2026 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize (shortlist)
When a troubled woman discovers her birth father was a serial killer, she's forced to confront a terrible question. What if the darkness in her own soul is a direct inheritance from him?
Despite having made a promise never to do so, Joanne Marshall sets out to trace her birth parents when her adoptive mother dies. She's always felt unable to connect with other people, even her family, and her lack of history is a black hole that only the truth can fill.
Her search unearths increasingly shattering information, however, and when she discovers her birth father was imprisoned for murder - and that he's still alive - she decides she has to contact him to lay her fears about her own nature to rest.
But she finds, instead, a strange connection to him. And, as their relationship deepens, she doesn't realise that she's making herself vulnerable to a potentially still very dangerous man. Will she finds the strength to stop another tragedy taking place?
Genre: Mystery
Despite having made a promise never to do so, Joanne Marshall sets out to trace her birth parents when her adoptive mother dies. She's always felt unable to connect with other people, even her family, and her lack of history is a black hole that only the truth can fill.
Her search unearths increasingly shattering information, however, and when she discovers her birth father was imprisoned for murder - and that he's still alive - she decides she has to contact him to lay her fears about her own nature to rest.
But she finds, instead, a strange connection to him. And, as their relationship deepens, she doesn't realise that she's making herself vulnerable to a potentially still very dangerous man. Will she finds the strength to stop another tragedy taking place?
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Linda Duncan McLaughlin's Original Sins