Russel D McLean
Russel D McLean is an experienced author with seven previous novels to his name, five of them in the popular McNee series, published in several countries. He writes a monthly crime fiction column for the Herald in Scotland and works as a scout identifying emerging crime authors. He spent 10 years as a bookseller in Dundee and Glasgow whilst developing his writing and editing. And When I Die was his first book for Contraband, followed by Ed’s Dead.
Ed’s Dead
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Meet Jen. She works in a bookshop and likes the odd glass of Prosecco… oh, and she’s about to be branded The Most Dangerous Woman in Scotland.
Jen Carter is a failed writer with a rubbish boyfriend, Ed. That is, until she accidentally kills him one night. Now that Ed’s dead, she has to decide what to do with his body, his drugs and a big pile of cash. And, more pressingly, how to escape the hitman who’s been sent to recover Ed’s stash. Soon Jen’s on the run from criminals, corrupt police officers and the prying eyes of the media. Who can she trust? And how can she convince them that the trail of corpses left in her wake are just accidental deaths?
A modern noir that proves, once and for all, the female of the species really is more deadly than the male.
REVIEWS OF Ed’s Dead
“Pitch black humour… fascinating…gripping.” The Herald
“A thoroughly contemporary crime thriller which has its tongue in its cheek while maintaining the suspense and tension that readers would expect… Terrific fun to read.” Alistair Braidwood, Scots Whay Hae
"Thrills and spills… one to relish." Crime Fiction Lover
“One of Scotland’s most skilled noiristas… a book which will appeal to booksellers everywhere, especially homicidal ones.” Mike Ripley, Shots magazine
“This book is fantastic! Fast paced and at times just utter nuts… A beautiful masterpiece of modern Scottish Noir that leaves you unsure about whether you should laugh or cry.” Amanda Gillies, Eurocrime
“We're not sure when we last enjoyed a book quite this much … The sheer pace of the story carries you along breathlessly … Hugely entertaining.” Undiscovered Scotland
"Funny and fierce, and a heroine worth rooting for..." - Brooke Magnanti
Double Exposure
Brian Johnstone
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Two revelations, each coming to light 20 years apart following the deaths of his father and mother, prompt Brian Johnstone to turn a poet’s eye on his 1950s childhood and explore his parents’ lives before and during World War II. His double set of discoveries lead him to encounter relatives both forgotten and unknown, to free an elderly cousin from the burden of a secret kept for a lifetime, and to forge an enduring relationship with the half-sister he never knew he had.
In a memoir sure to resonate with baby-boomers and anyone who has lost and found unknown relatives, Brian ponders why he was never trusted with the truth and vividly evokes a post-war upbringing, under whose conventional surface so much was hidden.
REVIEWS OF Double Exposure
"A memoir not of misery but of love deflected and deferred." - James Robertson
"An affecting tale... the sense of loss is palpable." - Louis de Bernières.
The G-String Murders
Gypsy Rose Lee
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Narrating the twisted tale of a backstage double murder, Gypsy Rose Lee, the queen of the striptease, provides a tantalising glimpse into the underworld of burlesque theatre in 1940s America.
When one performer is found strangled with a G-string, no one is above suspicion. A host of clueless coppers face off against the theatre’s tough-talking guys and dolls, and when a second murder occurs, it’s clear that Gypsy and her cohorts will have to crack the case themselves.
A dazzling and wisecracking murder mystery noir that was the basis of the 1943 film Lady of Burlesque, starring Barbara Stanwyck.
REVIEWS OF The G-String Murders
"Recommended for the readers who feel better when their eyebrows are raised.” – The New Yorker
“A lurid, witty and highly competent detective story ... Rich showbusiness vocabulary and stage-door gags make her book almost a social document. The G-String Murders build up to a hair-raising climax.” – Time magazine.
“[Lee’s] novel is a rich and lusty job, brimming over with infectious vitality and a hilarious jargon of her own.” – Life
Claire MacLeary
Claire MacLeary lived for many years in Aberdeen and St Andrews, but describes herself as “a feisty Glaswegian with a full life to draw on”. Following a career in business, she gained an MLitt with Distinction from the University of Dundee and her short stories have been published in various magazines and anthologies. She has appeared at Granite Noir, Noir at the Bar and other literary events.
Claire’s crime series, Harcus & Laird, has been recieved with wide acclaim. Her debut novel and the first in the series, Cross Purpose, was longlisted for the prestigious McIlvanney Prize, Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award 2017. Burnout was longlisted for the Hearst Big Book Award 2018. Runaway, her third novel, was published in 2019. Payback is Claire’s fourth novel and continues the Harcus & Laird series.
