Deon Meyer’s LEO awarded Best Adult Fiction and Book of the Year at the SA Book Awards

UPDATE: we are thrilled to announce that, following the announcement of the SA Book Award winners yesterday (18 December 2024), Deon has been awarded not only the prize for Best Adult Fiction, but also the overall Book of the Year honour – as voted for by booksellers from across South Africa. Congratulations to Deon and LEO!

Upon receiving the award Deon said: ‘I am deeply honoured and grateful to receive the two awards bestowed by the South African booksellers. This recognition means the world to me, and I extend my heartfelt thanks to the association’s members who have supported my journey as an author over the past thirty years. Their acknowledgment inspires me to keep telling stories that connect and resonate.’

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Bestselling crime sensation Deon Meyer has been shortlisted for the 2024 SA Book Awards in the Fiction category with LEO. Celebrating the best books written and published in South Africa, and voted for by booksellers from across South Africa, the nomination comes as the latest honour for Deon’s newest hit book, following the awarding of the ATKV-Woordveertjies Prize for best Afrikaans Thriller, and its domination of the bestseller lists in both its English and Afrikaans editions. The winners of the awards will be announced once voting closes on 8 December 2024.

Meanwhile, in the UK, LEO has also been named one of the Best Thrillers of 2024 by The Sunday Times, with critic James Owen describing the book as ‘a masterly portrait of a nation in deep crisis’. ‘Despite his unsentimental eye, Meyer makes you care for his characters’ fates,’ wrote Owen in his initial review for the paper; ‘LEO may be his best yet.’ While in the UK last month, Deon also gave an exclusive feature interview with Matt Nixson for the Daily Express, reflecting on South Africa and the writing of LEO. In praise of Deon’s works, Nixson said that ‘Meyer’s books… are as entertaining as they are thought-provoking’, adding that LEO, with its daring heist plot strand, ‘has already been described as “the African Job”, in a nod to the classic Turin-set Michael Caine movie’.

LEO was first published in South Africa, in Afrikaans, by Human and Rousseau in October 2023, with the English-language edition (translated by K.L. Seegers) from Hodder and Stoughton, in partnership with Jonathan Ball Publishers, launched in October this year. Grove Atlantic will publish in the US and Canada on 18 February 2025, and LEO is already out in France (Editions Gallimard), the Netherlands (A W Bruna) and Germany (Aufbau), where Deon recently completed a multi-city author tour.

LEO picks up the story of Meyer’s heroes Detectives Benny Griessel – now the star of M-Net (South Africa) and Tubi (US) series DEVIL’S PEAK – and Vaughn Cupido. Following the explosive events of THE DARK FLOOD, the detectives are now languishing in Stellenbosch. Run-of-the-mill police work in the leafy university town is a far cry from their previous life in Cape Town fighting crime and government corruption at the highest level. Then a student is found dead on a mountain trail, and the key suspect, a local businessman, is found murdered in what looks like a professional hit delivering a message – suffocated by fast-action filler foam sprayed down his throat.

On the other side of the country, a beautiful wildlife guide is recruited by a group of special forces soldiers to act as a honeytrap, part of a dangerous multi-million-dollar heist that goes tragically wrong. A single link connects the murdered businessman to the special forces, making Benny and Vaughn’s case all the more mysterious. Another former soldier is soon killed, as is an agent of the country’s disgraced former president; and then the heist crew reorganizes with an even more audacious theft in mind.

Following leads as they fly at them, not sure exactly who to trust and struggling to connect the dots as the motives don’t seem to add up, Benny and Vaughn find their case increasingly points to the corruption polluting the country. They know the clock is ticking – and Benny also has to be at the altar on time for his very anxiously-anticipated wedding day…

About Deon Meyer

Deon Meyer lives in Stellenbosch. His books are sold in 31 countries, and have been awarded many prizes around the world: the Deutsche Krimi Prize in Germany, the ATKV Prize in South Africa, the Martin Beck Award in Sweden and Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Le Prix Mystère de la Critique in France. COBRA was shortlisted for the 2015 CWA International Dagger, THIRTEEN HOURS was shortlisted for the 2010 CWA International Dagger, and HEART OF THE HUNTER, was longlisted for the 2005 IMPAC Prize and selected as one of Chicago Tribune’s ‘10 best mysteries and thrillers of 2004’. THE DARK FLOOD was longlisted for the 2023 CWA Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation. His latest novel LEO, a new Benny Griessel thriller, enjoyed ten weeks at the top of the South African bestseller lists, Number One in all categories.

