McILVANNEY PRIZE 2025
BLOODY SCOTLAND REVEALS THE WINNERS OF THE McILVANNEY PRIZE AND THE BLOODY SCOTLAND DEBUT PRIZE 2025
Presented at Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival on Friday 12 September 2025
Tariq Ashkanani (c) Bloody Scotland
The winner of the McIlvanney Prize was revealed – in the ballroom with a giant crystal glass – on Friday 12 September to be Tariq Ashkanani with The Midnight King. It was presented to him on stage on the opening night of the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival by the winner of the 2024 McIlvanney Prize, Chris Brookmyre. Tariq appeared as a support act for Ian Rankin in Crime in the Spotlight at the 2021 festival and went on to win the Bloody Debut Prize in 2022 which brings the process of nurturing authors at Bloody Scotland full circle.
When he was shortlisted he said:
‘My first experience with Bloody Scotland was in 2021, when I got to be the warm-up act for Ian Rankin as part of the festival’s ‘Crime in the Spotlight’. It’s a little surreal that just four years later I’m now a finalist alongside him for the McIlvanney award.’
The Midnight King is a thriller about the son of a serial killer returning home for his father’s funeral. His father, a celebrated author, has left behind a manuscript which forms a fictionalised confession and a box filled with mementos from each of the children he has killed. One may still be alive.
David Goodman (c) Bloody Scotland
The winner of the 2025 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize was revealed to be David Goodman with A Reluctant Spy. Like Tariq he was previously selected for Crime in the Spotlight. He appeared as a support act for thriller writer Frank Gardner at Bloody Scotland last year. This year it is he who takes centre stage. TV rights to his thriller about a successful Scottish sales exec who finds himself inadvertently pitched into a deadly mission in hostile territory in Tanzania have been sold in an eight-way auction to Carnival Films (Downton Abbey, The Last Kingdom, Day of the Jackal). He also won the inaugural Theakston Old Peculier McDermid Debut Award in July. After studying at the University of Aberdeen Goodman lived and worked in Aberdeen, London and Edinburgh. He now lives in East Lothian with his family.
Kirsty Nicholson, Design and Marketing Manager at the awards sponsor Glencairn Crystal, said:
‘A huge congratulations to Tariq Ashkanani on winning the McIlvanney Prize with his page-turning thriller The Midnight King, and to David Goodman on receiving the Debut Prize for his gripping first novel A Reluctant Spy. Being a Scottish family company, we are proud to sponsor these distinguished annual awards with the Glencairn Glass, the official glass for whisky – both of which are deeply rooted in Scotland. It is an honour to help celebrate and shine a spotlight on such exceptional authors in the wonderful world of crime fiction.’
(c) Bloody Scotland
