Iain Maitland
Iain Maitland is the author of thrillers: The Scribbler (2020) Mr Todd’s Reckoning (2019) and Sweet William (2017) as well as two non-fiction books on mental health: Dear Michael, Love Dad (2016) and Out of the Madhouse (2018). An ambassador for Stem4, the teenage mental health charity, Iain also speaks on mental health issues in the workplace. A writer since 1987, he is a journalist and has written more than 50 books, mainly on business, which have been published around the world.
Sweet William
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JUST ONE CHANCE
NOW OR NEVER …
Sweet William is a breathtakingly dark thriller that spans forty-eight hours in the life of a desperate father and a three-year-old child in peril, who needs insulin to stay alive. It tells a story of mental illness, a foster family under pressure, and an angry father separated from his adored little boy.
Brilliant and terrifying, this is a debut novel whose impact will linger long beyond the chase and its shattering climax.
… RUN!
REVIEWS OF Sweet William
“If you’re looking for a thriller that’s both gripping and moving, Sweet William is the book for you. Set over a breathtaking 48 hours, it documents the actions of a desperate father willing to go to any lengths to be with his young diabetic son. It begins with the man’s daring escape from a secure psychiatric unit and the pace never lets up until the book reaches its dramatic climax. Author Iain Maitland is a journalist with a track record of writing about mental health and his knowledge and expertise come across on every page. Taut, darkly humorous and heartbreaking all at the same time, with an unforgettable narrator, Sweet William packs a real emotional punch.” Lisa Gray, Daily Record Book Club Read more
"Extremely well written and very frightening." Barbara Nadel
"A breathless journey through fear and love that explores how interdependent those two extreme emotions are." Ewan Morrison
Jim Crumley
Jim Crumley is the author of more than forty books, mostly on the wildlife and wild landscape of his native Scotland, many of them making the case for species reintroductions, or ‘rewilding’. His Seasons series, a quartet of books exploring the wildlife and landscapes and how climate change is affecting our environment across the four seasons, is highly acclaimed. The Nature of Autumn was longlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2017 and shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Bookshop Literary Prize 2017. The third in the series, The Nature of Spring, was Radio 4’s Book of the Week. The Nature of Summer, was shortlisted for the 2021 Highland Book Prize. The Eagle’s Way was shortlisted for a prestigious Saltire Society award, and his Encounters in the Wild series – which sees Jim get up close and personal with Britain’s favourite animals – has found him many new readers. He has written about the return of the beaver to the UK’s wetlands in Nature’s Architect, and his most recent title is Lakeland Wild, his first to focus entirely on an English landscape. Lakeland Wild was longlisted for the 2022 Lakeland Book of the Year prize. Jim is also a poet, an occasional broadcaster on both radio and television and a widely published journalist who wrote columns for the Dundee Courier for many years and has a monthly column in The Scots Magazine.
The Seasons quartet is now available in one handsome hardback edition, Seasons of Storm and Wonder.
The Nature of Winter
by Jim Crumley
During winter, dark days of wild storms can give way to the perfect, glistening stillness of frost-encrusted winter landscapes – it is the stuff of wonder and beauty, of nature at its utmost. In The Nature of Winter, Jim Crumley ventures into our countryside to experience firsthand the chaos and the quiet solitude of nature’s rest period. He bears witness to the lives of remarkable animals such as golden eagles, red deer and even whales as they battle intemperate weather and the turbulence of climate change.
In the snow Jim discovers ancient footsteps that lead him to reflect on the journey of his personal nature-writing life – a journey that takes in mountain legends, dear departed friends and an enduring fascination and deep love for nature. Simply, he evokes winter in all its drama, in all its pathos, in all its glory.
REVIEWS OF The Nature of Winter
"This book is all luminous moments, small delights and bright meditations drawn from the northern cold… there is deeply indigenous wisdom here… Crumley invites us to linger a while and witness frosty gifts made vivid by the warmth of his conversation." Miriam Darlington, BBC Wildlife Magazine
"Connoisseurs of nature and good writing will be enthralled by his first-person wildlife encounters. His accounts…are written with dazzling clarity, lyrical tilt and a story-teller’s skill." Julie Brominicks, BBC Countryfile Magazine, Book of the Month
"Inviting and informative…Crumley has earned himself the enviable position of our foremost nature commentator…Meditative…bewitching…outspoken…persuasive…a true winter's tale." Rosemary Goring, Herald
Graeme Macrae Burnet
Graeme Macrae Burnet was born in Kilmarnock and now lives in Glasgow. He is the author of five novels and a novella. His novels are His Bloody Project, Case Study and the French-set Gorski trilogy, the final part of which A Case of Matricide was published in October 2024. His novella Benbecula was published in October 2025 in Polygon’s Darklands series. The Guardian called it ‘intense and utterly compelling.’
