Allan Guthrie
Allan Guthrie was born in Orkney, but has lived in Edinburgh for most of his adult life. He is married to Donna. He has published several short stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies. Allan is webmaster/editor of Noir Originals and commissioning editor for both Pulp Originals and PointBlank Press.
‘With razor-sharp characterisation and an evocative sense of place, the novel’s pace never relents: the supremely damaged characters that Guthrie conjures up are seldom let off the hook, and stew throughout in their fetid juices. Dark and splendid’
Maxim Jakubowski, The Guardian
‘His first two books remind me in their way of a wry version of the original Get Carter ... There’s an off-hand violence and downscale amorality that give Guthrie’s books the kind of blackjack charm and smirky melancholy his people need to survive’
Ed Gorman
Books by Allan Guthrie
A lean and muscular crime caper with a seriously twisted dark side that was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger.
Robin Greaves is an armed robber whose professionalism is put to the test when he discovers his wife has been sleeping with a fellow gang-member. Robin plans the ultimate revenge, but things go from bad to worse when the gang bungles a post office robbery, leaving carnage in their wake. Suddenly they are stalked by the police, sleazy private eyes and a cold-blooded killer who may be the only one not looking for a cut of the money.
UK Publication Date: August 2005
UK, Commonwealth and Translation Rights: Polygon
US Rights: PointBlank
Italian Rights: Einaudi
Film option: Plum Films
63,000 words
Kiss Her Goodbye
Nominated for an Edgar Award.
Another slice of twisted, funny noir from a startling new voice in crime.
When people in Edinburgh want to borrow money, they go to Cooper. When they don’t pay it back, they get a visit from Joe Hope. But now Joe’s got problems of his own. His teenage daughter is found dead, an apparent suicide. Then the police arrest him for murder. But for once in his life Joe’s innocent—and with help from Scotland’s hardest men (and one of Scotland’s hardest women), he sets out to find the person who framed him and deliver his own brutal brand of justice.
UK Publication Date: April 2006
UK, Commonwealth and Translation Rights: Polygon
US Rights: Hard Case Crime
67,000 words
Has Pearce finally found his match?
Pearce, a time-served Edinburgh hard man who’s still recovering from the recent loss of his mother in a stabbing incident in a post office robbery, is invited by the dysfunctional Baxter family to protect their pregnant 16-year-old daughter from Wallace, her 26-year-old, martial arts expert husband, a man with a penchant for killing family pets. Having found out that the baby’s not his, Wallace has sworn vengeance. Pearce declines the job: he’s no babysitter. But when Wallace kills Pearce’s dog, he goes too far. Now it’s personal. Time to find out how many psychedelic drugs one man can take. Time to find out why Jesus is living in a cage in Wallace’s basement. Time to find out who the real hard man is.
World Rights: Polygon
US Rights: Harcourt Brace
Savage Night
Andy Park’s teenage son is in mortal danger, his daughter and her fiancé are cutting up corpses, and Old Mrs Yardie’s country cottage has been requisitioned for the purposes of kidnapping an erstwhile tobacco smuggler.
And yet Park’s world is a bed of roses in comparison to Tommy Savage’s. Savage is being blackmailed by a masked man known only as Mr Smith – for what, he has no idea. A near-fatal accident in an abandoned apartment results in Tommy and his brother, Phil, heading to a graveyard with only a couple of swords and a bag of cash for company.
Will they survive the night? Will anyone?