Alan Park’s MAY GOD FORGIVE nominated for France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière

Alan Parks has been nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, one of France’s most prestigious awards in Crime Fiction, in the Best Foreign Novel category for his novel MAY GOD FORGIVE – published in France as JOLI MOIS DE MAI, in a translation by Olivier Deparis.

The winners of the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière will be announced in September, with the recipient following in the footsteps of the likes of Dennis Lehane, Ken Bruen, Ian Rankin, and Blake Friedmann’s own Deon Meyer, who won in 2003 for his novel DEAD BEFORE DYING.

This latest shortlisting continues Alan’s exceptional run of acclaim for his books on both sides of the English Channel: last year, he won the Prix Mystère De La Critique for BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER, the third book in the Harry McCoy series and, for the second year running, the Prix Rivages des Libraires; closer to home, MAY GOD FORGIVE was awarded Bloody Scotland’s top honour, the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year in 2022.

MAY GOD FORGIVE is the fifth novel in Alan’s Harry McCoy series, all of which are published in France by Editions Payots-Rivages. The sixth McCoy title, TO DIE IN JUNE, was published by Canongate in the UK in June 2023 and in the US from Europa in June 2024. The Harry McCoy series is published further in translation in Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Sweden. Film/TV rights are also under option. Alan’s new series GUNNER, a trilogy of World War II-set thrillers, was recently announced, the first instalment of which will be published in 2025.

Congratulations Alan!

About MAY GOD FORGIVE

Glasgow is a city in mourning. An arson attack has left five dead. Tempers are frayed and sentiments running high.

When three youths are charged the city goes wild. A crowd gathers outside the courthouse but as the police drive the young men to prison, their van is rammed by a truck, and the men are grabbed and bundled into a car. The next day, the body of one of them is dumped in the city centre. A note has been sent to the newspapers: one down, two to go.

Detective Harry McCoy has twenty-four hours to find the kidnapped boys before they all turn up dead, and it is going to mean taking down some of Glasgow's most powerful to do it…

Image: Euan Robertson

About Alan Parks

Alan Parks worked in the music industry for over twenty years before turning to crime writing.

His debut 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 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, the Prix Mystère de la Critique in the foreign fiction category, and was shortlisted for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel and THE APRIL DEAD was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. The fifth Harry McCoy book, MAY GOD FORGIVE, was published in April 2022 and won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2022. It 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. Most recently, TO DIE IN JUNE, the sixth entry in the series, was published by Canongate in 2023. The Harry McCoy series is optioned for television.

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 as well as spending time in London.

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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Joseph O’Connor’s masterful MY FATHER’S HOUSE on shortlist for 2024 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

MY FATHER’S HOUSE by Joseph O’Connor has been shortlisted for the 2024 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. This is the second time Joseph O’Connor’s work has been recognised by the prize – with his acclaimed novel SHADOWPLAY also making the shortlist in 2020.

Honouring the achievements of the great Scottish historical novelist, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is one of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes. It celebrates quality, innovation and ambition of writing, provided the majority of the novel’s storyline is set at least sixty years ago. Previous winners include THE NARROW LAND by Christine Dwyer Hickey and THE GALLOWS POLE by Benjamin Myers.

The other shortlisted titles for this year’s prize are as follows: THE NEW LIFE by Tom Crewe, THE HOUSE OF DOORS by Tan Twan Eng, HUNGRY GHOSTS by Kevin Jared Hosein, IN THE UPPER COUNTRY by Kai Thomas and ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER by Rose Tremain.

The winner receives £25,000 and shortlisted authors each receive £1,500. This year’s winner will be announced at an event that opens the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, Scotland, on Thursday 13th June 2024.

The judging panel commented: ‘The Walter Scott Prize judging criteria – originality, innovation, ambition, durability and of course quality of writing – are beautifully showcased in our 2024 shortlist. In addition, we have six novels as diverse in their subject-matter as in style of writing: an attempted sexual revolution in 18th century London; dangerously entwined lives in 1940s Trinidad; gripping tensions in Nazi-occupied Rome; a gentle 1960s home-counties heartbreaker; stories within stories from the terminus of the Underground Railroad; and love, betrayal and scandal in the Straits Settlements of Penang. At the heart of each novel lies a deep understanding of humanity in all its quirky strengths and weaknesses, with each of the WSP 2024 shortlisted authors having something new to say and a new way of saying it.’

