THE son of the late Scottish writer William McIlvanney is in the running for the prestigious literary prize that bears his father's name.
Liam McIlvanney has made long list for the McIlvanney Prize, previously known as the Scottish Crime Book of the Year, for his novel The Quaker.
The award was renamed two years ago in honour of the late writer, who died in 2015.
Mr McIlvanney joins Lin Anderson, Chris Brookmyre, Mason Cross, Charles Cumming, Oscar de Muriel, Helen Fields, Alison James, James Osward, Caro Ramsay, Andrew Reid and Craig Robertson on the long list for the annual award, which is bestowed at the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival in Stirling.
McIlvanney lives in New Zealand, and his previous books include Where the Dead Men Go, The Good of the Novel, All the Colours of the Town and Burns the Radical.
He is also an academic at the University of Otago, Dunedin, and co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Scottish Literature.
Craig Sisterson, chair of the judges, said: "Forty-one years ago, William McIlvanney rocked the British literary world with Laidlaw, a gritty and socially conscious crime novel that brought Glasgow to life more vividly than anything before.
"This year's longlistees for the McIlvanney Prize demonstrate how modern Scottish crime writing has flourished from those seeds. "From debutants to authors with more than 20 books, spy thrillers to long-running detective series, nineteenth-century mysteries to futuristic space station noir, there's an amazing range of talent on show."
The award includes a prize of £1000 and a promotion in the Waterstones bookseller chain.
The judges for the next round will be chaired by Craig Sisterson and include comedian and crime fiction fan, Susan Calman and crime reviewer, Alison Flood.
The finalists will be revealed at the beginning of September.
Previous winners are Denise Mina with The Long Drop 2017, Chris Brookmyre with Black Widow 2016, Craig Russell with The Ghosts of Altona in 2015, Peter May with Entry Island in 2014, Malcolm Mackay with How A Gunman Says Goodbye in 2013 and Charles Cumming with A Foreign Country in 2012.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel