GUNNER by Alan Parks longlisted for 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award

Edgar Award and McIlvanney Prize-winning author Alan Parks has received his second consecutive nomination – and third overall – for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, this time with his World War Two thriller GUNNER. The award is given by a votes from both the votes from the Theakston Crime Academy and the general public – you can cast your ballot for Alan and GUNNER via the official Theakston Old Peculier Crime Award website from now until Thursday 28 May at 23:59 BST.

Presented as part of Harrogate’s annual Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, to be held from 23-26 July 2026, the award celebrates excellence, originality and the very best in crime fiction from UK and Irish authors. The winner – following in the footsteps of recent victors Mick Herron, Val McDermid, Denise Mina, Chris Whitaker and Abir Mukherjee – will be revealed on Thursday 23 July, the opening night of the Festival, and will receive £3,000 and a handmade, engraved beer barrel.

GUNNER marks its third prize nomination, following nods for the CWA Historical Dagger and the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year.

Alan Parks’s GUNNER was published by John Murray’s Baskerville imprint in the UK last year and made its debut last month in North America, where it’s published by Pegasus Books and garnered starred reviews from Publishers’ Weekly and Booklist. GUNNER will soon be followed by Book Two in the trilogy, DECEPTION, which whisks Joseph Gunner from Blitz-torn Glasgow to the streets of 1941 New York, following Gunner as he is drawn into a Secret Service conspiracy to lead the Americans into the war – no matter what the cost. Baskerville publish DECEPTION in the UK on 2 July, followed by Pegasus Books in North America on 1 September.

Rights to GUNNER have also sold in Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

Congratulations Alan!

About GUNNER

‘Great storytelling… I loved it’ – Peter James

‘Great stuff… a vivid sense of place and time and what a main character!’ – Ian Rankin

‘In this superb historical espionage thriller, Parks excels at capturing the brutality of war… Gunner, meanwhile, is a clever, endearing hero whose personal and professional baggage have enough heft to sustain future instalments. This is a winner.’ – starred review, Publishers’ Weekly

March, 1941. Joseph Gunner is back on the streets of Glasgow after being wounded on the front lines in France.

Keeping the pain in his leg at bay with the help of morphine, Gunner, a former detective, is hoping to keep his head down as the Luftwaffe begin bombing Glasgow.

But when he runs into his old boss Drummond, he is persuaded to help examine a body found in the wreckage. When the body turns out to be that of a German, mutilated to disguise his identity, Gunner reluctantly agrees to investigate.

As Gunner begins to hunt for the truth he runs into old flames, bitter enemies, before finding himself embroiled in a high-level conspiracy that reaches far beyond his hometown of Glasgow.

Partly inspired by the true story of Rudolph Hess's secret mission to broker appeasement with Britain during WWII, GUNNER is an atmospheric and addictive new thriller from one of Britain's best-loved writers.

Credit: Euan Robertson

About Alan Parks

Alan was born in Scotland and attended The University of Glasgow where he was awarded a M.A. in Moral Philosophy. He still lives and works in the city that is so vividly depicted in the 1970s setting of his Harry McCoy thrillers – and now in his WWII GUNNER series too!

He was Creative Director at London Records in the mid 1990’s, then at Warner Music, where he created ground-breaking campaigns for artists including All Saints, New Order, The Streets, Gnarls Barclay and Cee Lo Green. His debut novel BLOODY JANUARY propelled him onto the international literary crime fiction scene immediately and his work has been sold in many languages and recognised by critics and prize judges alike.

BLOODY JANUARY was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière; FEBRUARY’S SON was nominated for an Edgar Award; BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER won the 2022 Edgar Award for Paperback Original, the 2023 Prix Mystère de la Critique and was shortlisted for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel as well as being a The Times ‘Best Book of the Year’ pick; THE APRIL DEAD was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year in 2021, which MAY GOD FORGIVE won in 2022. MAY GOD FORGIVE was shortlisted for the 2023 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and longlisted for the 2023 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. His work is translated into ten languages and film/TV rights have been optioned.

