Graeme Macrae Burnet’s BENBECULA advances to the shortlist of the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

Following swiftly on from today’s earlier announcement of its longlisting for the CWA Historical Dagger award, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s BENBECULA continues to attract further awards attention, advancing to the shortlist 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 novella 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.

‘Thus the stage is set for Macrae Burnet’s powerful, innovative psychological novella, all the more haunting in its brevity,’ wrote the judges in their citation. ‘[BENBECULA] takes its literary lead from the early innovators of the modern novel, James Hogg and Robert Louis Stevenson, with a neat and clever tale that beds its roots firmly in the gothic, with themes of madness, isolation and morality at its dark heart.   What happens when communities are tarred by association, and is it possible to keep the right side of madness when all around you madness abounds?  BENBECULA is as far removed from the recent cosy-crime tradition as it is possible to be: this is claustrophobic crime at its very best, and with so very much to admire.’

The Walter Scott Prize celebrates works of historical fiction, published during the last calendar year, and which are set more than 60 years ago. Graeme and all the shortlisted authors are invited to read at the Borders Book Festival – held at the home of Walter Scott in Abbotsford, Melrose – on 11 June, where the winner will be announced.  The winner – following recent honourees Hilary Mantel, James Robertson, Lucy Caldwell, Kevin Jared Hosein and, last year’s victor, Andrew Miller – will receive £25,000, with each shortlisted author also awarded £1,500.

Shortlisted alongside Graeme are:
THE PRETENDER by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury)
THE MATCHBOX GIRL by Alice Jolly (Bloomsbury)
ONCE THE DEED IS DONE by Rachel Seiffert (Virago)
SEASCRAPER by Benjamin Wood (Viking)

BENBECULA is published in the UK by Polygon – who will release their paperback edition on 7 May – and in UK audio by WF Howes. It’s also published in Australia by Text Publishing, with a North American edition published by Biblioasis, with audio by Recorded Books. 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.

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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THE GHOSTS OF ROME by Joseph O’Connor shortlisted for two An Post Irish Book Awards 2025

THE GHOSTS OF ROME by Joseph O’Connor has been shortlisted for the Listeners’ Choice Award and the Novel of the Year Award at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2025. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Irish Book Awards, a set of industry-recognition awards set up by a coalition of Irish booksellers to celebrate and promote Irish writing, with winners voted for by readers. The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 27th November and the An Post Irish Book of the Year TV show will air on RTÉ One on 11th December.

Readers can vote for their favourites on the An Post Irish Book Awards website.

THE GHOSTS OF ROME is the second in Joseph O’Connor’s Escape Line Trilogy and was first published in the UK by Harvill Secker in January 2025 and in the US by Europa Editions in February 2025. It flew straight to Number One in the Irish bestseller chart after only 3 days on sale, remaining in the overall Irish Top Ten for five weeks, and in the Irish Paperback Top 10 for sixteen weeks. It hit the Top 20 in the UK charts.

In THE GHOSTS OF ROME, Contessa Giovanna Landini is a member of the band of Escape Line activists known as ‘The Choir’ in the beleaguered city of Rome. Their mission is to smuggle refugees to safety and help Allied soldiers, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann.

During a ferocious air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets. Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.

Meanwhile, Hauptmann’s attention has landed on the Contessa. As his fascination grows, she is pulled into a dangerous game with him – one where the consequences could be lethal.

The other shortlisted titles for Novel of the Year include: CONVERSATION WITH THE SEA by Hugo Hamilton, FUN AND GAMES by John Patrick McHugh,  LET ME GO MAD IN MY OWN WAY by Elaine Feeney, NESTING by Roisín O’Donnell, THE BENEFACTORS by Wendy Erskine, THE BOY FROM THE SEA by Garrett Carr and VENETIAN VESPERS by John Banville. And for the Listener’s Choice Award: A TIME FOR TRUTH: MY FATHER JASON AND MY SEARCH FOR JUSTICE AND HEALING by Sarah Corbett Lynch, INTENSIVE CARE: TRUE STORIES OF HEALING, HEARTACHE AND HOPE FROM INSIDE IRISH CHILDREN’S MEDICINE by Dr Suzanne Crowe, NESTING by Roisín O’Donnell, OLD PARISH: NOTES ON HURLING by Ciarán Murphy and THE GAEILGE GUIDE: SPARK YOUR CONNECTION TO THE IRISH LANGUAGE AND LEGACY by Mollie Guidera.

