Iceland’s uncanny ability to produce a series of exceptional crime fiction writers continues to burn undiminished. It’s a tiny country but has a strong tradition of storytelling and a stunning, mythic landscape as a stage. Two of their brightest lights are coming our way. 

Katrin Júlíusdóttir, Iceland’s former finance minister, won the prestigious Blackbird Award for her stunning debut novel Dead Sweet, a breathless political thriller of financial crime, cults, and secrets. Lilja Sigurdardóttir is a Bloody Scotland favourite, and her brilliant new novel, the twisty and atmospheric Dark as Night, is the fourth in her addictive Áróra series. 

Chaired by Elaine Downs.

This event is supported by The Icelandic Literature Center.

Iceland’s uncanny ability to produce a series of exceptional crime fiction writers continues to burn undiminished. It’s a tiny country but has a strong tradition of storytelling and a stunning, mythic landscape as a stage. Two of their brightest lights are coming our way. 

Katrin Júlíusdóttir, Iceland’s former finance minister, won the prestigious Blackbird Award for her stunning debut novel Dead Sweet, a breathless political thriller of financial crime, cults, and secrets. Lilja Sigurdardóttir is a Bloody Scotland favourite, and her brilliant new novel, the twisty and atmospheric Dark as Night, is the fourth in her addictive Áróra series. 

Chaired by Elaine Downs.

This event is supported by The Icelandic Literature Center.

Is it okay to do bad things to bad people? Do the most satisfying ends justify the most terrible means? Meet three terrific authors who expertly toy with our moral compasses. 

Jack Jordan’s darkly emotional Redemption seethes with his trademark moral dilemmas as a mother is hell-bent on revenge for her son’s hit-and-run death. Andrew Hunter Murray’s A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering takes a hilarious and murderous look at the inequities of the housing market. In Nilesha Chauvet’s absorbing The Revenge of Rita Marsh, Rita poses online as young girls to snare the men who prey on them. 

The author and podcaster Zoe Venditozzi will chair this event. 

They come from a land down under (the other one) and they bring with them terrific crime novels filled with a rich sense of culture and simmering with antipodean angst. Two of New Zealand’s finest writers are making the long trip to Bloody Scotland to discuss their work and their homeland. Vanda Symon is New Zealand’s modern Queen of Crime, and her seventh novel Prey is an electrifying thriller set on the streets of her home city of Dunedin. Award-winning writer and filmmaker Michael Bennett brings us Māori detective Hana Westerman in his second stunning crime novel Return to Blood. 

New Zealand author and reviewer Craig Sisterson will chair the event. 

World War Two is the setting for these three evocative crime novels, each rich in colour and crackling with atmosphere. The disappearance of young girl evacuees leads to the discovery of a conspiracy with links to the highest echelons of society in Stephen Ronson’s The Last Line. In 1939 Warsaw, a double agent shunned as a Nazi collaborator, must uncover a serial killer in Douglas Jackson’s brilliantly harrowing crime debut Blood Roses. International bestseller Mandy Robotham’s The Hidden Storyteller centres on the emotive hunt for a killer amidst the dark underbelly of the bombed-out ruins of Hamburg in 1946. 

Author Douglas Skelton will chair this event. 

Are rapid advances in artificial intelligence the biggest threat to humanity – or its biggest opportunity? Two authors and a publisher explore the implications for society and books amid the march of the machines. Jo Callaghan, author of the groundbreaking In the Blink of an Eye, has brought her AI detective Locke back in the chilling Leave No Trace. Author Ajay Chowdhury has a background in technology, and his latest novel is the twisty, gripping The Spy. Katie Ellis-Brown will bring an editor’s perspective as the day nears when artificial intelligence proves capable of writing novels. 

The panel will be chaired by Professor Kevin Swingler, an expert in AI from The University of Stirling. 

Are rapid advances in artificial intelligence the biggest threat to humanity – or its biggest opportunity? Two authors and a publisher explore the implications for society and books amid the march of the machines. Jo Callaghan, author of the groundbreaking In the Blink of an Eye, has brought her AI detective Locke back in the chilling Leave No Trace. Author Ajay Chowdhury has a background in technology, and his latest novel is the twisty, gripping The Spy. Katie Ellis-Brown will bring an editor’s perspective as the day nears when artificial intelligence proves capable of writing novels. 

The panel will be chaired by Professor Kevin Swingler, an expert in AI from The University of Stirling. 

Meet two bestselling authors who forged their skills in the heat of frontline journalism before expertly turning their hands to crime fiction. Chris Hammer was a journalist for over 30 years, spending most of it as a roving foreign correspondent for a TV channel in his native Australia. Cover the Bones, Chris’s latest outback thriller, is a chilling masterpiece in storytelling. Craig Robertson’s newspaper career took him from New York to New Delhi and from Death Row to Downing Street. His new novel is the atmospheric The Trials of Marjorie Crowe, a dark, witchy tale of persecution, mistrust, and misogyny.
Crime in the Spotlight reading from Isobel Shirlaw.

Sponsored by the Faculty of Advocates 

Meet the creators of three complex and clever thrillers in which absolutely nothing is as it seems. 

Anna O by Matthew Blake is an inventive, nightmarish thriller in which the prime suspect in a double killing has slept for four years as a psychologist probes her dreams. A daughter has Seven Days to save her father from Death Row in Robert Rutherford’s high-octane thriller – but first she must decide if she wants to. Ram Murali’s Death in the Air is a stylish, murderous romp as elite clients are killed one by one in a glamorous spa high in the Indian Himalayas. 

Chaired by Anna Day.

The notion of a missing person tugs at our most primal fears and comes ready-wrapped in mystery, making it irresistible to most crime writers. Few, however, do it better than these three twisted talents. Two seemingly impossibly mysteries lie at the heart of the latest thriller from the brilliant Tim Weaver as David Raker has to find The Missing Family. A missing teen is just the beginning in The Misper, the startling new novel from former Met detective Kate London. Imran Mahmood’s powerful new book Finding Sophie is a twisty tale of deception as parents hunt for their 17-year-old daughter. 

Author Nicholas Binge will chair this event.