Praise for Alan Parks

‘One of the great Scottish crime writers’ – The Times

‘Tipped to become an enduring classic of tartan noir.’ – Sunday Post

‘Dark and gritty… Gripping.’ – Crime Monthly

‘A brilliant series’ – Sunday Times Crime Club

‘Bloody and brilliant’ – Louise Welsh (on BLOODY JANUARY)

‘Pitch-black Tartan noir: bleak, but with an emotional heart that's hard to ignore.’ – Daily Mail (on FEBRUARY’S SON)

‘Manoeuvering through the mean streets of Glasgow, the morally ambiguous, deeply flawed McCoy makes an ideal antihero.’ – Publishers Weekly (on BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER, Edgar Prize Winner 2022)

‘Altogether one of the best police thrillers of the last few years.’ – Morning Star (on THE APRIL DEAD)

Visit Alan’s website

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BENBECULA by Graeme Macrae Burnet on the longlist for the Highland Book Prize 2025

Graeme Macrae Burnet has made it two prize nominations in as many weeks – following last Thursday’s announcement by the Walter Scott Prize – for his novel BENBECULA, as it is named among the longlist for the 2025 Highland Book Prize, awarded by the Highland Society of London and Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre.

This annual award celebrates literature that comes from the rich landscape and culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands, and is open to books of any genre – including fiction, non-fiction and poetry – written by authors who live in the Highlands or were born there, as well as books whose content is Highland themed. This year’s judges are poet and essayist Jen Hadfield; fiction writer Cynan Jones; and Scotland’s Makar Peter Mackay. A shortlist will be announced in May, followed by the winner in June 2026.

Also on the longlist this year are:

• An Staran by Petra Johana Poncarová (Acair, Gaelic Poetry & Prose)

• Drifting North by Dominic Hinde (Manchester University Press, Non-fiction)

• Dwell Time by Taylor Strickland (Tapsalteerie, Poetry)

• The Edge of Silence by Neil Ansell (Birlinn, Non-fiction)

• Fo Fhasgadh Beinn Chianabhail by Mòrag Anna NicNèill (Acair, Gaelic Fiction)

• Fower Pessoas by Colin Bramwell (Carcanet, Poetry)

• The Highland Cow and the Horse of the Woods by Roy Dennis (Porto Press, Non-fiction)

• Looking Down at the Stars by Christina Riley (Saraband, Non-fiction)

• The Lost Elms by Mandy Haggith (Headline, Non-fiction)

• Pathfinding by Kerri Andrews (Elliott and Thomson, Non-fiction)

• The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson (John Murray Press, Fiction)

BENBECULA was published in the UK by Polygon and WF Howes, and in Australia by Text Publishing in October 2025; a North American edition, published by Biblioasis and Recorded Books, followed in November 2025. Spanish and Catalan editions are forthcoming from Impedimenta and crims.cat respectively.

Congratulations Graeme!

About BENBECULA

On 9 July 1857, Angus MacPhee, a labourer from Liniclate on the island of Benbecula, murdered his father, mother and aunt. At trial in Inverness he was found to be criminally insane and confined in the Criminal Lunatic Department of Perth Prison.

Some years later, Angus’s older brother Malcolm recounts the events leading up to the murders while trying to keep a grip on his own sanity. Malcolm is living in isolation, ostracised by the community and haunted by this gruesome episode in his past.

From Graeme Macrae Burnet, the Booker-shortlisted author of HIS BLOODY PROJECT, comes a beguiling psychological novel set on a remote Scottish island. Based on a true story and drawing on the documentary evidence of the time, Burnet constructs a gripping narrative about madness, murder and the uncertain nature of the self.

Credit: Euan Anderson

About Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and now lives in Glasgow. He has also lived in the Czech Republic, France, Portugal and London.

His first novel, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADÈLE BEDEAU (Contraband, 2014), received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. A second Inspector Gorski novel, THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35, was published in 2017, and the trilogy was completed in 2024 with the ‘tragic, cinematic, propulsive' (Martin MacInnes) A CASE OF MATRICIDE, which won the 2025 Ned Kelly Award for Best International Crime Fiction.

HIS BLOODY PROJECT (Contraband, 2015) won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and the Vrij Nederland Thriller of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the LA Times Mystery Book of the Year and the European Crime Fiction prize. It has been published in over twenty languages. CASE STUDY was published in 2021 by Saraband (UK), Text (ANZ) and Bolinda (UK audio) to wide critical acclaim. The North American edition was published in 2022 by Biblioasis. It has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 and the Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Ned Kelly International Crime Prize. It has been published in fifteen languages.

Graeme was named Author of the Year in the 2017 Sunday Herald Culture Awards and has appeared at festivals and events in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Russia, Estonia, Macau, Ireland, Germany, Poland and France, as well as in the UK.

