For the first time, the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize has an all-women shortlist, organisers have announced. Five authors are competing for the 2026 award, with the winner revealed at the Bloody Scotland festival in Stirling in September.
The shortlisted novels include A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford, who graduated from the University of Glasgow creative writing course at age 60, tutored by bestselling crime writer Louise Welsh. Also in the running are Original Sins by Linda Duncan McLaughlin, a playwright and screenwriter for BBC Scotland's River City, and We Know What You Did by Scottish journalist Kirsty Lockwood.
The remaining nominees are The Vanishing Place by Zoe Rankin, who grew up in Scotland but now lives in New Zealand, and Liar Thief by May Rinaldi, based in Dumfries and Galloway.
Crime writer Denise Mina, guest programmer for the festival, congratulated the authors. She said: 'As a previous judge of the Women's Prize for Fiction, I am absolutely delighted to see that the 2026 Bloody Scotland Debut shortlist is entirely made up of women. For decades, shortlists only had occasional women or none at all.'
The judges are broadcaster Bryan Burnett and crime writer Vaseem Khan, with the panel chaired by Bloody Scotland co-founder Alex Gray. The winner will be announced on September 18 at the Church of the Holy Rude.
