Bloody Scotland 2018

So Presumed Dead didn't make the shortlist for the McIlvanney Prize, which was fine because several other authors I admire didn't make it either, which is testament to the strength of the list. On the night, the very worthy winner was Liam McIlvanney for The Quaker.

Some diary conflicts made it a flying visit for me this year, but even though I arrived late Friday and left late Saturday, I was able to pack a surprising amount into twenty-four hours. It was as wonderful as always to catch up with the usual suspects and meet some new faces. I even got to be defeated by Val McDermid's team for the second time this year in the quiz.

As always, it was a fantastic operation ably run by Bob McDevitt and team. Anyway, here's some of my pictorial highlights...

McIlvanney Prize longlisting

So pleased to report that Presumed Dead has been longlisted for the 2018 McIlvanney Prize!

It joins a stellar lineup of books from authors including Craig Robertson, James Oswald, Chris Brookmyre and Caro Ramsay.

You can read the full announcement on the Bloody Scotland website. The shortlist is announced later this summer, but in the meantime I'm very happy that the new book is in such great company. Big congratulations to everyone else who made the list.

Bute Noir and Bloody Scotland

I'm going to be appearing at a couple of festivals later this summer; one old, one new and I can't wait.

First up, Bute Noir, now in its second year, and running 4th - 6th August. I'll be appearing on two panels: Americana with Steve Cavanagh and SJI Holliday, and State of Emergency with Steph Broadbribb. Apart from that, I'll be hanging around all weekend and checking out some of the other great events with Alex Gray, Denise Mina, Craig Robertson, Luca Veste, Caro Ramsay and many more.

The lineup is excellent and ticket prices are a steal - check out the Bute Noir website for more.

After a signing at Waterstones Oban on Saturday 19 August, I'm delighted to be appearing at Bloody Scotland for my fourth year running, this time with US bestseller Chris Carter. Our panel is called From Tinseltown to Sin City, it's on Saturday 9 September, and you can book tickets here.

As always, Bloody Scotland has a fantastic lineup including Ian Rankin, Simon Kernick, Lynda LaPlante, Val McDermid and Denise Mina, so if you're thinking about going, you definitely shouldn't hesitate - download the full brochure here.

I'll also be at Harrogate in July, details to follow of what should be a very fun event on Friday, and will add be adding new events to my website as they're confirmed/

See you on the road!

Bloody Scotland 2016

Some pics from Bloody Scotland 2016 I've been meaning to post...

As usual, it was a great weekend, and I think this could have been the best year yet. It was nice to spend time with fellow authors, meet readers and bloggers and see some great panels.

Event highlights included Ian Rankin, Chris Brookmyre, Stuart Neville and Craig Robertson and many more. One of the best things about the weekend was finally getting to see Mark Billingham and My Darling Clementine's performance of The Other Half - a mixture of spoken word and music. As a fan of both crime and country music it was right up my street.

My own panel was a hell of a lot of fun. (Not) Born in the USA featured myself, Steve Cavanagh and GJ Brown being interrogated by Catriona Macpherson about being Brits who set our thrillers stateside. We covered a lot of ground, from how much of ourselves is in our characters, to the impact the presidential election could have on telling stories in the US, to the logic behind picking pseudonyms at the start of the alphabet.

Looking forward to next year already - big thanks to the team at Bloody Scotland who make it run so smoothly.

Encounters, Bloody Scotland and some great reviews

It's not long now until the gore-drenched staple of the literary year that is Bloody Scotland - my event is on Sunday 11 September and I'm appearing with Steve Cavanagh and GJ Brown on a fake Americans panel, which should be a lot of fun. Book tickets here, and you can win signed books from all of us by retweeting this link:

Follow & RT this tweet to win signed copies of latest from @MasonCrossBooks @GoJaBrown & @SSCav ahead of their event https://t.co/OBO4lfljGn

— Bloody Scotland (@BloodyScotland) August 17, 2016

I'm pleased to say I'm back at the fantastic Encounters Festival this year on 26 October at Coatbridge Library. Find out more about how to get your free tickets on the festival website, and check out lots of other great author events including fellow crime peeps Marnie Riches, Matt Bendoris, Sophie Hannah, Martina Cole, Theresa Talbot and Tim Weaver.

Speaking of library events, I've updated my Live Literature page over at Scottish Book Trust. If you live in Scotland, your library can book me to come and talk through this excellent scheme, so let them know about it if you would like me to visit a library near you.

As always, check the Events page on my website for new dates.

You still have until Sunday to win a signed copy of The Killing Season - all you have to do to be in with a chance is sign up to the Mason Cross Readers Club:

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The Time to Kill seems to be doing pretty well, and I suddenly seem to have a big backlog of lovely reviews to link to. See below for a taste, click through to read the full reviews:

Grab This Book says:

An action adventure (and a chase story) across the USA which kept me gripped as I read. A five star thrill-fest.

Adventures in Crime Fiction Land was lukewarm about The Samaritan but finds The Time to Kill more to his liking:

The Time to Kill is a roller coaster ride of tension, a great read that touches on geo-political issues and the war on terrorism while delivering a darn good yarn. On the basis of this and book 1 (book 2 just not being my cup of tea, though as I say, there was nothing wrong with the writing) Mason Cross is certainly somebody who's writing I will watch out for.

Meanwhile, The Crime Warp comes up with a brand new suggestion of who could play Carter Blake in the movie:

Action packed and sensitive - a James Bond type book for the 2000's (Maybe if Idris Elba doesn't get the 007 role he could play Carter Blake?- just saying).

Tweet me, Idris, we'll do lunch.

Going down under, Readings picks The Time to Kill for its best new crime reads in August:

I really love picking up a special-ops-type thriller like Cross’s The Time to Kill – they’re always so supremely satisfying. Someone’s usually died in a dramatic, sneaky fashion by the end of the prologue, there’s usually travel to all kinds of international countries (or at least their bars/hotel rooms/abandoned warehouses), the main character knows how to handle themselves, someone gets their comeuppance, people slam phones down in anger – you get it, and you love it too.

Stuff says:

If you've come across either of his first two thrillers, you will know this writer is a keeper. If not, put him on your list.

Also in the Antipodes, the radio station Newstalk ZB's resident book reviewer gives Blake's latest adventure a big thumbs up. Fans of Kiwi accents like myself will want to listen to the link in full:

The story starts to really race and it's very cleverly constructed with a dual narrative ... people that like Lee Child and Jack Reacher would probably really enjoy this.

The Morning Star calls it "a superior example of the chase thriller" and goes on to say:

[Blake's] former employers are coming after him, the truce he made with them when he left no longer in force. But they trained him well and he’s not going to be easy to kill. There’s all the set-piece action you could hope for.

If those reviews make you want to read more, the novel is available from all good bookshops - go here to buy in your chosen format. If you enjoy it, taking a moment to write an Amazon or Goodreads reviews is a big help.

That's all for now... see you in Stirling?

Bloody Scotland - (Not) Born in the USA

The Bloody Scotland 2016 programme is launched today and I'm delighted to be appearing at this awesome festival for the third time.

I'm on with my Orion partner in crime Steve Cavanagh and also GJ Brown at the following event:

(Not) Born in the USA

Sunday 11 September from 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm | £7.50/£6.50

Despite being two Scots and a Northern Irishman, G. J. Brown, Steve Cavanagh and Mason Cross chose to set their crime novels in the good old US of A. Their pacy, high-octane thrillers are straight off the Hollywood playbook but have they really earned their stars and stripes? California-based Scot Catriona McPherson will find out if they can tell their APB from their BOLO. 


It should be a blast, and as a big Springsteen fan, I approve of the title.

You can book tickets for our event here, and don't forget to check out the full programme for lots of other great crime writing events and panels.

Remember to check out the events page on my website for upcoming dates - before we get to Bloody Scotland I have a couple of library events, #ScotLitFest, and of course the launch of The Time to Kill. And most of these are free, so you have no excuse not to come and heckle me at some point this summer.

Settings and Samaritans

The Samaritan is out in mass-market paperback tomorrow, available to buy at all good bookshops. 