Adaptations of Deon’s novels have recently had great success on screen: in April 2024, HEART OF THE HUNTER topped the global Netflix film charts, becoming the first African film to do so, with over 11 million views in its first two days alone. DEVIL’S PEAK was also adapted for a miniseries by Lookout Point and Expanded Media Productions, premiering on M-Net in South Africa in 2023 before reaching audiences in the USA, New Zealand, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. In 2020, TRACKERS, produced by Three River Fiction and Scene 23, aired on Sky Atlantic in the UK and HBO in the USA, as well as Australia and New Zealand, and across the Nordic countries and Europe.

Praise for LEO

‘Deon Meyer, who is not just the finest crime writer in South Africa but one of the best anywhere, juggles labyrinthine plot strands with a mass of local detail and sociopolitical commentary… with Meyer supplying the usual panoramic canvas of post-apartheid South Africa. The plotting is nonpareil, but it’s the two bloody-minded detectives who grip our attention.’ – Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

‘Meyer expertly interlaces his main narrative threads in shrewd and unpredictable ways, remaining one step ahead of readers as he ushers the plot to a rollicking conclusion. This intelligent page-turner confirms Meyer’s reputation as a master of the police procedural." – Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

‘Despite his unsentimental eye, Meyer makes you care for his characters’ fates as they face ambushes and double-crosses before an Italian Job-style climax in the bush. His thrillers are portraits of a country in deep crisis and LEO may be his best yet.’ – James Owen, The Times

‘When a new Deon Meyer lands on the shelves, I feel like WH Auden: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.” All 490 pages of such a book have to be devoured in one sitting. Keep it for the holidays, or for a weekend when you have nothing planned… You’ll be on the edge of your seat, chewing your nails… Modern-day Afrikaans struts its stuff in all its different dresses. Our language has excellent crime writers. Meyer is the best, if you ask me... Buy LEO and take a day or two off work.’ – Deborah Steinmair, Vrye Weekblad

‘With blistering set pieces, a keen eye for dialogue – Meyer weaves a dramatic and powerful narrative with a vivid [and colourfully ‘alien’] backdrop that is literary escapism at its absolute zenith. To miss the return of our South African detectives would be a crime.’ – Ali Karim, Shots Mag

Praise for Deon Meyer

‘He’s up there with the best in the world.’ – Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘I love Deon Meyer novels. It’s global storytelling at its best, with the undeniable hallmarks of gritty realism and deep character building.’ – Michael Connelly

‘Deon Meyer's name on the cover is a guarantee of crime writing at its best.’ – Tess Gerritsen

‘Deon Meyer is one of the giants of crime fiction.’ – El Mundo

‘One of the best crime writers on the planet.’ – Mail on Sunday

Visit Deon’s website

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MY FATHER’S HOUSE longlisted for the 2024 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

We are thrilled to announce that MY FATHER’S HOUSE by Joseph O’Connor has been longlisted 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 making the shortlist in 2020.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is a prestigious literary prize celebrating quality, innovation and ambition of writing, provided the majority of the novel’s storyline is set at least sixty years ago. Previous winners include WOLF HALL by Hilary Mantel and THE LONG SONG by Andrea Levy.

The other longlisted titles for this year’s prize are: THE NEW LIFE by Tom Crewe, A BETTER PLACE by Stephen Daisley, THE HOUSE OF DOORS by Tan Twan Eng, HUNGRY GHOSTS by Kevin Jared Hosein, FOR THY GREAT PAIN, HAVE MERCY ON MY LITTLE PAIN by Victoria MacKenzie, MUSIC IN THE DARK by Sally Magnusson, CUDDY by  Benjamin Myers, THE FRAUD by Zadie Smith, MISTER TIMELESS BLYTH by Alan Spence, IN THE UPPER COUNTRY by Kai Thomas, and ABSOLUTELY AND FOREVER by Rose Tremain.

Katie Grant, the chair of the judging panel,  said: ‘From the epic to the intimate, from the philosophical to the swashbuckling, from the traditional to the experimental, in each book emotions run deep. If you read the whole list, just like the panel of judges, you’ll never be short of conversation.’ 

From February 2024, the prize is being managed by The Abbotsford Trust, which is responsible for Sir Walter Scott’s Borders home. With the support of The Hawthornden Foundation, and the ongoing patronage of prize founder and Abbotsford patron, the Duke of Buccleuch, the existing Walter Scott Prize team and judges will continue their work.

The shortlist will be announced in May, and the winner announcement and prize-giving event will take at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, in June.

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. Joseph O’Connor has created an unforgettable novel of love, faith and sacrifice, and what it means to be truly human in extreme circumstances.

