Bloody Scotland established itself as the leading Scottish International Crime Writing Festival in 2012 with acclaimed writers Lin Anderson and Alex Gray at the helm, then joined by Craig Robertson and Gordon Brown.

Based in Stirling, it has brought hundreds of crime writers, new and established, to the stage over the years.

This year audiences can interact with authors from Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, the USA, France, Iceland, India and Ireland as well from across the UK.

Among them are Peter May, Ann Cleeves, Ragnar Jónasson, Richard Armitage, Louise Minchin, Frank Gardner, Abir Mukherjee, Chris Hammer, Tove Alsterdal, Irvine Welsh, Ruth Ware and Chris Carter.

The Faculty of Advocates is a long-time supporter of the festival. This year it has sponsored two sessions: Auld Reekie and Hold the Front Page.

Auld Reekie features the works of Ambrose Perry and Mairi Kidd, whose novels are set in mid-19th century Edinburgh, a time of world-leading medical advances but also a place of dark deeds and capital crimes.

Breathtaking breakthroughs in surgery and anatomy were cheek to jowl with body-snatching and murder, thus providing rich pickings for writers of historical crime fiction.

Hold the Front Page highlights the work of Chris Hammer and CS Robertson, two bestselling authors who forged their skills in the heat of frontline journalism before expertly turning their hands to crime fiction.

Chris Hammer was a journalist for over 30 years, spending most of it as a roving foreign correspondent for a TV channel in his native Australia. Craig Robertson’s newspaper career took him from New York to New Delhi and from Death Row to Downing Street.

The organisers of Bloody Scotland are committed to making the festival accessible to all. The Festival Hub at the Golden Lion Hotel has installed a wheelchair lift at its front entrance, and a mini-bus service will run between venues. BSL interpretation will be available at events on request.

Bloody Scotland runs from 13 to 15 September 2024. Digital tickets are priced at £5 per event and at £50 for a pass for the whole festival – which is valid up until the end of September. In-person tickets range from £8 to £12.