Alan Cumming is a Scottish actor. His London stage appearances include Hamlet, the Maniac in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, the lead in Bent, The National Theatre of Scotland's The Bacchae and Samuel Beckett's Endgame at The Old Vic opposite Daniel Radcliffe. On Broadway, he has appeared in The Threepenny Opera, as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret, Design for Living, and a one-man adaptation of Macbeth.
In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas.
Valarie "Val" McDermid, is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill in a grim sub-genre that McDermid and others have identified as Tartan Noir.
James Hogg was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many of the great writers of his day, including Sir Walter Scott, of whom he later wrote an unauthorised biography. He became widely known as the "Ettrick Shepherd", a nickname under which some of his works were published, and the character name he was given in the widely read series Noctes Ambrosianae, published in Blackwood's Magazine. He is best known today for his novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. His other works include the long poem The Queen's Wake (1813), his collection of songs Jacobite Relics (1819), and his two novels The Three Perils of Man (1822), and The Three Perils of Woman (1823).
Sir Ian James Rankin is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels.
Michael Joseph Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. Connelly is the bestselling author of 31 novels and one work of non-fiction, with over 74 million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into 40 languages. His first novel, The Black Echo, won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly's 1997 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer starred Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.
A blackhouse is a traditional type of house which used to be common in Ireland, the Hebrides, and the Scottish Highlands.
Harlan Coben is an American writer of mystery novels and thrillers. The plots of his novels often involve the resurfacing of unresolved or misinterpreted events in the past, murders, or fatal accidents and have multiple twists. Among his novels are two series, each involving the same protagonist set in and around New York and New Jersey; some characters appear in both.
Autobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comix movement and has since become more widespread. It is currently most popular in Canadian, American and French comics; all artists listed below are from the US unless otherwise specified.
Young Bond is a series of young adult spy novels featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond as a young teenage boy attending school at Eton College in the 1930s. The series, written by Charlie Higson, was originally planned to include only five novels; however, after the release of the fifth novel, Higson considered the possibility of a second series. In October 2013 it was confirmed that a second series of four novels was in development, with the first novel due for release in Q3 2014, but it would be penned by Steve Cole while Higson continued work on his young adult zombie series, The Enemy.
Ali Smith CBE FRSL is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting".
Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scottish island in the North Atlantic, 18 kilometres west of Rona. One of the most remote islands of the British Isles, it lies approximately forty nautical miles north of Lewis and is best known for its population of gannets. It has a narrow elongated shape running north-northeast to south-southwest, and is approximately 900 m long by typically 100 m wide.
John Connolly is an Irish writer who is best known for his series of novels starring private detective Charlie Parker.
Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. He is the recipient of writing awards in Europe and America. The Blackhouse won the U.S. Barry Award for Crime Novel of the Year and the national literature award in France, the CEZAM Prix Litteraire. The Lewis Man won the French daily newspaper Le Télégramme's 10,000-euro Grand Prix des Lecteurs. In 2014, Entry Island won both the Deanston's Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the UK's ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year Award. May's books have sold more than two million copies in the UK and several million internationally.
Arnol is a small village typical of many settlements of the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Arnol is within the parish of Barvas, and is situated on the A858.
Steve Hamilton is a mystery writer who is known for the Alex McKnight series. Apart from his Alex McKnight books, Hamilton has written Night Work and The Lock Artist. His works have won the Edgar Award, Shamus Award and Barry Award.
Kenneth Martin Edwards is a British crime novelist, whose work has won awards in the UK and the United States. As a crime fiction critic and historian, and also in his career as a solicitor, he has written non-fiction books and many articles. He is the current President of the Detection Club and in 2020 was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association's Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing, in recognition of the ‘sustained excellence’ of his work in the genre.
Tana French, born 1973 in Burlington, Vermont, is an American-Irish writer and theatrical actress. She is a longtime resident of Dublin, Ireland. Her debut novel In the Woods (2007), a psychological mystery, won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards for best first novel. The Independent has referred to her as "the First Lady of Irish Crime," who very quietly has become a huge international name among fiction readers.
Abigail Louise Morgan is a Welsh playwright and screenwriter known for her works for television, such as Sex Traffic and The Hour, and the films Brick Lane, The Iron Lady, Shame and Suffragette.
Alex Grecian is an American author of short fiction, novels, comic books, and graphic novels. His notable works include the comic book series Proof and the novels in the Scotland Yard's Murder Squad series: The Yard, The Black Country, The Devil's Workshop, The Harvest Man, Lost and Gone Forever, and The Blue Girl. He has been nominated for the Strand Award for Best Debut Novel for The Yard, The Dilys Award for The Black Country, and the Barry Award for Best First Novel for The Yard. He was also the recipient of an Inkpot Award in 2018 and of the Kansas Notable Book Awards from the State Library of Kansas for The Yard, The Black Country, and The Devil's Workshop.