To get you in the mood, here's a piece I wrote in the summer for the Bloody Scotland blog on the inspiration for the book.

Settings and Samaritans

Bloody Scotland blog, 2nd July 2015

One of the questions I get asked all the time is, “Is it difficult to write American thrillers when you live in the UK?” Just to be awkward, my answer tends to be yes and no.

Yes, it can be a challenge, because it inevitably involves a little more research to write about another country than about your immediate surroundings. But also no, because all fiction involves creating the writer’s own world, where you make the rules, put words in the mouths of the characters and choose the settings. We’re making all this stuff up anyway, so why does it matter where it’s set?

To me, there are three things that really matter in a story: people, situations, and what-ifs.

There aren’t a whole lot of similarities between Glasgow, Scotland and Los Angeles, California. Obviously the climates are freakishly similar and both cities are filled with astoundingly beautiful people – aside from that, not much. But one thing the two metropolises do have in common is geographic. They’re both built in a depression: Glasgow fills the Clyde Valley, LA sprawls across the Los Angeles Basin. It means you can escape the urban sprawl for a while and look down on it to get some perspective. A useful thing to be able to do in both cities.

Where I live, you can get into the car and be above the city in minutes, on the quiet country roads in the elevated green belt south of the city. I’ve always loved that view. You can look down on the buildings and the streetlights and the million unique stories and have a contemplative Harry Bosch moment.

One spring night a couple of years ago, I was driving on one of those roads. I wasn’t having a deep Harry Bosch moment, I was having a returning-from-Sainsbury’s moment. About halfway home, I crested a hill and saw the city spread out before me. And this time, I saw something else.

A car, stopped by the side of the road. As I got closer I realised the car had broken down. Almost simultaneously, I saw another vehicle parked just around the corner. In my headlights I saw a woman watching, arms clutched around herself for warmth as a man crouched down by the front tyre, in the process of changing a flat.

I was glad somebody had already stopped for the stranded driver: a Good Samaritan. It would be no fun to be stuck out here waiting for the AA.

I passed by them and continued on my way, but I’d already started to think. I thought about what a strange, in-between place it was: dark, lonely and isolated, but in view of a city and suburbs home to more than a million people. I thought about how quickly it can get lonely when you leave the city. I thought about how lucky it was that somebody had been passing the stranded driver and been willing to help. And then I wondered what would have happened if the Good Samaritan wasn’t so good.

All of a sudden, I had an idea for a book, and I knew it would work in Los Angeles as well as it would work on a back road south of Glasgow.

Because when you get down to it, what country a thriller is set in isn’t the important thing. What’s important is people, situations, what-ifs. Like you, stranded on a dark, lonely road, forced to accept help from the first stranger who stops.

What if he’s a Bad Samaritan?

Bloody Scotland 2015

Belatedly posting about this year's Bloody Scotland festival, which was my third time at BS, and possibly the best yet.

The weekend got off to a good start with the reception at the old town hospital, where I chatted to some familiar faces like Steve Mosby, Craig Robertson and Neil Broadfoot. After a quick dinner, I caught up with Jon Wood, Orion's fiction publisher  and fellow thriller scribe Steve Cavanagh, and we adjourned to shoot some pool.

I quickly realised why Jon had suggested this particular activity, and was backed up by one of his more noted authors.

@MasonCrossBooks @JontWood @SSCav My editor is a pool *shark*...

— Ian Rankin (@Beathhigh) September 11, 2015

Steve held up creditably, I remembered why I don't play pool.

Saturday was busy. After checking out the display in the bookshop...

...I realised I had left it too late to get a ticket for either Denise Mina or the New  Blood event, but managed to get to see Chris Brookmyre, who was brilliant value as usual. I spent most of the day in the bar (it was work, remember?) catching up with the rapidly-growing list of cool writer and bookish types I know, including Eva Dolan, Helen Giltrow, Susi Holiday, Steph Broadribb, Liz Barnsley, Sarah Pinborough, Simon Kernick, Ian Rankin, Tom Wood, Douglas Skelton, Craig Robertson, Alexandra Sokoloff, GJ Brown and James Oswald.

