So last year my esteemed publisher Fahrenheit Press issued a T-Shirt celebrating Bloody Scotland.
Bloody Scotland, apart from being something that English Torys call the country to the North, is one the Premier Crime Fiction Festivals in this part of the world. For 4 Days each year (20-22 Sep this year) writers readers publishers editors bloggers and lovers of all things CriFi converge on the beautiful town of Stirling to meet, eat, drink, dance, party and listen to amazing panels on many aspects of the business art and craft of Crime Fiction.
And last year, in tribute to the festival (and because Mr Mc Veigh, despite his LA Tan – maaaaaaan – is a born and bred Scot) Fahrenheit coupled their tribute to Bloody Scotland with a tribute to the Tunnocks Tea Cake, which is another Scottish Establishment. I’m told that Val Mac Dermid owns at least one of the t-shirts, which is a good thing as she wouldn’t be able to buy it now due to, well, reasons.
(Them ‘reasons’ being the fact that Tunnocks lawyers issued a selection of legal letters and sent around Gavin and Vito, two Glaswegian “Ice-cream salesmen” who do a nice line in threatening menace).
So, I hear you ask, if last year’s T-Shirt is no longer available, why am I bothering to tell you all this? Well it’s because this years T-Shirt – which pays tribute both to the festival, to the legendary Scottish Detective Taggart, and to another Scottish Legend – Barrs Irn Bru (breakfast of Kings, folks. By which I mean Scottish High Kings, obviously), and I wrote the slogan (though if you’re reading this and your from Barr’s legal team I had nothing to do with it whatsoever, and have signed all my assets over to my husband just in case).
You can get the T-shirt here (but move fast if you wanna beat the lawyers).
And while you’re on Fahrenheit’s website you could buy my book Death of an Angel which has been described as “The Best Danny Bird Mystery To Date,” “A Classic Mystery” “Delightful,” “Cracking,” “Amazing,” and “A Laugh our loud Whodunnit.” It’s available in Ebook or Paperback (which comes with a free download of the Ebook in case you can’t wait for the post to arrive).
