Guthrie, Allan

PERSONAL:

Born in Orkney, Scotland; married; wife's name Donna (an adult literacy tutor).

ADDRESSES:

Home—Edinburgh, Scotland. E-mail—allan@allanguthrie.co.uk.

CAREER:

Crime novelist, editor, and literary agent. Point Blank Press, Rockland, MD, and Jenny Brown Associates, Edinburgh, Scotland, commissioning editor. Worked for a bookstore as a bookseller, information technologies trainer, and stockroom manager.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, 2007, for Two-Way Split; nominated for Edgar Allan Poe Award for best paperback original, 2006, for Kiss Her Goodbye.

WRITINGS:

FICTION

Two-Way Split, Point Blank (Rockland, MD), 2004.

Kiss Her Goodbye, Dorchester (New York, NY), 2005.

Hard Man, Harcourt (New York, NY), 2007.

Kill Clock (novella), Barrington Stoke (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2007.

Author of the blog Hard Man (now discontinued). Author's works have been translated into Italian.

SIDELIGHTS:

Allan Guthrie is a crime writer whose hard-hitting works are often inspired by his native city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Guthrie attributes his success as an author in part to luck: Best-selling writer Ian Rankin encouraged audience members at an international book festival to read a novel by the previously unknown Guthrie. Within a year, Guthrie had secured a three-book deal with the Scottish publishing company Polygon, earning the company's largest advance to date. Several of his books have since been nominated for major awards, including a nomination to the Edgar Allan Poe Award shortlist.

The novel that started it all, Two-Way Split, features a group of characters connected by a crime. A botched robbery leaves an elderly woman dead, and her son Pearce—who happens to be an ex-con who served time for bringing his sister's killer to personal justice—is set on revenge. Pearce is featured in another of Guthrie's novels, Hard Man, when he is enlisted by a dysfunctional dad-son combo to help retrieve the baby of the family—a married sixteen-year-old pregnant girl with another man's baby—from her abusive husband. Pearce is still grieving his mother, and not interested in the job—until someone decides it would be a good idea to get his attention by killing his beloved dog. In a review for the Crime Scene Scotland Web site, Russel D. McLean wrote that the novel "comes out roaring, with a black, almost surreal, vision of Edinburgh. His [Guthrie's] violent, stripped-down novels are enough to send traditional mystery fans scampering behind the sofa." McLean continued: "Hard Man delivers on a potential that has so far only been hinted at. There's a sense of velocity from the word go, and as the novel progresses, events move entirely out of control until the final third delivers a denouement that is as inspired as it is insane." A Kirkus Reviews contributor described the novel as "by turns hilarious and horrifying," noting: "Guthrie's original voice grabs the reader and doesn't let go."

Guthrie's other books include Kiss Her Goodbye, which earned him nominations for the Edgar, Gumshoe, and Anthony awards, and Kill Clock, a novella targeting adults who struggle as readers, such as those with dyslexia.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2007, review of Hard Man, p. 196.

ONLINE

Allan Guthrie Home Page,http://www.allanguthrie.co.uk (October 1, 2007).

Crime Scene Scotland,http://crimescenescotlandreviews.blogspot.com/ (October 26, 2007), Russel D. McLean, review of Hard Man.