His Bloody Project was shortlisted for the 2016 Booker Prize, the LA Times Mystery Book of the Year and the European Crime Fiction prize and won the Saltire Prize for Fiction. It was variously described as ‘astonishing’, ‘fiendishly readable’ and ‘spellbinding’. Case Study was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and included in the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2022. Hannah Kent called it ‘a novel of mind-bending brilliance.’ The Financial Times declared A Case of Matricide ‘a triumph’. It won the Australian Crime Writers Best International Crime award.
Graeme’s work has been translated into more than twenty languages, and he has appeared at festivals all over the world.
The Accident on the A35
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There does not appear to be anything remarkable about the fatal car crash on the A35. But one question dogs Inspector Georges Gorski: where has the victim, an outwardly austere lawyer, been on the night of his death?
The troubled Gorski finds himself drawn into a mystery that takes him behind the respectable veneer of the sleepy French backwater of Saint-Louis.
Graeme Macrae Burnet returns with a literary mystery that will beguile fans of His Bloody Project and The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau. Darkly humorous, subtle and sophisticated, The Accident on the A35 burrows deep into the psyches of its characters and explores the forgotten corners of small-town life.
Prizes and awards
Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2018, LONGLISTED
Hearst Big Book Awards – Harpers Bazaar Modern Classics 2018, LONGLISTED
REVIEWS OF The Accident on the A35
"Gripping and intelligent." Philip Pullman
"Highly accomplished, The Accident on the A35 works on several levels… The narration has the simple momentum of classic crime writing… It has a denouement like something out of Greek tragedy but delivers as a proper police procedural too… Burnet’s cleverness doesn’t get in the way of your enjoyment but playfully adds levels of meaning." Anthony Cummins, Observer
"[A] truly superlative tale… fascinating… one of the most clever and compelling novels to be published this year." Lesley McDowell, Herald
"★★★★ As steeped in the works of Simenon as a good boeuf bourgignon is in red wine. The characters’ pretensions are mercilessly exposed in frill-free prose… What matters, of course, is whether a novel’s characters seem to the reader to be alive. Burnet’s do." Jake Kerridge, Telegraph
"There are so many echoes of French writers in this book… [Raymond] is a fantastic depiction of the typical alienated teenager." Alex Clark, BBC Radio 4 Open Book
"Clever, meandering and oh, so French… Burnet really has — a rare thing nowadays — a novelist’s eye… I confess myself seduced by the atmosphere of provincial ennui. I longed to shrug gallically at a detective through a haze of cigarette smoke, to pour myself a drink from a cut-glass decanter, to drive to the next town to make acrobatic love to a beautiful…I’m getting carried away." James Marriott, Times
"Graeme Macrae Burnet's best book yet. A unique and compelling novel…[It] works perfectly as a page-turning crime fiction, but it’s also moody and Gallic and wittily deadly serious." Chris Dolan
"Elegant, craftily written and frequently funny." Phil Miller, Herald
"Simenon fans will feel at home in the claustrophobic and petty-minded atmosphere of the French provinces." The Times and Sunday Times Crime Club ‘Picks of the Month’
"Fans of His Bloody Project will [enjoy] familiar themes including questions of authorship, betrayal, family, love, death, truth and lies (or rather, what can be said to be true, if anything, and what is false?), and the possibilities of youth versus the reality of adulthood." Alistair Braidwood, Scots Whay Hae
The Archangels’ Share
The Story of the World's First Syndicate of Business Angels
Kenny Kemp
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The remarkable inside story of Archangels, the oldest and one of the biggest business angel syndicates in the world.
In 1992, angel investment was practically unheard of in Scotland… 25 years later, Archangels has invested more than £200m into some 80 early-stage companies, helping them grow into flourishing enterprises. This book uncovers the unique business relationship between Archangels founders Barry Sealey and Mike Rutterford, and follows their groundbreaking journey to the present day.
Providing invaluable advice for would-be investors, The Archangels’ Share tells of successes and failures along the way, explores just how they formed such a successful business angel syndicate, and explains why Scotland has emerged as a global leader in angel investing. And it reveals the energy, passion and skill of two extraordinary men who created an international phenomenon. With a foreword by Sir Brian Souter.