Based on the true story of Hugh O’Flaherty, an Irish priest in the Vatican who helped escaped prisoners evade capture in Nazi-occupied Rome, MY FATHER’S HOUSE is a powerful literary thriller from a master of historical fiction. It was first published to great acclaim in the UK and Ireland by Harvill Secker in January 2023 and in the US by Europa Editions in April 2023. Paperback editions followed in February 2024 (UK) and April 2024 (US), with the latter accompanied by an inclusion in  The New York Times – it was a ‘6 New Paperbacks to Read This Week’ pick.  Translation rights have been sold in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, and film rights are under option.

MY FATHER’S HOUSE flew straight to No.1 in Ireland on publication and occupied the top spot for four weeks, and has sold over 100,000 copies in the English language overall. It was longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Eason Novel of the Year Award at the 2023 An Post Irish Book Awards (with Joseph shortlisted for the Library Association of Ireland Author of the Year Award at the same event). In June Joseph O’Connor is taking part in an exciting live multi-city theatre version of the hugely successful BBC Two series BETWEEN THE COVERS (which featured MY FATHER’S HOUSE in November 2023). O’Connor features alongside the BETWEEN THE COVERS celebrities Kacey Ainsworth, Jo Brand, and Stephen Mangan.

MY FATHER’S HOUSE has also been very well received in its many translation markets – most recently in France where Payot & Rivages are already onto their second reprint and publications like Les chroniques de Goliath are describing it as ‘dazzling… A fiction that dives its roots so deeply into historical truth that it becomes entirely credible.’

Joseph is going to be the Writer in Residence at the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival this July, and earlier this year the Irish ambassadors to Italy and the Vatican jointly organised a celebratory event at the Irish Embassy in Rome to mark both the release of Harvill Secker’s paperback edition of MY FATHER’S HOUSE and Guanda’s Italian edition of LA CASA DI MIO PADRE.

Joseph is currently working on THE GHOSTS OF ROME, the second novel in the Escape Line trilogy (of which MY FATHER’S HOUSE is the first), which is due to be published by Harvill Secker in the UK and Europa in the US in early 2025.


About Joseph O’Connor

Photo credit: Urszula Soltys

Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin, where he still lives. MY FATHER’S HOUSE is his tenth 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.

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 MY FATHER’S HOUSE

‘A gripping, compelling and utterly brilliant read.’ – Liz Nugent

‘I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a beautifully produced advance copy of Joseph's new novel. What a joy and privilege to be an early reader of a work of art from a towering figure in world literature. MY FATHER’S HOUSE is a masterwork. No writer in the world can tell a story the way Joseph O’Connor does. He can, without seeming effort, be all things to all readers, taking us by the hand and guiding us into the very heart of a story, his narrative techniques deployed with such unearthly skill that we’re hardly aware that this was written at all, it feels so real, so urgent, so incredibly alive. This novel is a searing and beautiful example of storytelling’s infinite importance, to our humanness, to our chances of learning from our most terrible and our most transcendent moments, and all our moments in between, to hold all life sacred, to see each other as brothers and sisters, to love and protect each other. No wonder he is so cherished and loved by his countless devotees across the earth. He is a national and international treasure, the most generous and noble of writers, a true master of the art.’ – Donal Ryan

‘A spectacular, thrilling novel… offering much more than tensely plotted thrills… MY FATHER’S HOUSE celebrates triumphant against-the-odds camaraderie. It would require a present-day Puccini to do operatic justice to its tremendous tale.’ – Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times

‘This formidable talent for writing across genres is reflected in his masterly 10th novel, which should reap similar plaudits… This is a literary thriller of the highest order. The incarnation of O’Flaherty, the Irish Oskar Schindler, is sublime. What often elevates a writer is compassion, and O’Connor has it in spades – paying tribute to the courage of those who resist tyranny. Beautifully crafted, his razor-sharp dialogue is to be savoured, and he employs dark humour to great effect. The plot twists keep on coming until the novel’s coda, where a final joyful conceit is revealed.’ – Lucy Popescu, The Observer

‘Joseph O’Connor’s historical novel MY FATHER’S HOUSE manages to be at once a ripping yarn and a profound exploration of moral choices in the worst of times… With lyrical evocation of time and place, scabrous humour and heart-stopping tension, it combines the pleasures of the ideal holiday read with those of a literary masterpiece.’ – Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times, ‘The Best Books of 2023 so far’

