Showing posts with label Steve Cavanagh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Cavanagh. Show all posts

Thursday, 2 July 2020

Locked Up Festival

This afternoon sees the opening of the first-ever Locked Up Festival, organised by Steve Cavanagh and Luca Veste of the brilliant Two Crime Writers and a Microphone podcast.

As you would expect from the title and, well, *gestures at the world* this is a virtual festival, which means you can attend from wherever you happen to be on the planet.

Just check out this amazing lineup...




I'm really proud to be helping open the festival at 2:30pm this afternoon. Our panel is on One Star Reviews (n.b. I've got enough, if you were thinking of kindly providing me with inspiration), and I'll be talking to Elly Griffiths, Chris Brookmyre and Mark Billingham about our best worst reviews.

Tickets for the full weekend are a mere £20, and every penny goes to support the work of the Trussell Trust. I believe ticket holders will be able to view panels on catchup after the live broadcast, which I guess is one big advantage over a physical festival.

Get your tickets here, but be fast, as it's almost sold out.

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

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.


Monday, 5 October 2015

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.


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...





Monday, 31 August 2015

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2015

I was delighted to be asked back to the Edinburgh International Book Festival for a second year running. This year by luck or design I was sharing an event with my fellow Orion (relative) newbie Steve Cavanagh, who was talking about his excellent debut novel The Defence. He's up for the festival's First Book Award, so if you loved The Defence as much as I did, click here to vote for it.

First of all I stopped by Blackwell's bookshop on South Bridge Street and signed some copies of The Samaritan and Killing Season. It's a great shop with an excellent crime section, which I heartily recommend if you're in the neighbourhood.


I headed over to the book festival, hosted as always in the magnificent Charlotte square, checked into the author's yurt and caught up with Steve. We met up with our interviewer, fellow crime author Russel D Mclean and talked about the format. Shortly before game time, we were mic-d up and escorted to the theatre.

This was an unusual event for me because for once I wasn't the sole American crime fiction writer on the bill. Steve writes New York-set legal thrillers and hails from Belfast, so we both got to talk about the benefits and challenges of writing US-based books, our transatlantic influences, and how we do our research. Steve spoke about the differences between the American and British legal systems, and why the UK system doesn't lend itself particularly well to the genre.


We covered a multitude of other topics, from how we got an agent and published, to who we would cast in the movie. I discovered that Steve's authenticity in fight scenes comes from his boxing days, and that the first novel has a carefully-designed Alice in Wonderland subtext.

After the main event, we met some readers, signed some copies and then retreated to the festival grounds to drink a few beers under the stars. For some reason a pair of F-16s performed a flyby. I suspect it wasn't related to our event, but I wouldn't discount it: this is a book festival that knows how to make its authors feel welcome.




Thursday, 11 June 2015

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...

Monday, 16 March 2015

Competitions and reviews and other stuff

Scottish Book Trust are running a competition to win a limited edition slipcase set of The Killing Season and The Samaritan - all you need to do is click here and tell them what your favourite crime book is (no extra points for it being one of mine).


As part of the competition, they also asked me to pick my top six forgotten crime classics, although weirdly only five are showing at the moment (number 6 is Geoffrey Household's awesome Rogue Male, if you're interested). I feel like I cheated a little including A Kiss Before Dying as it's not exactly forgotten, but it's much less well-known than it deserves to be. You'll need to go to the article to find out the rest of my picks.

Speaking of giveaways, there's still lots of time to enter to win a copy of The Killing Season on audiobook, and (not quite a giveaway, but damn near), the ebook is currently on sale at only £1.99 on Amazon.co.uk and Sainsburys in the UK.

Couple of nice reviews around the US hardcover and ahead of the UK paperback release. Book Addict Shaun gave it 4.5 out of 5 and said:

The Killing Season was an exhilarating roller coaster ride of a read and when I finished it I wanted to read it all over again. Brutally fast-paced and brilliantly addictive, I can't recommend this book enough.

Kingdom Books in Vermont liked the way Killing Season operated in the same field as Jack Reacher while changing the pattern somewhat, and said:

Cross provides plot twists that raise the ante, as well as the suspense. Hard to believe this one's a debut; I'll be watching for more of his books.

Simon McDonald thought it was a solid thriller and that:

While there’s nothing innovative on display, The Killing Season is finely crafted with a confidence that rarely radiates from debuts. It’s soundly constructed, and moves quickly, with plenty of action, and a deep-lying conspiracy that propels the novel above the genre’s riff-raff.

Other stuff


Whew, seems like there's a lot to catch up on.

Fiona at Author Interviews gives yours truly the third degree about who I am and how I came to be.

I've confirmed a few more events and will be announcing them as soon as I can, so check the events page next time you drop by.

I've been busy over at the Murder Room, with the latest of my and Steve Cavanagh's Bosch reviews, as well as blogs on three movie-inspiring noir classics: The Maltese Falcon, Cape Fear and Psycho.

And speaking of Steve Cavanagh, his debut novel The Defence is finally out - it starts with a head in a bag, a kidnapping, and a bomb strapped to the hero and gets more exciting from there. It's awesome, go buy it.

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Library event

Just a quick reminder that I'm going to be at Cambuslang Library this Saturday at 2:30pm if you're in the vicinity. I'm going to be reading from The Samaritan (which means I need to find a good excerpt soonish) and generally talking about writing, books etc etc. My last event there (it seems a bit grandiose to call it an 'appearance') was a lot of fun and really well-attended, so hopefully this one will follow suit.


Couple of other things...


Myself and fellow Orion thriller dude Steve Cavanagh are taking turns reviewing Amazon's new Bosch series based on Michael Connelly's acclaimed novels - my blog on episode one is up now at the Murder Room.


Also at the Murder Room, it's my turn to blog on John D. MacDonald's classic Cape Fear, aka The Executioners. If you're only familiar with the film(s) you should definitely check it out.