Maggie Ritchie
Maggie Ritchie grew up in Zambia and is an award-winning author and journalist who has written for the Daily Mail, Times, Herald and Daily Record. She has an MLitt (Distinction) from the University of Glasgow and her debut novel, Paris Kiss (Saraband, 2015), won the Curtis Brown Prize, was runner-up for the Sceptre Prize and was longlisted in the Mslexia First Novel Competition. The German edition appeared on bestseller charts, and the novel has also been translated into Czech. She is also the author of Looking for Evelyn (Saraband, 2017)
Looking for Evelyn
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Chrissie Docherty returns to the southern Africa of her childhood and tracks down Evelyn Fielding, the woman at the centre of an explosive scandal involving a traditional colonial officer and a gifted black African artist. Together, the two women uncover the secrets that shattered a remote expatriate outpost in the Zambian bush in the 1970s.
Switching deftly between today and the recent past, and set against a background of tense post-colonial race relations, political turmoil and witchcraft, Looking for Evelyn powerfully evokes the very special colours, sounds and smells of Africa.
Prizes and awards
Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize 2018, SHORTLISTED
REVIEWS OF Looking for Evelyn
"The gentle pace of the novel is enhanced by the descriptions of the beauty of southern Africa, while Ritchie thoroughly yet succinctly covers the racial and political tensions of the time. If you’re looking for a holiday book to transport you to southern Africa, this is it." Julie Bryson, Daily Mail
"Gripping and thought-provoking... Richly atmospheric and blistering with tension." Zoe Strachan
"Maggie Ritchie paints a vivid picture of a complex Africa. A compelling read!" Sarah Maine
"A deliciously provocative mix of exotic locations, sexual scandal and the end of colonialism." Lesley McDowell, The National
“You can see, taste and feel the dusty red roads of the South African bush in this rich, evocative exploration of love, jealousy and betrayal in post-colonial Zambia in the 1970s.” Jackie Copleton
Louise Hutcheson
Louise Hutcheson has a PhD in Scottish Literature from the University of Glasgow. She works in broadcast and digital media and is a freelance editor who has edited a number of crime novels and other fiction. Louise also created and runs a highly respected review site for new fiction. The Paper Cell is her first book.
The Paper Cell
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From the publisher of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project, The Paper Cell is the first in a new series of distinctive, standalone crime stories, each with a literary bent.
In 1950s London, a literary agent finds fame when he secretly steals a young woman’s brilliant novel manuscript and publishes it under his own name, Lewis Carson. Two days after their meeting, the woman is found strangled on Peckham Rye Common: did Lewis purloin the manuscript as an act of callous opportunism, or as the spoils of a calculated murder?
REVIEWS OF The Paper Cell
"A lovely little book… [Its] strength is in the build-up, and it is really a character study of those involved – and a study of how they unravel afterwards over time.” Blue Book Balloon
“A fascinating narrative exploring guilt, secrecy and the impact of lifestyle choices in a very different 1950s society… A modern-day Charles Dickens meets Agatha Christie with a little twist of Oscar Wilde thrown in to spice it up!” Chapter in My Life
“There is betrayal, bitchiness, cruelty, debauchery, and that’s before there is any suggestion of death. From lust to pride and back again, all the deadly sins are present and correct. The characters are mostly beyond redemption, which of course makes them utterly captivating…Literate, literary, thoughtful and thoroughly entertaining.” Scots Whay Hae
“An unexpected joy … I loved the 1950s setting, that it was about writers, and the complex gay love story.” Kirsty Logan
Sally McGrane
Sally McGrane was born in Berkeley, California, but has lived in Berlin for the last decade working as a journalist. She writes about the culture, business, politics and science of Western Europe, Russia and Ukraine for the New York Times, New Yorker, Die Zeit, Monocle and many other publications. Moscow at Midnight is her first novel.
Moscow at Midnight
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A Sunday Times Crime Club Star Pick*****
Max Rushmore is re-hired by the CIA to return to Moscow and investigate the death of a beautiful nuclear waste disposal expert. But Max, who can drink even the Russians under the table, soon uncovers all sorts of inconsistencies: could it even be that she is not dead at all?
So begins a game of cat-and-mouse that takes Max across Russia, from St Petersburg to Novosibirsk, as he follows his only clue: a rare Siberian diamond.
With all the breathless tension of classic espionage novels, Moscow at Midnight is both humorous and utterly enthralling – in every sense, a fast-paced pageturner of the old school.
