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| Winner of Glencairn Glass inaugural short story competition winner announced Posted: 08 Mar 2022 01:46 PM PST  The Glencairn Glass announces the winners of its inaugural short story competition  The world's favourite whisky glass – The Glencairn Glass – has been celebrating Scottish crime writing talent over the past two years as headline sponsor of the prestigious McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing prizes. To support this creative collaboration, The Glencairn Glass launched its first very own crime short story competition, inviting all budding crime writers to curate their stories around the theme: 'A Crystal-Clear Crime' in no more than 2000 words. The competition has been in partnership with Scottish Field Magazine and Bloody Scotland. The winner and runners up were selected by a panel of three judges including Deborah Masson, 2020 winner of the Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel of the Year with her book 'Hold Your Tongue' and Peter Ranscombe, Scottish Field's drinks columnist and author of the historical thriller 'Hare', along with Glencairn's marketing director Gordon Brown who is also an author, writing under the name Morgan Cry.  Winner: (£1000 prize) Halmeoni's Wisdom – a dark tale of human trafficking, illegal trade and a desire for freedom. Written by Brid Cummings, a fiction writer and occupational therapist, based in South Australia. Brid said; "When I heard I'd won the Glencairn Glass crime short story competition, I was absolutely delighted. With such an intriguing theme, I enjoyed the challenge of writing the story, but had no expectation of winning. The news has given me a huge confidence boost and the encouragement to complete my psychological suspense novel. Many thanks to Glencairn Crystal and the Bloody Scotland team for this fantastic opportunity." Runners up: (£250 prize for each runner up) Teardrops – a story about a confession to murder and a need for retribution, born of revenge. Written by Jennifer Harvey, a Scottish author based in Denmark. Jennifer said: "I am delighted to be a runner-up in the Glencairn Crystal crime short story competition. Many thanks to the judges for selecting my story 'Teardrops'. I will raise a glass to the winners and all the entrants in celebration. Cheers!" Auld Bride – a story about a lost soul returning to the island of her birth, where more than a new job awaits her. Written by Judith O'Reilly, author and former political producer with BBC and ITN and correspondent with The Sunday Times, based in Northumberland. Judith was also a 'Crime in the Spotlighter' at the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in 2019. Judith commented: "I'm thrilled to be named as a runner up in this great crime writing short story competition run by Glencairn Glass. The story itself is a cross between The Wicker Man and Kinky Boots, with a flash of Whisky Galore thrown in for good measure. I really wanted to add a touch of the supernatural to a story about whisky and the comeback of a ghost distillery. Whisky with all its history and traditions is a very evocative thing to write about. I hope readers enjoy it." Judges' comments: Describing the winning story Halmeoni's Wisdom by Brid Cummings, Peter Ranscombe commented: "I was gripped from the excellent start all the way through to the satisfying finish". Peter selected Teardrops by Jennifer Harvey because; "the theme was very well chosen – a really 'of-the moment' story. The structure was interesting with a suitably unsettling ending too". He described Auld Bride by Judith O'Reilly as: "an old-fashioned blend of suspense and mystery that led up to a chilling climax". Deborah Masson said: "Halmeoni's Wisdom was unique. The imagery was expertly drawn and it had a satisfying end with redemption realised. Teardrops was a fascinating tale, and an all too real danger in today's modern world. Then in Auld Bride - masterful descriptive writing is displayed in setting the scene in this tale and a surprise twist brings not only past and present together, but also good and evil." Glencairn's marketing director Gordon Brown, who is also a founding director of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival and has written eight crime novels with his latest, 'Thirty-One Bones', under the pseudonym Morgan Cry said: "The quality of entries was outstanding. With entries from all over the planet it demonstrates the continuing fascination with crime writing. This is why Glencairn is delighted to continue their sponsorship of both the McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland debut crime prizes which will be announced at this year's Bloody Scotland Festival in September. Prizes and where to read the stories: Three prizes are awarded to the winning authors: the first prize winner, Brid Cummings, receives £1000, whilst the two runners up, Jennifer Harvey and Judith O'Reilly, each receive £250. All three winners also receive a set of six bespoke engraved Glencairn Glasses. The overall winning entry will be published in the May issue of Scottish Field Magazine (on shelf Friday 8th April). The runners' up stories will also be published from 8th April online on Scottish Field Magazine's website (www.scottishfield.co.uk). You will also be able to read the winning story and the runners up stories on the Glencairn Glass website: www.whiskyglass.com from Monday 11th April. Finally, for further information about this year's McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing prizes, as well as the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival taking place in Stirling, Scotland, for four days from the 15th to 18th September, please visit www.bloodyscotland.com |
| The challenge of balancing mystery and suspense, by D. V. Bishop Posted: 08 Mar 2022 12:55 PM PST