In Death Drop, the fifth Harcus & Laird novel, PIs Maggie and Wilma find themselves chasing leads on several fronts, including a missing Aberdeen schoolchild and the fallout from a disturbing hanging with a backstory of secrets and lies. Death Drop is out in July 2022.
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Longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize, Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2017
When Maggie Laird’s disgraced ex-cop husband suddenly dies, her humdrum suburban life is turned upside down. With the bills mounting, she takes on his struggling detective agency, enlisting the help of neighbour ‘Big Wilma’. And so an unlikely partnership is born.
But the discovery of a crudely mutilated body soon raises the stakes… and Maggie and Wilma are drawn into an unknown world of Aberdeen’s sink estates, clandestine childminding and dodgy dealers.
Cross Purpose is surprising, gritty, sometimes darkly humorous – a tale combining police corruption, gangs and murder with a paean to friendship, loyalty and how ‘women of a certain age’ can beat the odds.
Prizes and awards
LONGLISTED, McIlvanney Prize, Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2017
REVIEWS OF Cross Purpose
"A dark devious delight, definitely one to watch." - Neil Broadfoot
"Crime fiction has a new stellar voice in Claire MacLeary. Cross Purpose is feisty, funny and darkly delicious." – Michael J Malone.
"A terrific crime debut... compelling to the end." - Theresa Talbot
Robin Noble
The Islands and Highlands of northern Scotland run deep in the blood of Robin Noble. He is a naturalist who leads groups at the world-renowned Aigas Field Centre run by Sir John Lister-Kaye, and an eminent expert on the ancient woodlands of the Highlands. He’s also an artist, singer and hill-walker. His history of the Highlands, Castles in the Mist, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society History Book of the Year award, whilst North and West explored Scotland’s wilderness. His latest book, Sagas of Salt and Stone, is a love letter to Orkney.
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The magnificent Highlands of Scotland represent, in so many ways, ancient Britain. But much of this apparently wild environment is, in fact, far more recent in origin – it has been shaped by the Victorians. Castles in the Mist reveals how, for better or for worse, the vast sporting estates of the Victorian era created the salmon rivers, deer forests and grouse moors, transforming the Highlands into the landscape that we recognise today, with its attendant environmental problems. In a seductive blend of memoir, history and natural history, Robin Noble explores the colossal impact of the Victorian legacy in his beloved Highlands and issues a clarion call for change… to start tipping the balance back in nature’s favour.
Prizes and awards
Saltire Society History Book of the Year 2016, SHORTLISTED
REVIEWS OF Castles in the Mist
“A valuable insight into the historical context of the evolution of the current Highland landscape.” Mike Daniels, John Muir Trust Journal, Spring 2017
“Essential reading … If you think you know Scotland, then this book will probably make you think again, for there is much here that is thought-provoking and more than a little that is surprising … The Highlands and Islands have changed far more profoundly than most of us realise. Which more than anything else is what makes this such an important book.” Undiscovered Scotland
"Compelling. Noble is a wonderful guide… He blends together history, ornithology and a keen sense of economics with a highly personal approach to landscape." Brian Morton, The National
“A fascinating blend of history and natural history, an account of a landscape and how it came to be the way it is…thoughtful, informed…refreshing.” Northwords Now
Saltire Society History Book of the Year 2016, SHORTLISTED
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.
Skylark
by Jim Crumley
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In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the skylark. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.
“Watch this bird poised on a tussock, awaiting a signal from the wind, a thumbs up, an urging gust. Lift-off is gently inclined and silent. The transformations from gentle incline to vertical columnar flight, and from silence to song, coincide within a few airborne seconds, a few feet of ascent. The song is full-throated from the first note, as self-confident as the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth or Armstrong’s West End Blues. There is no preamble, no subtle dropped hint of the glories to come. The glories start with the downbeat.”
REVIEWS OF Skylark
“Enthralling and often strident.” Observer
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.
Badger
by Jim Crumley
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In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the badger. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives. “Suddenly the boar’s face was back, peering up from almost ground level beneath the lowest sweep of the spruce branches. Almost at once, the sow was right beside him. Then came the cubs. For perhaps ten seconds, no more, all four faces gleamed garishly out of the forest at me. They looked like nothing so much as characters in a puppet theatre and an absurd image came into my head of the puppet master crouched behind them, dangling two puppet masks on strings from each hand. In all my badger encounters, nothing has charmed me so utterly as those ten seconds.”