Alan Parks shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger at the CWA Daggers 2023

Credit: CWA

Congratulations to Alan Parks, whose novel MAY GOD FORGIVE has been shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger at the Crime Writers’ Association annual Daggers Awards! The Steel Dagger recognises the best espionage, psychological, or adventure thriller of the year, and sees Alan nominated alongside Linwood Barclay, John Brownlow, M. W. Craven, Robert Galbraith and Ava Glass. The winner will be picked by a jury chaired by Corinne Turner, the managing director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, and announced at the CWA’s gala dinner on 6 July.

The Crime Writers’ Association is this year celebrating its 70th anniversary, and the Daggers are the oldest awards of the genre and among the most prestigious.

MAY GOD FORGIVE is the fifth title in Alan Parks’ highly acclaimed Harry McCoy series. It won the McIlvanney Scottish Crime Book of the Year award and was recently longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (for which voting is still open to the public until this Thursday, 18 May).

After a fatal arson attack leaves tempers frayed in Glasgow, McCoy finds himself in a race against time to find the suspects before they turn up dead one by one. In 2022 MAY GOD FORGIVE was published in the UK by Canongate and in the US by Europa. The series is sold in more than ten countries around the world and the paperback was published in the UK last month. The next book in the series, TO DIE IN JUNE, will be released in the UK on 25 May.

Praise for MAY GOD FORGIVE

‘MAY GOD FORGIVE is the fifth instalment in a remarkable series that began with BLOODY JANUARY. The novels, as someone once said, can be read in any order; the important thing is to read them all.’ – Mark Sanderson, The Times

‘MAY GOD FORGIVE is a bleak and violent book, full of grisly details not for the squeamish, but also tenderness, poignance and hard-earned wisdom.’ – Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

‘Noir has long been the dominant colour in the palette of such Scottish writers as Ian Rankin and Denise Mina, but Parks manages to find a deeper shade of black, only slightly attenuated by Harry's willingness to go far off the grid to extract a wee bit of justice. A must for those who take their noir straight, no chaser; others should keep the Pepto handy.’ – Bill Ott, Booklist

‘Enjoyably readable… Parks is a gifted story-teller’ – Allan Massie, The Scotsman

‘Harry McCoy is the brightest dark star on the Tartan Noir scene for some time and in future critics of Scottish crime fiction will surely be referring to the triumvirate of Laidlaw, Rebus and McCoy … MAY GOD FORGIVE is crime fiction which pulls no punches, powerfully told and, at times, heartbreakingly poignant. One of the crime novels of 2022.’ – Mike Ripley, Getting Away With Murder

About Alan Parks

Credit: Euan Robertson

Alan Parks worked in the music industry for over twenty years before turning to crime writing.

His debut 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 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, the Prix Mystère de la critique in the foreign fiction category, and was shortlisted for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel and THE APRIL DEAD was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. The latest Harry McCoy book, MAY GOD FORGIVE, was published in April 2022 and won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2022. It has also been shortlisted for the 2023 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and longlisted for the 2023 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award . The Harry McCoy series is optioned for television.

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 as well as spending time in London.

Visit Alan’s website

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TIEPOLO BLUE By James Cahill shortlisted for Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award

Picture: Authors’ Club

TIEPOLO BLUE, James Cahill’s electric debut, has advanced to the shortlist for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award was established in 1954, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and, overall, the third oldest literary prize in Britain. Past winners include Gail Honeyman, Jackie Kay and the late Gilbert Adair, also a Blake Friedmann client. This year’s winner will be revealed at dinner on 24 May, to be held at the National Liberal Club.

Also shortlisted alongside James are: THE DICTATOR’S WIFE by Freya Berry, MY NAME IS YIP by Paddy Crewe, WHEN WE WERE BIRDS by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, BLACK BUTTERFLIES by Priscilla Morris, and THE WHALEBONE THEATRE by Joanna Quinn.

Lucy Popescu, the chair of the judging panel, said: ‘We are proud to recommend six exceptional debuts. These dazzling novelists cover a range of subjects from art and privilege, love and loss, knowledge and selfhood, the pursuit of power and the devastating consequences of war. We travel with them through eastern Europe to the American Frontier, from England’s past to Trinidad today.’