MY FATHER’S HOUSE 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. Translation rights have been sold in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, and film rights are under option.

MY FATHER’S HOUSE has been a stellar success, flying straight to No.1 in Ireland upon publication, occupying the spot for four weeks and selling over 100,000 copies in the English language overall. A Waterstones’ Irish ‘Book of the Month’ for February 2024, it is longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award and last year was 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). Last week MY FATHER’S HOUSE was picked by Peter Kemp as a Sunday Times ‘Paperback of the Week’. 

MY FATHER’S HOUSE has 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.’ You can see more of the international praise below and on Joseph O’Connor’s website.

The Irish ambassadors to Italy and the Vatican have jointly organised a celebratory event at the Irish Embassy in Rome in this month which marks 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 completing 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 UK in 2025.

Photo credit: Urszula Soltys

About Joseph O’Connor

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’

‘This historical thriller is a captivating page-turner.’ – ActuaLitté

‘With his new fiction, Joseph O’Connor once again reinvents the historical genre, intertwining it with elements of suspense typical of noir fiction.’ – Livres Hebdo

‘This book is a real page-turner, where compassion prevails over hatred.’ – L’Arche

‘The interwoven narrative of the protagonists’ testimonies lends a powerful momentum to this page-turner.’ – Benzine

‘In this beautifully written novel, Joseph O’Connor raises the painful question of neutrality. While the Pontiff clings to it like a mussel to its rock, the Irish priest rejects it. He didn’t don the habit to indulge in contemplation. He made a vow of obedience, but his conscience whispers disobedience to him. Do we ever truly know who we are? Only danger reveals it to us. For Hugh O’Flaherty and his choir, doubt is not allowed. Coming from all walks of life, destined never to meet in times of peace, these amateur singers have found each other to form only one audacious soul. Noble heroes on the altar of sacrifice, on the altar of humanity.’ – La Vie en Noir

Visit Joseph’s website

Anne de Courcy honoured with the Biographers’ Club Exceptional Contribution Prize

Picture credit: BookBrunch

We are delighted to announce that celebrated biographer Anne de Courcy is this year’s recipient of the Biographers’ Club Exceptional Contribution Prize, recognizing her exceptional career encompassing eleven books over the past four decades.

Anne was presented with the award at the Biographers’ Club Christmas Party on Monday (11 December 2023), held at Albany in Piccadilly, London. Club chairperson Jane Ridley remarked on Anne’s dedication to the craft across her many works, citing in particular de Courcy's ‘ground-breaking’ SNOWDON: THE BIOGRAPHY, as well as the support she has offered over the years to both aspiring and established biographers.

The Biographers’ Club was founded in 1997 to support, promote and connect literary biographers throughout the research and writing process and their careers. The Exceptional Contribution prize has been awarded by the Club annually since 2009, with Anne joining the ranks of honourees including Michael Holroyd, Selina Hastings, Claire Tomalin, Hermione Lee, and 2022 winner A.N. Wilson.

About Anne de Courcy

Anne de Courcy is a well-known writer, journalist and book reviewer. In the 1970s she was Woman’s Editor on the London Evening News until its demise in 1980, when she joined the Evening Standard as a columnist and feature-writer. In 1982 she joined the Daily Mail as a feature writer, with a special interest in historical subjects, leaving in 2003 to concentrate on books, on which she has talked widely both here and in the United States.

A critically-acclaimed and best-selling author, she believes that as well as telling the story of its subject’s life, a biography should depict the social history of the period, since so much of action and behaviour is governed not simply by obvious financial, social and physical conditions but also by underlying, often unspoken, contemporary attitudes, assumptions, standards and moral codes.

Anne sits on the committee of the Biographer’s Club, and was previously the chairperson of the group. Her recent biographies, all of which have been serialised, include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY, DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON; THE BIOGRAPHY, written with the agreement and co-operation of the Earl of Snowdon. Based on Anne’s book, a Channel 4 documentary Snowdon and Margaret: Inside a Royal Marriage, was broadcast in June 2008.

THE FISHING FLEET: HUSBAND-HUNTING IN THE RAJ, was published in July 2012. Her book, MARGOT AT WAR published in November 2014, was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Book of the Year award. Her latest book is FIVE LOVE AFFAIRS AND A FRIENDSHIP (published in the US as MAGNIFICENT REBEL), a biography of Jazz Age icon Nancy Cunard.