REVIEWS OF Badger
‘Virtuoso writing… Jim Crumley’s books come from an intelligence drawn from place.’ BBC Countryfile
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.
The Dead Don’t Boogie
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A missing teenage girl should be an easy job for Dominic Queste – after all, finding lost souls is what he does best. But wouldn’t it be better sometimes if lost souls just stayed that way?
Jenny Deavers is trouble, especially for an ex- cokehead like Queste. She’s being hunted. And for the people tracking her, murder is nothing.
As the bodies pile up, so does the pressure on Queste both to protect Jenny and to find out who wants her dead. The trail leads him to a brutal world of gangsters, merciless hitmen, dark family secrets and an insatiable lust for power in the highest echelons of politics.
REVIEWS OF The Dead Don’t Boogie
“Fast-paced, funny and frightening – Dominic Queste’s first outing supplies it all.” Lin Anderson
“Absolutely brilliant ... vastly entertaining ... takes Skelton into the crime fiction big league.” Alex Gray
“Smart, sassy and funny as hell.” Neil Broadfoot
“If you like your humour black and your detective novels hard boiled, this is a cut above the rest.” Theresa Talbot
“Dark noir at its finest ... compulsive reading. One of the best crime novels I have read in a long time." Mark Leggatt
“A white-knuckle, wisecracking thrill-ride.” Caro Ramsay
Russel D McLean
Russel D McLean is an experienced author with seven previous novels to his name, five of them in the popular McNee series, published in several countries. He writes a monthly crime fiction column for the Herald in Scotland and works as a scout identifying emerging crime authors. He spent 10 years as a bookseller in Dundee and Glasgow whilst developing his writing and editing. And When I Die was his first book for Contraband, followed by Ed’s Dead.
And When I Die
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Born into one of Glasgow’s most brutal crime syndicates, Kat Scobie has fought long and hard to forge her own path in a world where no choices are given. She thought she’d escaped. She thought she was different.
But as her relatives gather to mourn the death of their most feared son, Kat is drawn inexorably back into their hellish world. And she’s not the only Scobie who resents the family dynamic…
Because Ray Scobie isn’t dead. He’s near-fatally wounded, hell-bent on revenge, and he knows his own father ordered his murder.
Now the only person who can stop the carnage is Kat’s ex-lover John, a cop who’s so deep undercover he’s started to lose himself. With his cover crumbling around him, John’s about to discover that FAMILIES CAN BE MURDER.
REVIEWS OF And When I Die
“Chillingly plausible… a beautifully paced, action-packed thriller of a book.” James Oswald
“Great pacing…clever twists.” Crimespree
“Brutal and driven … at its heart is Kat Scobie – complicated and conflicted but achingly real.” Eva Dolan
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 Autumn
by Jim Crumley
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Longlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2017
In autumn nature stages some of its most enchantingly beautiful displays; yet it’s also a period for reflection, melancholy even, as the days shorten and winter’s chill approaches.
Taking in September to November, Jim Crumley tells the story of how unfolding autumn affects the wildlife of his beloved land – from the windswept Western Isles and the unforgiving Cairngorm plateau to the gentler, graceful landscapes of Loch Lomond and Stirling. Along the way, Jim experiences the deer rut, finds phenomenal redwood trees in the most unexpected of places, and contemplates climate change, the death of his father, and his own love of nature; thus painting an intimate – and deeply personal – portrait of a moody and majestic British autumn.
Prizes and awards
SHORTLISTED, The Richard Jefferies Society and White Horse Bookshop Literary Prize 2017
LONGLISTED, Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize 2017
REVIEWS OF The Nature of Autumn
"A delightful meditation." The Guardian
"A cornucopia of autumnal delight." The Scots Magazine
"A love song to 'earth’s reviver and replenisher'." Dundee Courier
"Breathtaking…this magical pilgrimage visits enchanting and hidden places…with characteristic moments of close observation, immersion and poetry Crumley witnesses the melancholic textures and haunting transformations of this most beautiful season. This nature book is a delight." Miriam Darlington, BBC Wildlife
"Crumley always manages to combine an extraordinary depth of…knowledge with vivid warm writing and a clear love of what he is writing about.…çrumley is one of an endangered species – the real naturalists. Enchanting." Sara Maitland, BBC Countryfile
"Nature writing [with] a higher tensile strength than most." The Herald