Praise for BENBECULA

‘Graeme Macrae Burnet’s recreation of a macabre incident in 19th-century Hebridean history is unrelentingly disturbing and utterly gripping' – James Robertson

‘Some crime writers are successful at creating fully-formed living, breathing characters; others are more adept at playing games with the reader: to an almost unique degree, Macrae Burnet excels at both.’ – Jake Kerridge, ‘The 21 best crime and thriller novels of 2025’, The Telegraph

‘Burnet’s vivid portrayal of a troubled household by a man attempting to explain the inexplicable is dark, intense and utterly compelling.’ – Laura Wilson, ’The best recent crime and thrillers’, The Guardian

‘Reading a novel by Graeme Macrae Burnet is unnerving because the experience always becomes physical… The more compressed and oppressive and inescapable the lives of his characters become, the tighter his books are wrapped in seeming limitations, the freer you feel as a reader… The way out of the dark hell of your own mind is to imagine yourself into the minds of others. Graeme Macrae Burnet will do anything to help get you there.’ – Ian Brown, Globe and Mail

‘BENBECULA is an elegant, eerie volume… Perhaps the most impressive feature of the novella is the sense of simmering. The bare facts are not really in dispute, but the reasons and motives are deliberately opaque. Rather than any explicit cause, Macrae Burnet conjures an atmosphere of suppression.’ – Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman

Visit Graeme’s website.

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Graeme Macrae Burnet’s BENBECULA longlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Booker-shortlisted author Graeme Macrae Burnet’s latest novel BENBECULA has garnered its first prize nomination – a longlisting for this year’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. BENBECULA is published on Polygon’s Darkland Tales list, featuring retellings of Scottish history by some of the nation’s best authors. In the novel Graeme takes readers back to the 19th century Outer Hebrides and a pitch-black tale of murder and madness reminiscent of his own acclaimed HIS BLOODY PROJECT.

The Walter Scott Prize celebrates works of historical fiction, published during the last calendar year, and which are set more than 60 years ago. A shortlist will be announced in April ahead of the prizegiving at the Borders Book Festival – held at the home of Walter Scott in Abbotsford, Melrose – in June. The winner will receive £25,000, with each shortlisted author also awarded £1,500. Recent winners include Hilary Mantel, James Robertson, Lucy Caldwell, Kevin Jared Hosein and, last year’s victor, Andrew Miller (THE LAND IN WINTER).

The Abbotsford Trust, the independent Scottish charity dedicated to preserving the legacy and extraordinary home of Sir Walter Scott, said that this year’s nominees each ‘pays fitting tribute to its namesake [Walter Scott] and encompasses all the variety of story, tone and drama that, in the hands of first-class novelists, history has to offer.’ The judging panel this year comprises of Katie Grant (Chair), Rosi Byard-Jones, Rosamund de la Hey, Elizabeth Laird, James Holloway and James Naughtie.

Also on the longlist this year are:
VENETIAN VESPERS by John Banville (Faber & Faber)
THE TWO ROBERTS by Damian Barr (Canongate)
EDEN’S SHORE by Oisín Fagan (John Murray Press)
HELM by Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber)
THE PRETENDER by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury)
BOUNDARY WATERS by Tristan Hughes (Parthian Books)
THE MATCHBOX GIRL by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury)
EDENGLASSIE by Melissa Lucashenko (Oneworld Publications)
ONCE THE DEED IS DONE by Rachel Seiffert (Virago)
THE ARTIST by Lucy Steeds (John Murray Press)
SEASCRAPER by Benjamin Wood (Viking)

BENBECULA was published in the UK by Polygon and WF Howes, and in Australia by Text Publishing in October 2025; a North American edition, published by Biblioasis and Recorded Books, followed in November 2025. Spanish and Catalan editions are forthcoming from Impedimenta and crims.cat respectively.

Congratulations Graeme!

About BENBECULA

On 9 July 1857, Angus MacPhee, a labourer from Liniclate on the island of Benbecula, murdered his father, mother and aunt. At trial in Inverness he was found to be criminally insane and confined in the Criminal Lunatic Department of Perth Prison.

Some years later, Angus’s older brother Malcolm recounts the events leading up to the murders while trying to keep a grip on his own sanity. Malcolm is living in isolation, ostracised by the community and haunted by this gruesome episode in his past.

