Fife author to promote Scottish crime fiction in India

Val, alongside Graeme Macrae Burnet and Abir Mukherjee will be championing contemporary Scottish crime fiction at the Kolkata Literary Festival, where they will also launch Bloody Scotland, an anthology of dark Scottish tales published for the first time in India and at a special price to hook the Indian market.

The activities are part of a project supported by the British Council to help Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s crime writing festival, reach international audiences and grow the global reach of Scotland’s celebrated crime writing scene.

The visit to Kolkata is the culmination of a partnership between Bloody Scotland, BEE Books, and Publishers and Booksellers Guild, which aims to make popular Scottish crime titles available to readers in India at a competitive price.

The anthology features twelve stories from a stellar cast of Scottish writing talent, including Lin Anderson, Ann Cleeves and Denise Mina. Rights were sold to Kolkata-based publisher BEE Books by Edinburgh-based Historic Environment Scotland.

Bloody Scotland chairman Jenny Brown, said “We’re delighted to be working with BEE Books on this innovative partnership to introduce Indian readers to Scottish crime fiction by bringing writers to the Kolkata Literary Festival, and by making their work more accessible in Indian-published editions.

“We know from our visit to KLF last year that there is a huge appetite for Scottish classics including the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde – now we want readers to try contemporary writing.”