We know how it is. You’re sitting there with those post-Christmas, pre-Easter blues. Not to mention the post-Winter Olympics and pre-World Black Pudding Championship blues, and you’re thinking “I’d love to hear about a good murder”.

Well you’re in luck.

At Bloody Scotland, we’re never keen on having you suffering for long – unless it’s over one of those medieval torture racks that Val McDermid loves so much. So we have not one, not two, but four criminally good events coming up for you. Only two of them are strictly ours but we’re a crime festival so we get to steal stuff as long as it’s in a good cause.

 

On Tuesday April 8, along with with our accomplices at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, we are bringing you an evening of science, syntax and sin. Or facts, forensic and fiction. Or blood, bodies and books. Any alliteration you want really. Bestselling crime writer and Bloody Scotland co-founder LIN ANDERSON, author of the hugely successful Rhona MacLeod series, will discuss the process of her work along with real-life forensic psychologist KATHY CHARLES.

Stuff you need to know. Venue: Summerhall. Start: 5.30. Duration: I hour 30 minutes. Tickets: £8/£6/£4 via the Science Festival website – click here.

The following week, on Monday, April 14, we are back in our spiritual home of Stirling to welcome international bestseller JOHN CONNOLLY to the Tollbooth Theatre. John comes to us from Dublin via Maine, the setting of his phenomenally successful series starring former policeman Charlie Parker. The Wolf in Winter is the twelfth book in the Parker series and John will be discussing that and his other work in conversation with Bloody Scotland’s own CRAIG ROBERTSON.

Stuff you need to know. Venue: Tollbooth. Start: 7.00. Duration: 1 hour. Tickets: £5 via bloodyscotland.com – click here.

As if that wasn’t enough, there are two events just next week with some of our friends who are both Bloody and Scottish. On Wednesday March 5, MALCOLM MACKAY will be interviewed in Waterstones on Argyll Street, Glasgow, by Craig Robertson about his latest book, The Sudden Arrival of Violence.

Stuff you need to know. Venue: Waterstones, Argyle Street. Start 7.00. Duration: 1 hour. Tickets: Free from the store.

The following evening, Thursday March 6, CRAIG ROBERTSON will be joined by MICHAEL J MALONE to discuss all things crime.

Stuff you need to know. Venue: Waterstones, Livingston. Start 6.30. Duration: 1 hour. Tickets: Free from the store.

 

If all that doesn’t make you happy then we’ll have to send the boys round. In the meantime, we are busily preparing the programme for Bloody Scotland 2014 which will be in Stirling from September 19-21. Which international bestselling authors are going to appear? Well obviously we could tell you but we’d need to kill you and we like you far too much for that. Full programme details will be released on June 4. Until then, happy and bloody reading.