 My second historical thriller, The Darkest Sin, is published by Pan Macmillan. It follows on from City of Vengeance, which introduced my Renaissance Florence law enforcer Cesare Aldo. That novel won Pitch Perfect at Bloody Scotland, was shortlisted for the 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize and is currently shortlisted for the 2022 New Zealand Booklovers Award. In short, my new novel has a lot to emulate. When I was writing The Darkest Sin most of that success was still ahead, so I didn't have to worry about matching it. All I needed to do was break exciting new ground while remaining faithful to the first novel's tone and style. The second novel had to be familiar and fresh, different yet the same. And it couldn't be a repeat of what I had done in City of Vengeance where actual events from history provided the conspiracy that helped power my narrative. In short, I was staring down the stiletto blade of second novel syndrome. Debuts are big business in the world of books. The industry loves the thrill of discovery, the excitement of finding a new voice, a new character, a new author. Second novels? Not so sexy. Yet they are often much harder to write. An author has their entire life to draft and redraft their debut. Second novels are usually written to a deadline with the author fretting whether sales will be enough to justify another contract. I had written City of Vengeance as part of a PhD in Creative Writing [still unfinished, that's another story]. The PhD gave me deadlines, structure and – best of all – regular feedback. For The Darkest Sin I was on my own, under deadline and trying to write a new novel during the lockdowns of 2020 while simultaneously taking the Creative Writing MA programme at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland online at short notice. Not ideal conditions. I had a clear sense of my story for the second Cesare Aldo novel, which helped a lot. City of Vengeance is a conspiracy thriller set in the city of Machiavelli and Michelangelo about the lies men tell themselves and one another. By contrast, The Darkest Sin is a locked room mystery set in a Renaissance Florence convent and focuses on the silencing of women. Where the first novel features a threat to the city's future, the second novel is a smaller scale tale. This made me worry The Darkest Sin was too different to City of Vengeance, but that contrast was a very deliberate choice on my part. I wanted to stretch the range of what a Cesare Aldo novel could be and demonstrate the possibilities of this character. While writing it I realised my true challenge was finding a balance between mystery and suspense. Every novel in a series can be a reader's first exposure to that series. Someone can pick up How the Dead Speak, Slough House or Tombland without ever encountering previous books by acclaimed, bestselling authors Val McDermid, Mick Herron or C. J. Sansom. I couldn't assume anyone reading The Darkest Sin had already experienced City of Vengeance. Some crime fiction series avoid this problem by having little crossover from one book to the next. Regular characters may grow older and marry (or divorce), yet to a significant extent each novel stands apart from those before it in publication order. But I wasn't doing that. Oh, no. Not me. Nope. I had ended City of Vengeance with a finale that changed everything irrevocably. I could not ignore that while I was writing The Darkest Sin, it had to be a plot line within the novel. But how was I going to make it function as a standalone suitable for new readers while ensuring it was a satisfying experience for all the peole who had enjoyed City of Vengeance? The answer was finding the right balance of mystery and suspense. The difference between them is measured by the readers' state of knowledge in comparison to the characters. Where readers discover things alongside a character, this creates mystery – the intellectual puzzle box of crime novels. But if readers know more than a character, this can generate suspense and dramatic irony. Readers are waiting for the other shoe to drop, the tension ramping up as the moment of revelation gets closer. This engages readers at an emotional level, appealing to their hearts as well as their heads. Rather than shying away from the City of Vengeance finale, I made it the secondary plot of The Darkest Sin. Constable Carlo Strocchi investigates the outcome of that finale, little realising where it will lead. Readers new to this series experience the discovery alongside him, so for them it will be a mystery. But those who did read City of Vengeance know what is coming. For them this plot strand reads as suspense: what will happen when Strocchi uncovers the truth? And how will other characters react? Hopefully the balance of mystery and suspense in The Darkest Sin works for everyone, whether they read the novel that precedes it or not. So far early reviewer feedback has been very positive, but the response of readers will tell the true story. The best news for me is I am already writing the third novel in this series, so I know that Cesare Aldo will return!  The Darkest Sin by D V Bishop (Pan Macmillan) Out Now Florence. Spring, 1537. When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the Renaissance city's northern quarter, he enters a community divided by bitter rivalries and harbouring dark secrets. His case becomes far more complicated when a man's body is found deep inside the convent, stabbed more than two dozen times. Unthinkable as it seems, all the evidence suggests one of the nuns must be the killer. Meanwhile, Constable Carlo Strocchi finds human remains pulled from the Arno that belong to an officer of the law missing since winter. The dead man had many enemies, but who would dare kill an official of the city's most feared criminal court? As Aldo and Strocchi close in on the truth, identifying the killers will prove more treacherous than either of them could ever have imagined... More information about the D V Bishop and his books can be found on his website. You can also follow him on Twitter @davidbishop |
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