The first novel in the trilogy, MY FATHER’S HOUSE, was also an Irish Number One bestseller and has now sold more than 150,000 copies in English. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the Eason An Post Irish Novel of the year 2023, and also longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award. Film rights are optioned and translation rights are also sold in Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Poland, Spain and Sweden.

Joseph is currently working on the next novel in the trilogy, to be published in the UK and the US in early 2027.

To celebrate the centenary of the ordination of Hugh O'Flaherty, the central character of MY FATHER'S HOUSE, who also features in THE GHOSTS OF ROME, An Post have issued a commemorative postage stamp in his honour. Joseph O'Connnor has written an article on Hugh O’Flaherty and his correspondence to mark this event.

 

Photo credit: Urszula Soltys

About Joseph O’Connor

Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin, where he still lives. THE GHOSTS OF ROME is his eleventh novel: he is also the author of film scripts, radio and stage plays, two collections of short stories, and several bestselling works of non-fiction.

2022 was the 20th anniversary of Joseph O’Connor’s novel STAR OF THE SEA which was an international bestseller, selling more than a million copies in the UK alone and being published in 38 languages. It won France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, the Irish Post Award for Fiction, the Nielsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, an American Library Association Award, the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Hall of Fame Award, and the Prix Litteraire Zepter for European Novel of the Year.

His novel GHOST LIGHT was chosen as Dublin’s One City Book novel for 2011. Published in 2019, SHADOWPLAY, has won him extraordinary praise, was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize, The Dalkey Novel Prize, the Costa Novel Prize, among others, and won him Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards. The French edition was shortlisted for the Jean Monnet Prize and the Vintage paperback was a Richard and Judy Winter 2020 pick.

He holds an honorary Doctorate in Literature from University College Dublin and received the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature in 2012. He is the Inaugural Frank McCourt Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Limerick.

 

Praise for THE GHOSTS OF ROME

‘THE GHOSTS OF ROME, Joseph O’Connor’s second novel in his projected trilogy about Rome under Nazi occupation, blazes with the imaginative flair and narrative energy that won its predecessor, MY FATHER’S HOUSE, high acclaim… There’s no slackening of tension, though, in the gripping account of wartime heroism, risk and resourcefulness this book continues. Jeopardy quivers through it… . The ugly stratum of Nazi oppression O’Connor’s novel graphically resurrects is packed with sensuously evoked reminders of Rome's rich past in this haunted and haunting novel.’ – Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times

‘O’Connor’s prose creates an extraordinary picture of Rome under Nazi control; brutal, chaotic, treacherous, decaying, wrecked and crumbling, and yet sometimes still bathed in glorious and unexpected light, literally and metaphorically. THE GHOSTS OF ROME is described as a sequel to MY FATHER’S HOUSE. The term is inadequate. Each can be read without reference to the other, but together they make a whole greater than the parts. An epic of war… O’Connor’s theme is not the world war in its widest sense, nor even the moral discomfort that is Vatican neutrality. Yet THE GHOSTS OF ROME make its own statement about these things. Focusing on people whose response to evil is only to act, he opens us to a humanity too urgent for debate and analysis.’ – Michael Russell, The Irish Times

‘The Choir’s attempts to rescue a grievously wounded Polish airman right under the nose of Gestapo commander Paul Hauptmann, who has been warned of the Fuhrer’s “intense displeasure” at his failure to eradicate the Escape Line, have a nail-bitingly tense “real time” feel to them. BBC interviews from the 1960s with former Choir members and fragments of an unpublished memoir give historical perspective and added pathos to this vivid and moving story, with O’Connor seamlessly combining real characters with imagined ones.’ – Laura Wilson, The Guardian, ‘The best recent crime and thrillers’

