48 writers across 35 events.
He said: "Last year's Bloody Scotland was the most resounding thing to hit Stirling since they wheeled away the last medieval siege engine.
"It was one of the most vibrant festivals I have ever attended, with a sparkling programme of discussion and debate, so this year I'm really looking forward to dragging the tone into the gutter with my partner-in-grime Mark Billingham."
The festival is on September 13-15 and tickets can be bought from bloodyscotland.com.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article