Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Scottish crime fiction

Donna Moore and Tony Black have compiled a fine round-up of Scottish crime fiction for BooksfromScotland.com.

It opens:

HARD MEN, druggies, and downright dangerous types trip off the pens of Scotland's current clutch of crime writers.

But what Stevenson historically called the 'murderous mixture' is a trait that twists liked barbed wire through the country's long association with the genre.

It could be argued it's something unique to Scotland, and the Scots, that delivers up the perfect ingredients for the crime fiction witches' brew. After all, Scotland is a place with a profoundly gothic sensibility and a dark sense of humour – two aspects which show up in its crime writing again and again.

The country also has a tradition of books telling tales of the more unsavoury side of life, and it's all done with great enthusiasm and relish, not least in the capital city.

Read the entire article.

I'm familiar with a number of the titles mentioned, including Allan Guthrie's terrific Hard Man (which I just finished last night), and look forward to working my way through more of these books.

A number of the writers mentioned -- including Guthrie, Ray Banks, and Donna Moore herself -- have contributed to CftAR blogs, and hopefully more of them will pop up here in the future.

(Hat tip to The Rap Sheet.)

--Marshal Zeringue