I caught Steve's Breaking the Law event late in the day, which was good fun as expected. With a Yorkshireman, a Belfaster and a New Yorker moderated by a Kiwi, it had the distinction of being, as Angela McMahon pointed out, the most strongly-accented panel of the festival.

After an excellent dinner in the Maharajah with Jon and Angela from Orion, we headed along to Stirling's cutely-named Curly Coo pub for one of the newest fixtures in the Bloody Scotland calendar: Crime at the Coo. This was a fringe event to the main awards dinner, but as it became clear whenever I asked anyone, it was the place to be on Saturday.

A stellar lineup of crime writers took a spot to do - as the incredibly-detailed brief had it - "something different". So among many, many other things we had Doug Johnstone accompanying Val McDermid on guitar, Chris Brookmyre reading a story, Steve Cavanagh doing poetry, and one of the high points of the weekend, the Slice Girls performing 'Cell Block Tango': an appropriately murderous number from Chicago.

I pitched in with my own "something different" - reading the classic one-star review The Killing Season got a few weeks ago, which also doubles as a handy summary of the book. Once again, I felt an awesome sense of pride that something I wrote could inspire such a fantastic hatchet job.

Sunday morning, and I suddenly remembered I still had a panel to do. Before that, I dropped in on Pitch Perfect - an annual event where half a dozen hopefuls each have three minutes to pitch their novels to a panel of publishers. All of the books sounded intriguing, and in the end there was a three-way tie for the winning entries. It all made me feel very glad that I didn't have to go through that terrifying experience.

I caught up with my co-panelists in the bar ahead of our thriller panel, and then it was time for Tom Wood, Gordon Brown, Simon Kernick and yours truly to take the stage. Once again, I was the newbie on the panel: Tom had four books under his belt, Gordon five and Simon an impressive fourteen.

It was a lively discussion, ranging from how we carry out our research to how we got published. Between us, we seemed to have been rejected by just about everyone in the business before finally landing a deal, and I was left awestruck at Simon's determination in particular: he spoke about shrugging off literally hundreds of rejections before finally getting a yes. It's certainly paid off for him. All of us were rejected a lot but refused to give up, so the message seemed to be it's important to be a stubborn bastard. There were some great questions on research and the benefits of a cover quote from Lee Child.

After that, we signed some books, posed for a Usual Suspects-esque lineup with the concurrent Edinburgh crime panel of Neil Broadfoot, James Oswald and Doug Johnstone.

A ticking clock on the babysitter meant I missed the big football match (I'm told it was a hard-fought draw this year), and just like that, Bloody Scotland was over for another year...

Samaritan reviews and upcoming events

Some more excellent blog reviews of The Samaritan - click through to read the full reviews:

Crime Fiction Lover - "It really is a difficult novel to put down. The characterisation is strong, the sense of place powerful and Cross’s scenic descriptions vivid and compelling. This is a very well written crime thriller and Carter Blake deserves many more outings."

The Crime Warp - "The Samaritan has a plot you can stick your teeth into.  Cross keeps us guessing and throws a few curve balls in to keep us on our toes."

The Book Blonde - "A breathtaking and adrenalin-soaked ride. The Samaritan is immensely readable, with shocks and twists along the way, before reaching a thrilling conclusion."

The Samaritan isn't out in the United States until February, but I've already had American readers getting in touch to say they can't wait. In the meantime, here's a preview of Pegasus's American cover, which is very cool:

I'll be at Bloody Scotland with Simon Kernick, Tom Wood and GJ Brown next weekend, so if you're going along to this excellent festival (and why wouldn't you?) please come talk to me.

I've added a few library dates as well, including three for Book Week Scotland. The library dates are all free, so there's no excuse not to come and heckle.

Edinburgh, Bloody Scotland and BritCrime

This summer is shaping up to be pretty busy!

