Chris Brookmyre has been declared this year’s winner of the McIlvanney Prize for his latest crime thriller, The Cracked Mirror.
It is the second time the former journalist has scooped the international crime writing festival Bloody Scotland’s annual prize, having previously won it with Black Widow in 2016.
The Cracked Mirror, published by Sphere, has been described as a “cross genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly”, with judges declaring it “a brilliant piece of storytelling”.
The judges were BBC Scotland presenter Bryan Burnett; category manager for Waterstones, Angie Crawford; and journalist and editor, Arusa Qureshi.
Other contenders for the McIlvanney Prize included Val McDermid and Abir Mukherjee.
Brookmyre’s debut, Quite Ugly One Morning, won the Critic’s First Blood Award in 1996 and was adapted for TV starring James Nesbitt.
Black Widow went on to win the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.
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Brookmyre also writes historical crime fiction as Ambrose Parry with his wife, former consultant anaesthetist Marisa Haetzman, and the next Ambrose Parry novel published in 2025 will mark his 30th book.
The Cracked Mirror is dedicated to Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers bandmate Mark Billingham, who will be joining him at Bloody Scotland for The Wickedest Link and Karaoke at the Coo.
Chris will be on stage with Stuart Turton as the closing act of the festival in Stirling on Sunday September 15.
The winner of the 2024 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize was revealed to be Allan Gaw with The Silent House of Sleep.
Allan was a runner-up in the 2023 Glencairn Glass/Bloody Scotland crime short story competition and his story, The Last Tram to Gorbals Cross, went on to be published in Scottish Field magazine in April 2023.
A doctor and medical pathologist who worked for more than 30 years in the NHS and at universities across the UK and in the US, Gaw has used his experiences in pathology to shape his stories.
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