McIlvanney Prize Shortlist Announced
5 September 2023
The shortlist for The McIlvanney Prize, Bloody Scotland's annual prize awarded to the best Scottish Crime book of the year, has been announced. More information about Ulverscroft's longlisted titles are below.
The Second Murderer by Denise Mina
Published in large print in September 2023 and CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in August 2023.
It's mid-September, a heatwave has descended on the parched hills of LA and Private Detective Philip Marlowe is called to the Montgomery estate, an almost mythic place sitting high on top of Beverly Hills. Wealthy 22-year-old Chrissie Montgomery, set to inherit an enormous fortune, is missing. She's a walking target, ripe for someone to get their claws into. Her dying father, along with his sultry bottle blonde girlfriend, wants her found before that happens. They've hired Anna Riorden, Marlowe's nemesis, too. The search takes them to the roughest neighbourhoods of LA through dive bars and Skid Row. And that's before he finds the body at The Brody Hotel. Who will get to her first, Marlowe, Anne, or the men chasing her fortune? And does she want to be found?
The Devil's Playground by Craig Russell
Published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in July 2022.
1927. Hollywood studio fixer Mary Rourke is called to the home of silent movie actress Norma Carlton, star of The Devil's Playground. Finding Carlton dead, Rourke wonders if the rumours that The Devil's Playground really is a cursed production are true. But nothing in Hollywood is ever what it seems, and cynical fixer Rourke finds herself seeking out the truth she is used to covering up. 1967. Paul Conway, film historian and silent movie aficionado, is following a tantalising rumour: that a single copy of The Devil's Playground - a Holy Grail for film buffs, supposedly cursed and lost to time - may exist. His search takes him to an isolated desert hotel that hasn't changed in 40 years, harbouring one occupant - and a shocking secret. Separated by decades, both Rourke and Conway begin to suspect that the real Devil's Playground is Hollywood itself.