First up, I'm going to be part of BritCrime - a brand new online festival featuring 40 British crime writers. For people who are too busy or live too far away to attend literary festivals, this is a nifty idea, because as long as you can get on the internet, you can attend. The festival is going to be held over Saturday 11 - Monday 13 July on the BritCrime Facebook page, and will feature virtual author panels, giveaways, Q&As, and even a virtual pub. It's all Helen Smith's idea, and it's going to be great - check out the BritCrime website for news, offers and soon, a full programme.

Following on from the launch of The Samaritan at Waterstones Argyle Street on 15 July, I'm delighted to be being asked back to the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Friday 21 August. I'm even more delighted to be sharing the bill with Mr Steve Cavanagh - a fellow Orion dude and author of the fantastic legal thriller The Defence. Tickets are onsale from the festival website on Tuesday 23 June, and you can also vote for The Defence for the Edinburgh First Book Award.

And in September, I'm back in Stirling for Bloody Scotland, this time on a stacked panel of thriller writers featuring Simon Kernick, Tom Wood and GJ Brown. My event is on Sunday 13 September, and you can find out more and get tickets from the festival website.

That's it for now, but I have at least a couple more cool things to announce soon, so keep an eye on the events page for new updates, including something fruit-related...

An overdue update

I've been uncharacteristically quiet of late thanks to general busyness and the small matter of finishing the third Carter Blake book, so it's time for a quick catch up, largely so I can take stock of what's happened and what's happening next.

I spent another great weekend in Bristol at CrimeFest, which involved two great panels: one on psychological and action thrillers with Sabine Durrant, Paul Hardisty and Rebecca Whitney moderated excellently by Stav Sherez; and one on psychopaths with James Carol, Clare Donghue, Stuart Neville and Caro Ramsay, moderated slightly more chaotically by yours truly.

It was great to finally meet fellow Orion rookie Steve Cavanagh and hang out with the usual suspects. I also got to meet Lee Child and thank him in person for the cover quote. He was very cool and gracious, saying even more nice things about the book and chatting about the new Reacher movie.

Just like last year (although with slightly less nice weather), it was a great chance to catch up with friends, meet some new ones, and drink way too much. I played it smart this year by not volunteering for Criminal Mastermind.

Some really great reviews of The Killing Season and The Samaritan were posted recently:

The Killing Season had a heart-stopping, thrilling ending and this was delivered again in The Samaritan and then some. Thriller fans looking for something fresh, and to feel that excitement you get upon discovering an author such as Mason Cross would be well-advised to check out this series.

- Book Addict Shaun

[The Samaritan is] a sprawling American epic delivered with panache.

- Barry Forshaw, Independent

The thriller elements are really really well done, keeping you on the edge of your seat, there are some beautiful twists and turns, a gorgeous flow to the prose and generally speaking this is a damn good read. Definitively now one of the series I shall be following avidly and probably re-reading a lot, the Carter Blake series is one of those you can sink into, have a great time with, and re-emerge later wishing you had another 10 books featuring Carter on the shelf to read already. 

- Liz Loves Books

The Killing Season is a very exciting novel indeed, made extra tense by the mystery surrounding both prey and hunter. We move across locations, each vividly described, meeting potential victims and suspects, tripping over red herrings, getting sidetracked by false alarms. And then there are the twists. This is a very clever novel. It’s not going to be easy for Blake.

- Kate Atherton, For Winter Nights

This is without doubt one of the best debut thrillers that I've read in a long time - a fantastic page turner that left me totally hooked on Carter Blake and Mason Cross has left me wanting more. A highly addictive read and Mason Cross is certainly one to watch.

- Sam Everett, Tigerlilly Books

 

Book Addict Shaun also kindly interviewed me for the blog here, with some great questions, while Mario Acevedo grilled me for The Big Thrill.

Other stuff...

I'm delighted to be at Bloody Scotland again this year, on a panel with thriller maestros Simon Kernick, Tom Wood and GJ Brown - check out the events page for more details and some other upcoming events.

I'm equally delighted to be on the bill for the first-ever BritCrime online festival. The brainchild of Helen Smith, It takes place on a Facebook near you over 11-13 July and is completely free. Find out more at the Facebook page and BritCrime.com

My editor tweeted the cover proof of The Samaritan and it looks amazing.