TIEPOLO BLUE follows the unravelling of revered art historian Donald Lamb. Freed from the constraints of academia, it looks like the anarchic contemporary art scene of 1990s London might be his salvation, but he soon suffers an earth-shattering fall from grace that leaves him questioning everyone and everything.

TIEPOLO BLUE was published in hardback by Sceptre in June 2022 to great acclaim. It attracted widespread praise, including from Patrick Gale and Stephen Fry (the latter describing it as ‘The best novel I have read for ages’), and was also included in the BBC’s and Times Literary Supplement’s ‘Best of 2022’ lists. It will be published in paperback on 27 April 2023.

James is currently writing his second novel, THE VIOLET HOUR, a sweeping psychological drama and satire of the international art world, which will be published in hardback by Sceptre in summer 2024.

Praise for TIEPOLO BLUE

‘Startlingly impressive . . . a heavily perfumed, sexually tender, psychologically acute novel’ – Claire Allfree, Daily Mail

‘The story of Tiepolo Blue and its people have invaded my dreams . . . Don’s disintegration is painful to read, but it all grips you like a thriller. My heart was constantly in my throat as I read… There is so much to enjoy, to contemplate, to wonder at, and to be lost in’ – Stephen Fry

‘Not only an addictive pageturner, Cahill’s book taps into the tensions and suspicions between generations that feel incredibly relevant for our testy times’ – Jessie Thompson, Evening Standard

‘The spirit of E. M. Forster is alive and well in James Cahill. The same palpating of damaged moral tissue, the same psychological canniness, the same gently invoked erudition, the same exactitude and eloquence’ – Edmund White

‘The plot is propulsive, though the crafted ambience of unease simultaneously destabilizes the reader at every turn . . . It’s a measure of Cahill’s sleight of hand that he manages to inject his plot with such page-turning momentum’ – Lucasta Miller, TLS

‘Tells a gripping tale of the worlds of traditional academia and art history pitted against those of contemporary art, each failing horribly to understand the other. As a result, all becomes infused with satirical comedy and ghastly tragedy’ – Norman Rosenthal

‘I just devoured Tiepolo Blue, I could not put it down. The longing, the beauty, the detail, the complexity, the art, the intellect and the emotion . . . What a triumph!’ – Paul Kindersley

‘Interrogating beauty and meaning in art, Tiepolo Blue rewards rereading . . . a stylish tale of love and long-game revenge’ – Rebecca Swirsky, Royal Academy Magazine

‘Dizzying and exciting and unsettling, and beautifully told’ – Reverend Richard Coles, ‘Big Writers on Their Best Reads of 2022’, Daily Mail

‘This is a novel full of suspense and surprise. It made me laugh and brought back memories of a time in my own life. I missed the characters as soon as I’d finished’ – Sarah Lucas

‘The musings of the book’s protagonist on the radical power of art to act as a catalyst for personal change make it an exhilarating, erudite read’ – Liam Hess, Vogue.com

‘I travelled on the exquisite vessel of James Cahill’s prose, unable to disembark. The journey is sensual, treacherous and elegiac. The final landing, breathtaking’ – Maggi Hambling

‘[An] arresting debut novel . . . a masterly attention to detail and an irresistibly propulsive, almost swaggering style’ – Michael Delgado, Literary Review

‘Wow. It is magnificent. Simply magnificent . . . Tiepolo Blue really has blown me away: the gorgeous phrase-making; the sure-footed pacing; the (re-)immersion in a world I know, or knew, in a way that is both hard-edged with historical detail and almost hallucinatory’ – Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

About James Cahill 

Picture: Darren Wheeler

James Cahill was born in London. Over the past decade, he has worked in the art world and academia, combining writing and research with a role at a leading contemporary art gallery.

His writing on art has appeared in publications including The Burlington Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The London Review of Books. He was the lead author and consulting editor of FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN (Phaidon, 2018), a survey of classical myth in art from antiquity to the present day. He was the co-curator of ‘The Classical Now’, an exhibition at King’s College London (March-April 2018), examining the relationships between ancient, modern and contemporary art. He is completing his second novel THE VIOLET HOUR (Sceptre, 2024).

He is currently a Research Fellow in Classics at King’s College London.

Follow James on Twitter and Instagram