Best-selling crime author Doug Johnstone will be making a virtual appearance at a free online event on 19 November as part of this year’s Book Week Scotland celebrations.

Doug will be talking about the first two books in the brilliantly drawn and blackly comic trilogy, A Dark Matter and The Big Chill. The trilogy of books is about the Skelfs, three generations of women who have to take over the running of a funeral directors and a private investigators when the patriarch of the family dies.

Doug will also be talking about what life’s been like for an author during the current pandemic.

Doug Johnstone is one of Scotland’s most prolific writers. Several of his books have been bestsellers and three, A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015) have been shortlisted for the esteemed McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. He’s taught creative writing and been a writer in residence at various institutions over the last decade and has been an arts journalist for twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three solo EPs released, and he currently plays the drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers including Val McDermid and Mark Billingham.

Book Week Scotland is an annual celebration of books and reading that takes place across Scotland. In previous years people of all ages and walks of life would come together in libraries, schools, community venues and workplaces during Book Week Scotland to share and enjoy books and reading. This year, due to the ongoing pandemic, many events have moved online with events in venues observing strict social distancing guidelines. However the celebrations continue and Scotland’s authors, poets, playwrights, storytellers and illustrators are bringing a packed programme of events and projects to life.

Book Week Scotland 2020 will take place Monday 16th to Sunday 22nd November.

Doug Johnstone will be discussing his latest books live-streamed on Zoom, on Thursday, 19th November at 7 pm.

Tickets for the online Zoom talk are free and available through Eventbrite.

This event is kindly sponsored by Thorntons Law and supported by the Scottish Book Trust Live Literature Fund.