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Mazars shows support for Bloody Scotland

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25th May 2012
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Top 10 accountancy firm Mazars has moved into the demi-monde of Scottish crime literature as the sponsor of Bloody Scotland, a crime-writing festival to be held in Stirling on 14-16 September.

But what would prompt such an august firm as Mazars to embrace a genre known for its violent urges, depressing settings and lashings of Scotland’s national spirit?

“Interesting question,” said Edinburgh-based managing partner Peter Jibson. “Business sponsorship is usual black tie dinners and awards, but we wanted to raise our profile in Scotland, and one of our staff member's wives is a crime writer.

“So when we heard about it early on, the opportunity was blindingly obvious. It’s one of the most popular literary genres, and part of the Scotland brand, so it should have its own festival. Bloody Scotland gave us an opportunity to get in at an early stage of something that will have lasting significance and potentially attract international attention.”

The festival celebrates three Scottish crime writing landmarks: the 125th anniversary of the first Sherlock Holmes story publication (which 10 leading crime writers will celebrate by performing a dramatisation of one of the early Holmes stories); the 35th anniversary of the pioneering Tartan Noir 'Laidlaw' series by William McIlvanney; and the 25th anniversary of Ian Rankin’s Rebus, which the author will celebrate by giving a keynote address on the distinctiveness of Scottish crime writing and its relationship to international crime fiction.

The festival will open with a day of master classes and workshops at Stirling University, with “Shetland quartet” and creator of the ITV drama series Vera, Ann Cleeves, present. The inaugural Scottish Crime Book of the Year Award will also be presented and among the famous names in attendance will be Peter James, Val McDermid and ‘Gregory's Girl’ actor John Gordon Sinclair, whose novel ‘Seventy Times Seven’ will be published in July.

Queried on the parallels between forensic accounting and its scientific counterpart, Jibson noted that a forensic accountant having a bad day was a quite different thing from a crime investigator’s bad day.

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By taylorag
26th May 2012 13:53

You had me worried there

The headline looked like it might be a story to do with Emperor Eck and his anti-England crusade!

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