 ‘The power of THE GHOSTS OF ROME comes from the dazzling variety of voices employed, the sense of a world constructed in the multiple dimensions…  O’Connor has often been likened to the great Irish modernists for the lyricism of his voice-driven novels. But THE GHOSTS OF ROME also situates him within a broader European tradition of memory and moral reckoning, one that returns again and again to World War II. O’Connor embraces this legacy while transcending its cliches. His Rome is not merely a setting but a crucible, a city where the sacred and the profane collide, where resilience is forged in the shadow of ruins. By crafting a chorus of voices, he ensures that no single narrative dominates, reflecting the messy, multifaceted truths of history – the way it is lived and how it is constructed in retrospect. What emerges in not just a wartime thriller, though it is that, but a meditation on how we remember, how we resist and how, even in the darkest times, humanity endures.’ – Alex Preston, The New York Times

 

‘O’Connor has done his research with care, drawing on O’Flaherty’s unpublished letters, diaries and journalism. With his real people in place, the author spins a new tale of derring-do, recounted with the help of imagined interviews conducted many years later… O’Connor paints a lively picture of a city filled with Fascist police and German soldiers, some on furlough from the North, everyone watchful and hungry, the streets filthy, the black-market prices rising every day… THE GHOSTS OF ROME is both a tribute to the imagination and courage of his remarkable team and a riveting thriller.’ – Caroline Moorehead, The Times Literary Supplement

 

 

Visit Joseph O’Connor’s website.

Graeme Macrae Burnet’s A CASE OF MATRICIDE wins Best International Crime Fiction prize at the Ned Kelly Awards

We are delighted to announce that Graeme Macrae Burnet’s A CASE OF MATRICIDE has been announced as the winner of the Best International Crime Fiction prize at Australia’s Ned Kelly Awards!

Run by the Australian Crime Writers Association, the Ned Kelly Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious honours for the best crime fiction and true crime writing published in Australia. A CASE OF MATRICIDE, published by Text Publishing in Australia in October 2024, won against fellow nominees Michael Bennett, David McCloskey, Charity Norman, Jacqueline Bublitz and Michael Connelly.

A CASE OF MATRICIDE – in which small-town French police inspector Georges Gorski must investigate the overlapping paths of a deceased business magnate, a shadowy stranger with no apparent reason to be there, and the titular threat of familial murder – sees Graeme receive his second nomination at the Ned Kelly Awards, having also been recognised for his Booker-longlisted standalone CASE STUDY in 2022.

Alongside Text Publishing, A CASE OF MATRICIDE was published in North America by Biblioasis and, most recently, as a paperback in the UK by Saraband in May 2025. The audiobook edition is published by Bolinda, and rights have sold to Impedimenta in Spain. Graeme will return this autumn with his new novella BENBECULA, the latest entry in Polygon’s Darkland Tales series, in which Scotland’s best writers reimagine moments from the country’s past – Polygon, Biblioasis and Text will all publish in October 2025.

Congratulations Graeme!

About A CASE OF MATRICIDE

In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town’s bars, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski mulls over the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons.

Graeme Macrae Burnet pierces the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life in this deeply human story. He draws a wry humour from the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters’ minds to present a fascinating puzzle that blurs the boundaries between suspect, investigator and reader in an entertaining, profound and moving novel.

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.

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 A CASE OF MATRICIDE

‘A dizzyingly immersive experience. Macrae Burnet’s Gorski novels were already a significant achievement, but the concluding part is breathtaking – tragic, cinematic, propulsive – and marks a new standard in contemporary crime fiction.’ – Martin MacInnes, Booker-longlisted author of IN ASCENSION

‘Burnet plays metafictional games, but the book pulls off the rare double of being emotionally involving as well as teasingly tricksy.’ – Jake Kerridge, 5* review, The Telegraph

‘Brilliantly weird.’ – Paula Hawkins, author of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

‘I’ve long appreciated the way Burnet’s novels are in conversation with earlier times… min[ing] the postmodern era without pretense and with deep respect… You can gulp down A CASE OF MATRICIDE in one sitting, as the prose style seems to demand. But linger over Burnet’s novel, and its real pleasures emerge.’ – Sarah Weinman, New York Times