From Graeme Macrae Burnet, the Booker-shortlisted author of HIS BLOODY PROJECT, comes a beguiling psychological novel set on a remote Scottish island. Based on a true story and drawing on the documentary evidence of the time, Burnet constructs a gripping narrative about madness, murder and the uncertain nature of the self.

Credit: Euan Anderson

About Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and now lives in Glasgow. He has also lived in the Czech Republic, France, Portugal and London.

His first novel, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADÈLE BEDEAU (Contraband, 2014), received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust and was longlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award. A second Inspector Gorski novel, THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35, was published in 2017, and the trilogy was completed in 2024 with the ‘tragic, cinematic, propulsive' (Martin MacInnes) A CASE OF MATRICIDE, which won the 2025 Ned Kelly Award for Best International Crime Fiction.

HIS BLOODY PROJECT (Contraband, 2015) won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and the Vrij Nederland Thriller of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the LA Times Mystery Book of the Year and the European Crime Fiction prize. It has been published in over twenty languages. CASE STUDY was published in 2021 by Saraband (UK), Text (ANZ) and Bolinda (UK audio) to wide critical acclaim. The North American edition was published in 2022 by Biblioasis. It has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 and the Dublin Literary Award, and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Ned Kelly International Crime Prize. It has been published in fifteen languages.

Graeme was named Author of the Year in the 2017 Sunday Herald Culture Awards and has appeared at festivals and events in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Russia, Estonia, Macau, Ireland, Germany, Poland and France, as well as in the UK.

Praise for BENBECULA

‘Graeme Macrae Burnet’s recreation of a macabre incident in 19th-century Hebridean history is unrelentingly disturbing and utterly gripping' – James Robertson

‘Some crime writers are successful at creating fully-formed living, breathing characters; others are more adept at playing games with the reader: to an almost unique degree, Macrae Burnet excels at both.’ – Jake Kerridge, ‘The 21 best crime and thriller novels of 2025’, The Telegraph

‘Burnet’s vivid portrayal of a troubled household by a man attempting to explain the inexplicable is dark, intense and utterly compelling.’ – Laura Wilson, ’The best recent crime and thrillers’, The Guardian

‘Reading a novel by Graeme Macrae Burnet is unnerving because the experience always becomes physical… The more compressed and oppressive and inescapable the lives of his characters become, the tighter his books are wrapped in seeming limitations, the freer you feel as a reader… The way out of the dark hell of your own mind is to imagine yourself into the minds of others. Graeme Macrae Burnet will do anything to help get you there.’ – Ian Brown, Globe and Mail

‘BENBECULA is an elegant, eerie volume… Perhaps the most impressive feature of the novella is the sense of simmering. The bare facts are not really in dispute, but the reasons and motives are deliberately opaque. Rather than any explicit cause, Macrae Burnet conjures an atmosphere of suppression.’ – Stuart Kelly, The Scotsman

Visit Graeme’s website.

Follow Graeme on X (previously Twitter) and Instagram.

Karen Campbell’s ‘beautiful, uplifting’ THIS BRIGHT LIFE shortlisted for Scotland’s National Book Awards

UPDATE: we are delighted to announce that Karen Campbell’s THIS BRIGHT LIFE has advanced to the shortlist for the Best Fiction prize at Scotland’s National Book Awards, presented by the Saltire Society.

Also nominated are Sean Lusk (A WOMAN OF OPINION), Chris McQueer (HERMIT), Michael Pederson (MUCKLE FLUGGA), Krystelle Bamford (IDLE GROUNDS) and Chris Kohler (PHANTOM LIMB).

‘These titles explore pressing issues and remake and challenge long traditions, with great characterisation, luscious language and a good dollop of straight-up craziness,’ wrote the judges on Instagram, announcing the shortlist. The winner will be announced on Wednesday 19th November at a ceremony at Edinburgh’s Central Hall, hosted by Coinneach Macleod. 

Congratulations again to Karen! For more information about THIS BRIGHT LIFE and the awards, please read on.

***

THIS BRIGHT LIFE – the ninth novel by Karen Campbell – has been included on the longlist for this year’s Best Fiction prize at Scotland’s National Book Awards, presented by the Saltire Society. One of the world’s oldest running prizes for literature, first awarded in 1937, Scotland’s National Book Awards celebrate the very best of Scottish writing across five categories – Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, First Book and Research – the winners of each competing for the overall Book of the Year prize.

