France

Charles Cumming has been awarded the Scottish Crime Book of the Year, for his latest spy thriller A Foreign Country. The win was announced at the closing of the inaugural Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival in Stirling.   The judges chose A Foreign Country out of 40 entries, with the chair of the panel Sheena McDonald saying that "A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming is far more than a pacy novel with a satisfactory ending. This book is exciting, imaginative and well-written. It doesn't simply tick the crime-fiction boxes – it's simply an outstanding novel."   A delighted Charles Cumming said, "It's a huge honour to win such a prestigious award in the first year of this fantastic festival." Read More

We're all massive Mark fans here in the KR office so when he popped into the office we thought we'd take the chance to get to know him a bit better! Find out about his new book and look out for the chance to ask him your own question and to win a copy of his new book! What inspired you to write House of the Hanged? Strangely, the book would never have been written if I hadn't been robbed while backpacking through the south of France when I was 17. This is how I first came to know Le Rayol, where the story is set. Some friends of my travelling companion lived there, and they kindly put us up for a few dreamy days while we waited for my replacement traveller's cheques to arrive. I was very struck by that stretch of coast, with its rocky headlands and its sandy coves of unnaturally white sand. In many ways, the novel is the coming together of this memory and a book I love: Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford, her biographical account of growing up near Toulon in the 1920s. Read More