‘A CASE OF MATRICIDE demonstrates literary talent of the highest order… Details of place are especially rich, and the subtle mores of the small town are reflected in Gorski’s misguided incorruptibility… few writers can rival Burnet.’ – Andrew Rosenheim, The Spectator

‘Macrae Burnet brings a slyly playful quality to his reimagining of the classic police procedural… and here delivers a wickedly funny novel that owes as much of a debt to Albert Camus as it does to Georges Simenon.’ – Declan Burke, Irish Times

‘Burnet has proved to be a durable talent, and A CASE OF MATRICIDE continues his upwards trajectory… this final book in a trilogy is a triumph.’ – Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

‘Graeme Macrae Burnet’s A CASE OF MATRICIDE finished up his Gorski trilogy with all the Kafkaesque shenanigans, paranoia and observational bathos you could wish for. It’s an incredibly fun, cleverly crafted novel that works on so many levels I can even forgive him for being a postmodernist.’ – Eimear McBride, The New Statesman, ‘Books of the Year 2024’

Visit Graeme’s website.

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Diane Abbott and Kathryn Faulke both shortlisted for 2025 Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize

Two Blake Friedmann authors, Diane Abbott and Kathryn Faulke, have made the shortlist for this year’s Christopher Bland Prize, awarded by the Royal Society of Literature. The £10,000 prize recognises the best debut works, in any form or genre, by a writer over the age of 50, with previous winners including Raynor Winn (THE SALT PATH), Paterson Joseph (THE SECRET DIARIES OF CHARLES IGNATIOUS SANCHO) and last year’s honouree Chidi Ebere (NOW I AM HERE). The judges selecting the shortlist this year were Margaret Busby, Reverend Richard Coles and Jacqueline Wilson.

Diane is recognised for her memoir A WOMAN LIKE ME, a fierce, witty and moving account of her Windrush-generation family, and her journey from becoming the first elected Black female Member of Parliament in the UK, to her current position as Mother of the House. The book was named one of the best politics titles of 2024 by both Waterstones and The Sunday Times, and one of the best biographies of the year by The Guardian. ‘Her memoir is a lesson in brilliance, tenacity, activism & commitment to being a force for good in our country’, wrote RSL President Bernardine Evaristo, ‘buy the book, read about the struggles she's faced (you can imagine!) and be inspired by her incredible resilience and passion for politics’. The book was published in paperback by Penguin in March 2025, and is also available in audiobook, narrated by Diane herself.

Kathryn is shortlisted for EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE: A Journey Into the Heart of Carework, a vivid, poignant and unforgettable memoir recounting the author’s experiences as a careworker in London, celebrating humanity and compassion in the face of hardship. Serialised on BBC Radio 4 as their Book of the Week, Kathryn’s story has touched thousands with its warmth, humour and tenderness. ‘Not just essential reading for anyone curious about the realities of care work in this country; it’s also the work of a natural storyteller, and a book full of empathy, humour, and – yes – care,’ wrote Jon McGregor, author of IF NOBODY SPEAKS OF REMARKABLE THINGS; ‘this book is both beautiful and painful to read; beautiful because of its celebration of the human, but painful because we live in a time where caring is idealised but not rewarded or supported,’ agreed Gwen Adshead (THE DEVIL YOU KNOW). ‘This book is a compassionate invitation to get up close to the human condition and those who attend to it.’

On the announcement of the shortlisting, Kathryn Faulke said: ‘Words cannot begin to express how thrilled I am at learning that EVERY KIND OF PEOPLE has been shortlisted for the prestigious RSL Christopher Bland Prize. I am jumping for joy inside and out that a book about care, the profession I love, has been deemed worthy of such an honour. I have written all my life and to have this happen after all those writing years is just wonderful. I am deeply grateful.’

Also nominated for this year’s award are A BOOKSHOP OF ONE’S OWN by Jane Cholmeley, THE DIARIES OF MR LUCAS by Hugo Greenhalgh, THE PAGES OF THE SEA by Anne Hawk and TREES IN WINTER by Richard Shimell. The winner will be announced in an online event on Monday, 9 June 2025.

Congratulations Diane and Kathryn!