‘Witty and incisive, this is a quirky and compassionate novel centred on a brilliantly realised child character,’ said the judges on THIS BRIGHT LIFE, calling it ‘a deft and empathetic exploration of lives fallen between the cracks.’

THIS BRIGHT LIFE tells the intertwined stories of twelve-year-old Gerard, widower Margaret, and social worker Claire as a terrible decision brings together their three messy lives in order to heal, mend, and build again. The novel was published by Canongate in March 2025, with an audiobook simultaneously published by Bolinda. It earned rave reviews from the likes of Janice Hallett  (‘Ultimately life-affirming, this gritty novel will take you to dark places, but it’s one beautiful, uplifting journey’) and Kirstin Innes (‘Karen Campbell finds lives that can fall between the cracks, and holds them up to the light of her clear, compassionate writing’), as well as The Scotsman and The Herald. A paperback will be published by Canongate in March 2026, and a Turkish translation by Nemesis is forthcoming.

Longlisted for Best Fiction alongside Karen are Sean Lusk (A WOMAN OF OPINION), Chris McQueer (HERMIT), Michael Pederson (MUCKLE FLUGGA), Angie Spoto (THE BONE DIVER), Richard Strachan (THE UNRECOVERED), James Yorkston (TOMMY THE BRUCE), Selali Fiamanya (BEFORE WE HIT THE GROUND), Krystelle Bamford (IDLE GROUNDS) and Chris Kohler (PHANTOM LIMB). The shortlists will be announced in October, ahead of the awards ceremony in late November.

Congratulations Karen!

About THIS BRIGHT LIFE

Margaret – an elderly widow who just wants to be left with her memories and her quiet, contained life.

Claire – newly divorced, downsizing into the neighbourhood and way too busy to mend a broken heart.

Gerard – a tearaway twelve-year-old who hates his name but loves his little brother and sister. Gerard is a bright kid, but trouble always follows him. No one really knows what it's like at home; he's used to carrying a lot on his small shoulders.

Gerard doesn't always make good decisions. One morning, he makes a very bad one, upending not just his world, but the lives of Margaret and Claire too. Both heart-breaking and life-affirming, THIS BRIGHT LIFE is a story of messy lives, second chances and the many hands it takes to build a boy.

Photo: Kim Ayers

About Karen Campbell

Karen Campbell is originally from Glasgow but now lives in southwest Scotland. She graduated with distinction from Glasgow University’s Creative Writing Masters and won an SAC New Writers Award and a Creative Scotland Bursary. Before turning to writing, she was a police officer in Glasgow, then press officer with Glasgow City Council. She also tutors in creative writing and was Writer in Residence at Dumfries & Galloway Council during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Her first four novels focus on life behind the police uniform. This disconnect between what we see on the surface and the reality underneath runs through much of her work, with Karen going on to write novels such as THIS IS WHERE I AM (Bloomsbury, 2013), which was a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime.  Her eighth novel PAPER CUP (Canongate, 2022) was a Waterstone’s Scottish Book of the Month and won the 2023 Blairgowrie Bookmark Prize. Karen’s appeared on Radio 4 Women’s Hour, Radio 3’s The Verb, Radio Scotland and BBC television’s Big Scottish Book Club.

Praise for THIS BRIGHT LIFE

‘THIS BRIGHT LIFE is a moving, haunting portrait of childhood and the jagged reflections of one tiny action in the kaleidoscope of humanity. Karen Campbell captures the voice of 12-year-old Gerard with poignant accuracy and her words paint pictures with the touch of an old master. Ultimately life-affirming, this gritty novel will take you to dark places, but it’s one beautiful, uplifting journey.’ – Janice Hallett 

‘I love this story so much. Karen writes with such a rare and deep understanding of people and every word of her stories earns its keep. THIS BRIGHT LIFE is dark, moving and compassionate… it makes you feel hopeful, like a handrail in the dark. I adore it’ – Joanna Cannon

‘Karen Campbell finds lives that can fall between the cracks, and holds them up to the light of her clear, compassionate writing. Wee Gerard is yet another one of her brilliant creations – so real you can hear him breathing, feel his hurt and frustration alongside him.’ – Kirstin Innes

‘A novel of great empathy and humanity, in which bleakness is offset by optimism, represented by the community that rallies around, the stranger who wants to help and the possibility of redemption.’ – Alastair Mabbot, The Herald

‘Few write with such compassion and understanding of human nature, which is just one of the reasons her books mean so much to her readers. THIS BRIGHT LIFE looks back to childhood and how decisions made, and resultant events, impact on individuals and those around them. Karen Campbell manages to convey the drama of people’s everyday lives in the most empathetic and beautiful way.’ – Alastair Braidwood, SNACK Magazine, ‘Ten Books for 2025’

Follow Karen on X (formerly Twitter)

Visit Karen’s website

THE INNOCENTS by Bridget Walsh makes CWA Gold Dagger longlist

THE INNOCENTS by Bridget Walsh has been longlisted for the 2025 Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Gold Dagger award.