Oh, and I sent a few spare proof copies of Killing Season out to known thriller fans... and Bill Clinton sent me a nice reply.

Bloody Scotland again

Having attended Bloody Scotland as a member of the crime-reading public this time last year, I was delighted to be invited to be part of an author panel this time around.

The weekend got off to a well-lubricated start with a drinks reception hosted by Stirling Council at the old town hospital. After that, we headed down the hill (Stirling is big on hills) to see the opening event: Chris Brookmyre and Denise Mina, who had a lively and free-flowing conversation onstage about everything from their latest work to the referendum that had taken place the previous day. Ah yes, the referendum - after the frenzied debate of the past few weeks, it was nice to spend the weekend in a bubble where people were more interested in talking about books and where to go for the next drink.

Saturday dawned and I managed to finish the second of my co-panelist's books before my event at lunchtime. After being briefly delayed by a quartet of Elvises dressed as janitors...

...(did I really just type that sentence?) I found myself sharing a stage with two other debut authors: Eva Dolan (Long Way Home) and Hania Allen (Jack in the Box). Although I think we suffered a little from being scheduled opposite the Scottish vs English crime writers football match (Scotland won convincingly), we had a pretty good-sized crowd.

We discussed a wide range of topics, from why women read more crime fiction than men, to how we come up with the characters, to how we got published. It was really interesting that the three of us had followed quite similar routes: failing to find a publisher for our first novels, experimenting with self-pubbing through Amazon, and eventually getting a deal with a traditional publisher. It could be a giant coincidence, or perhaps this is the way it happens in the 21st century. Either way: a great advertisement for not giving up at the first hurdle.

With my panel out of the way, I headed down to The Murder Room - Orion Crime's popup presence alongside Waterstones in Stirling's Albert Halls. It was great to see POD paperbacks of some of the classic noir titles Orion has been bringing back as eBooks (everything from Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male to Robert Bloch's Psycho) and to be inveigled into being photographed in a really crap John D Macdonald related pun. On the other hand, they also had gorgeous samplers of The Samaritan, alongside the new Denise Mina and Anthony Horowitz books (it was awesome being mentioned in the same breath and on the same banner as these bestsellers). 

I stuck around for the big Saturday evening event: Ian Rankin interviewing Kathy Reichs, and as a big fan of both, it was great to hear them talk shop for an hour. I particularly liked hearing about the different approaches they had to TV adaptations of their work, with Reichs exec-producing and consulting on Bones and Rankin having taken a more hands-off (to date, at least) approach to Rebus.

After dinner at a pretty good Italian place, I headed to the bar in the Highland Hotel and had some interesting conversations, including one where a few of us came up for a pitch for a romantic cat detective mystery. Late night chats in the bar are one of my favourite things about book festivals, although I think I might leave it to others to execute that particular idea.

After signing some copies of Killing Season at the Stirling branch of Waterstones, Sunday at Bloody Scotland got going with some multi-hyphenates: journo-turned-author Craig Robertson interviewing actor-turned-author John Gordon Sinclair and footballer-turned-author Arild Stavrum. I was particularly inspired by JGS's example of building a writing shed at the bottom of the garden, complete with electricity, a burglar alarm and a beer fridge.

After that, I saw Alexandra Sokoloff, Gordon Brown and James Oswald discussing the supernatural in crime novels, and a rumination about the nature of evil. I rounded the weekend off with Ian Rankin, solo this time, speaking about his career to date, his year off, and his next book.

In a competitive field, I'd have to say Bloody Scotland was narrowly my favourite festival next year. Looking forward to hitting the circuit next year with a new book.

Bloody hell...

I'm very pleased to announce I'll be doing a panel at Bloody Scotland this year.

I'll be appearing with Eva Dolan and Hania Allen at 1:30pm on Saturday September 20 in the McClaren Suite of the Stirling Highland Hotel. We're all relative newbies, so I'm sure we'll have lots to talk about.

You can browse the full programme online now - there's a fantastic lineup including Ian Rankin, Kathy Reichs, Tony Parsons, John Gordon Sinclair, Louise Welsh and Sophie Hannah, plus the usual welcome suspects like Mark Billingham, Denise Mina, Chris Brookmyre, Craig Robertson and Alex Gray.