Praise for Anne de Courcy

‘De Courcy paints a rich canvas.’ – The Sunday Times

‘Meticulously researched and sparklingly witty’ – Jane Shilling, Must Reads, Daily Mail

‘Anne de Courcy combines the perseverance of a social historian with the panache of the novelist’ – The Times

‘Intoxicating descriptions… meticulous detail’ – New York Times

‘She can make you laugh or break your heart, but she will never bore you.’ – Martin Rubin, The Washington Times

‘Anne de Courcy has a humorous tone, which I find very engaging, and she draws research from letters, memories and diaries.’ – Santa Montefiore, Good Housekeeping, ‘The Books That Changed My Life’

Visit Anne's website

Zakes Mda nominated for African Genius Awards

Photo credit: Sal Idriss

We are delighted that acclaimed author Zakes Mda has been nominated for the 2023 African Genius Awards.

The Awards were established in 2021 and are run by Priority Performance Projects, which is part of Plus 94 Research, a South African black-owned research company. They aim to honour exceptional Africans who espouse the values that will take the continent forward, with criteria including demonstrable contribution to problem solving, leadership and inspirational qualities, exceptional skills, outstanding contributions relevant to the community or society, and official recognition such as awards, honours and prestigious appointments.

The other nominees come from a wide range of fields and include Ameenah Gurib-Fakim (the first woman president of Mauritius), Oscar winning actress Lupita Amondi Nyong’o and Nobel Peace Prize winners Leymah Gbowee and Ouided Bouchamaoui. The full list can be found here. The three winners will be named on May 25, Africa Day, in a ceremony that will be streamed live from the University of Pretoria.

Zakes Mda’s latest novel, WAYFARER’S HYMNS was published by Umuzi in 2021 and was included in Brittle Paper’s ‘50 Notable African Books of 2021’ list.

Praise for Zakes Mda

‘A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration’ – The New York Times

‘Mda’s lyrical tale defies easy categorization and enters the realm of pure magic.’ – John Updike

‘Combines Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magic realism and political astuteness with satire, social realism and a critical re-examination of the South African past.’ – The New York Times Book Review

‘Lyricism, vividness and dark, tragic wit have earned the author recognition here and in his homeland.’ – Publishers Weekly

‘The great South African novelist of his generation, a writer rich in both imagination and ironic political attitude.’ – The Philadelphia Inquirer

About Zakes Mda

Zakes Mda is the pen name of Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda. He is a South African, Lesotho and Appalachian American-African writer, painter, and music composer. He holds an MFA (Theatre) and an MA (Telecommunications) from Ohio University, and a PhD from the University of Cape Town. There have been recent successful exhibitions of his work in the US and South Africa and his paintings are bought by collectors around the world.

He has published more than twenty books, ten of which are novels and the rest collections of plays, poetry and a monograph on the theory and practice of theatre-for-development. His novel CION, set in southeast Ohio, was nominated for the NAACP Image Award. His memoir SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID: MEMOIRS OF AN OUTSIDER was published by Farrar Straus and Giroux and was a New York Times Notable Book for 2012. He has won many prestigious literary awards in South Africa.

He divides his time between the USA and South Africa. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio University, lecturer in Creative Writing at Johns Hopkins University and Extraordinary Professor of English at the University of the Western Cape. In South Africa he is a patron of the Market Theatre and director of the Southern African Multimedia AIDS Trust. He also runs a beekeeping project he established in 2000 with rural women of the Eastern Cape and is a director of NeoZane, a publishing house and animation film production company in Johannesburg.

Follow Zakes on Twitter.

MAY GOD FORGIVE longlisted for the 2023 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award

We are delighted that MAY GOD FORGIVE by Alan Parks has been longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year is one of the most prestigious prizes in crime fiction in the UK. It is presented by Harrogate International Festivals and recognises the best crime novels published in the UK and Ireland in paperback.

The public are now invited to vote for the six titles to make up the shortlist: https://harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com/vote/

Voting closes on 18 May.

The shortlist will be announced on 15 June, when the public vote for the winner will open. The winner of the £3,000 prize will be revealed at Harrogate on 20 July, on the opening night of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which will be celebrating its 20th year.

You can watch an interview with all the longlisted authors, including Alan, here: https://harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com/author-interviews/

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 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger.

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 is out in the UK today, on 27 April. The next book in the series, TO DIE IN JUNE, will be released in the UK next month.

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

Photo: Euan Robertson

Alan Parks 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. He was also Managing Director of 679 Recordings, a joint venture with Warner Music. His debut novel BLOODY JANUARY propelled him onto the international literary crime fiction scene immediately and his work has been hailed by contemporary writers and critics 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 was picked as a Times Best Book of the Year, won an Edgar Award and has been 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.

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.

Visit Alan’s website

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