Here’s the recipe. You take two Scottish crime writers (more depending on taste and seasonal availability), add cooking apparatus, a large room and a good cause. Stir liberally in front of an audience and simmer gently – or not so gently as the case may be – for an hour.

The result is a book to die for. Yes, it’s the Killer Cookbook – the cook off! Caro Ramsay and Craig Robertson will don aprons, bandanas and big silly white hats to tantalise your taste buds, accelerate your appetite and galvanise your gastric juices.

They will talk about food, crime writing, forensics and the importance of stirring human blood while cooking so that it doesn’t clot.

It is all in the aid of the Million for a Morgue Campaign. This hugely worthwhile project will help the University of Dundee raise a million pounds to build a world-leading forensic centre.
The Dundee team, led by the indomitable Professor Sue Black, has joined forces with crime writers to produce the Killer Cookbook. It features recipes from Bloody Scotland 2013 authors including Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Stuart MacBride and Alex Gray as well as such literary luminaries as Jeffery Deaver, Ian Rankin, Tess Gerritsen and Kathy Reichs.

On Sunday September 15 in the MacLaren Suite of the Highland Hotel at 3.30, the dream will become an epicurean reality when Caro and Craig plus special guest authors (so special they don’t know they’re doing it yet) will display the full range of their cooking prowess. It shouldn’t take long.

Craig will be cooking his recipe from the Killer Cookbook – human blood pudding with pan-fried scallops and apple. It’s a crime festival, what other kind of blood would you expect?

Don’t worry, there is a precedent for this. Scottish artists, Beagles and Ramsay made black pudding from their own blood live on stage at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005. Or at least they did until Edinburgh City Council banned them. We’re sure Stirling Council will be much more open-minded about such things.
Caro has no less than three recipes in the cookbook to choose from. That’s partly because she heroically organised the whole thing but mainly because she’s a show-off. So be prepared to be stunned, surprised and possibly traumatised by her production of one or all of vegetarian haggis, potato scones and raspberry cranachan.

You will be able to buy copies of the Killer Cookbook after the event and all – yes all – that’s 100 per cent – of the proceeds goes to the Million for a Morgue campaign.

Be there or be a square meal.

For details on the event, visit the event page.