I had a great time as a paying customer last year, and am looking forward to being a part of what is a fantastic festival for the first time this year.

Bloody Scotland

I've been working flat out on the latest draft of the new Carter Blake book (the one that comes after The Killing Season), so I haven't had time to blog about my trip to Bloody Scotland. It was a lot of fun, and I even managed to get some writing done in between talks and beers. I've been to a few one-off events at literary festivals before, but this was my first full-blown crime writing festival.

It's a pretty new festival, in only its second year, but is already attracting attendees and big-name writers in droves. The first thing that really struck me was how well organised it was. Teams of volunteers on hand to direct you to the correct suite in the correct venue, talks that started and finished perfectly on time, well-ordered signings. Generally the operation seemed to work like a well-oiled AK47.

The second thing that struck me was how... integrated the whole thing felt. In a good way. There was no real attempt at demarcation between rank and file paying customers and the talent. Big-name authors were milling about the venues and buying drinks in the bar. There was no velvet rope separating the readers from the writers. Which was just as well, because almost everybody I met was both. I met a lot of cool people, both fans and authors, and got some great ideas and advice.

The centrepiece of the festival was the Scottish Crime Novel of the Year dinner on Saturday night. The guest authors were sprinkled liberally around the tables, so that everyone had a 'name' writer at the table. I got Craig Robertson, and took full advantage of the fact by interrogating him about the best way to be a working crime writer. Craig gave me some great advice and told me that as a writer with an agent and a book deal, I'm now eligible to join the Crime Writers Association. By coincidence, I had recently picked up Craig's Cold Grave, which has now moved to the next slot on my to-read list.

I went along to see my fellow Orion author Denise Mina talking about her experiences working for DC Comics, and particularly adapting Girl With the Dragon Tattoo for the medium. Denise was great as always (intimidatingly great - she could pretty much give up the writing and get paid for going around the world giving interesting talks), and it was interesting to hear about the process of adapting a novel into the graphic medium and the importance of being nice to artists. Interestingly, the crowd was mostly crime readers rather than comic readers, and Denise had to explain to them the age-old split between Marvel and DC fans. I've actually never really been firmly on one side or the other, and I can't understand people that refuse to read a book purely based on which company publishes it, but there you go. If you push me, I guess I'm a Marvel guy, but I like Batman better than any Marvel character.

Mark Billingham and Stuart Neville teamed up for a great event called Masters of the Dark, and the topics ranged from the pros and cons of killing off a series character to real-life policing anecdotes that would sound ridiculous if you tried to put them in a work of fiction. As someone once said, just because it happened doesn't mean it's believeable.

I went along to see Craig Robertson (along with Chris Carter this time) for a fascinating talk on serial killers, both fictional and real. It was great timing for me, as I'm currently finishing off a serial killer novel, and it was both comforting and alarming to discover there are other people who sit around all day thinking up ingenious ways to get away with murder. I'd love to read a medical thesis someday on the crossover between serial killers and crime fiction authors.

The festival closed with the main attraction: Lee Child. I've been a massive fan of Lee's since I picked up my first Reacher book a few years ago, and he didn't disappoint in person. He covered a lot of ground onstage, from his own life story to the deceptive heights of Hollywood stars. As a writer, I was particularly interested in what he had to say about the genesis of Reacher, and how so much of what is fundamental about the character (his lack of a supporting cast, freedom from a drinking problem, his approach to laundry, even his name) came about as a reaction to a lot of the existing conventions in crime fiction. He also gave us a glimpse into Reacher's future, and at an eventual end-point to the series.

I stuck around for the signing and got to meet Lee in person. He was friendly, approachable and cool, like most of the thriller authors I've met. I got him to sign Never Go Back for my wife, who's also a big Reacher fan (she had stayed at home with the kids to let me go to the festival, so I thought she really deserved it).

After that, I got back in the car and headed home to get back to work on book two. Killing Season will have been out for a few months this time next year, so it would be nice to come back to the festival as a published author, as well as a fan.