REVIEWS OF Moscow at Midnight
"Grimy charm, acerbic wit." The Times & Sunday Times Crime Club Star Pick
“Great! Tense right up to the final page... A multi-layered, thrilling novel that is diffcult to resist and hard to put down, even at the end.” – Süddeutsche Zeitung.
“Sally McGrane’s fantastic debut is a commentary on the madness of Russia, in general – and Moscow, in particular.” Die Welt.
“Perfect for anyone who loves exciting detective and spy stories.” – Sankt Michaelsbund.
“A worthy successor to John le Carré... A fast-paced, well-written spy thriller, full of unexpected twists and turns.” – Buchbord
Barry Smith
Barry Smith is, it goes without saying, an islomane. He has spent much of his 60-odd years at work, rest and play on islands all around the world – from Scotland’s Western Isles to Sicily, from Alaska to Cape Horn. To cap it all, he has completed a doctoral dissertation… about islands. He lives in northern Scotland and France.
The Island in Imagination and Experience
by Barry Smith
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From Treasure Island to Robben Island, from the paradise of Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ to Napoleon’s purgatory on Elba, islands have proved irresistible to mankind’s imagination since time immemorial. Self-confessed islomane Barry Smith explores how islands bewitch us so, and examines the kind of human experiences that islands inspire.
Journeying all around the globe to take in the most fascinating stories of Earth’s half a million islands, this book considers the unique geography, politics and economics of islands and their cultures. It traces their singular place in literature, religion and philosophy, and disentangles the myths and the facts to reveal just why islands exert such an insistent grip on the human psyche.
REVIEWS OF The Island in Imagination and Experience
"Magisterial… A harrowing, enthralling piece of work that bears comparison with John Prebble’s equally dense, equally passionate classic, The Highland Clearances." Jim Perrin, The Great Outdoors
"A fascinating survey of the interplay between those little dots of land and the human imagination … Smith is excellent on the ways in which islands have always been pawns in geopolitical games…witty." Geographical
"Fascinating and wide-ranging." Island Review
"Nothing Barry Smith says makes me want to live on islands but if you want to read about them, he’s your man." Alan Taylor, Herald
Douglas Skelton
Douglas Skelton, shortlisted for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2016, is a writer who specialises in the darker side of things: he’s a former journalist who has published eleven true crime books. In 2011 he made the leap to writing crime fiction, beginning with the hugely successful series of Davie McCall thrillers and continuing with the Dominic Queste series: The Dead Don’t Boogie and Tag – You’re Dead. His latest thriller, The Janus Run, is NYC noir at its finest.
Tag – You’re Dead
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Maverick investigator Dominic Queste is on the trail of missing butcher Sam Price. But he soon uncovers links to a killer with a taste for games.
What began as a simple favour for his girlfriend quickly descends into a battle for survival against an enemy who has no qualms about turning victims into prime cuts. Amidst a twisted game of cat and mouse, suspicious coppers, vicious crooks and a seemingly random burglary, Queste has to keep his wits about him.
Or he might just find himself on the butcher’s block.
REVIEWS OF Tag – You’re Dead
“A thoroughly gripping whodunit that shows just how darkly humorous Tartan Noir can become: and how genuinely chilling it can be at the same time.” Undiscovered Scotland
Kenneth Steven
Kenneth Steven is a successful poet, novelist and children’s writer who has published some 25 books. His BBC Radio 4 documentary on the island of St Kilda won him a Sony Award. His previous novel, The Well of the North Wind (SPCK, 2016), was a spiritual tale set on 6th-century Iona, whilst Beneath the Ice (Saraband, 2016) tells the story of the Arctic Sami people. His latest novel, 2020, presents a dystopic vision of Britain at breaking point and was longlisted for The Portico Prize.
2020
Longlisted for the Portico Prize 2019
In 2020, Britain is at breaking point… In a country sorely divided, what happens to empathy and tolerance, to generosity of spirit? And can hope survive?
In 2020, years of economic turmoil, bitter debates over immigration, and anger at the political elites have created a maelstrom, a dis-United Kingdom. The country is a bomb waiting to explode. Then it does.
As the nightmare unfolds, a myriad of voices – from across the political and social spectrum – offer wildly differing perspectives on the chaotic events… and unexpectedly reveal modern Britain’s soul with 20/20 acuity.
Thoughtful, compassionate and sometimes provocative, Kenneth Steven’s 2020 is a parable for our times.
As featured on BBC Radio 4 Front Row
REVIEWS OF 2020
“An important book that should be read by everyone… A gripping and compelling narrative.” Undiscovered Scotland