This award is for the best crime novel by an author of any nationality, originally written in English and first published in the UK during the judging period. It was originally created in 1955, under the name of the Crossed Red Herrings Award. It was renamed the Gold Dagger in 1960 and has been awarded ever since with variations in its name depending on sponsorship. Past winners include Chris Whitaker, Belinda Bauer and Mick Herron. The other titles on this year’s longlist are: A DIVINE FURY by D. V. Bishop, MAN OF BONES by Ben Creed, THE BELL TOWER by R. J. Ellory, THE HUNTER by Tana French, GUIDE ME HOME by Attica Locke, BOOK OF SECRETS by Anna Mazzola, I DIED AT FALLOW HALL by Bonnie Burke-Patel, HOW TO SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER by Kristen Perrin, NIGHTWATCHING by Tracy Sierra, DEADLY ANIMALS by Marie Tierney and D IS FOR DEATH by Harriet F. Townson.

The shortlist will be announced on Thursday 29th May, with the winner revealed in a ceremony on the Thursday 3rd July at De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms, 61-65 Great Queen Street, London, WC2B 5DA.

THE INNOCENTS is the second in Bridget’s award-winning Variety Palace Mystery Series, now published by Pushkin Vertigo. When a new string of murders tears through London, Minnie and Albert are thrown together once more. Strangely, the crimes seem to link back to a tragedy that took place fourteen years ago, leaving 183 children dead. And given that the incident touched so many people’s lives, everyone is a suspect...

The third in the series, THE SPIRIT GUIDE, will be published by Pushkin Vertigo in April 2026. THE SPIRIT GUIDE sees Minnie and Albert uncovering the dark secrets behind a female-only spiritualist group that purports to help its members commune with deceased loved ones… Bridget is busy working on the fourth series title.

 About Bridget Walsh

Bridget Walsh lives in Norwich. She has a PhD in ‘Murder in the Victorian Domestic Sphere’ and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.

The manuscript for the first book in the Variety Palace Mystery series, THE TUMBLING GIRL, won the UEA Little, Brown Award for Crime Fiction 2019, and was published by Gallic Books in May 2023, garnering starred reviews in Publishers Weekly (where it was also a ‘Book of the Week’ pick) and the Library Journal. It also reached No. 1 in the US Amazon Kindle Historical Thriller chart, and was a ‘Best Historical Fiction’ pick for May 2023 in The Times. It was shortlisted for the CWA’s 2024 ILP John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and won the HWA Debut Crown Award in 2024.

 Praise for THE INNOCENTS

‘Historical crime fiction at its most beguiling.’ – Barry Forshaw, The Financial Times, ‘Best New Crime Books’

‘Walsh, who clearly knows her Victorians, writes with gusto. Whether she’s detailing the sweat, greasepaint and trickery behind theatrical illusion, the bloody savagery of the dog-fighting pit, or the creepily anthropomorphic world of the taxidermy diorama, time past is so vividly evoked that one can almost smell it. Highly recommended.’ – Laura Wilson, The Guardian, ‘The best recent crime and thrillers’

‘In Walsh’s triumphant sequel to THE TUMBLING GIRL… Walsh once again seamlessly combines vivid period detail, clever plotting, and thoughtful characterizations. This series merits a long run.’ – Publishers Weekly, starred review

‘Bridget Walsh does it again – this series has so much personality. THE INNOCENTS is pacy, captivating and accomplished and I loved it. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was book twenty-two and not book two. More Minnie and Albert, please – I miss them already.’ – Emma Styles

‘From the first dramatic and heart-breaking pages to the breathless final scenes, THE INNOCENTS by Bridget Walsh is the superb second novel in the Variety Palace Mysteries series. Victorian crime at its exciting and grittiest best. Don’t miss it’ – Essie Fox, author of THE FASCINATION

 Visit Bridget’s website.

Follow Bridget on BlueSky, X (previously Twitter) and Instagram.