Graeme Macrae Burnet

Graeme Macrae Burnet
Burnet at The British Library in 2022
Born1967 (age 58–59)
Kilmarnock, Scotland
EducationGlasgow University; University of St Andrews
OccupationNovelist
Writing career
Notable worksThe Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (2014);
His Bloody Project (2015) (2015)
Websitegraememacraeburnet.wordpress.com

Graeme Macrae Burnet (born October 1967) is a Scottish writer. He writes literary crime novels, often with a metafictional framework. His first novel, The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, won the Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award in 2013. His second novel, His Bloody Project (2015), won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.[1][2][3] In 2017, he won the Author of the Year category in the Sunday Herald Culture Awards. His novel Case Study (2021) was longlisted for the Booker Prize.[4] In 2026, his novel Benbecula was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.[5]

Personal life

Burnet was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in 1967. On his mother's side, he has family ties to the northwest Highlands.[6] He studied film and English literature in Glasgow and the University of St Andrews and worked in television and taught overseas before becoming a full-time writer. He lives in Glasgow.[7][8]

Career

Burnet's first novel, The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, was published by Contraband, the crime imprint of Scottish publisher Saraband,[9] in 2014. It is the first of his Georges Gorski trilogy, featuring a chief of police of that name and set in the Alsace town of Saint-Louis. All the books in the trilogy include a framework of forewords and/or afterwords presenting them as translations of works by a French author, Raymond Brunet.[10] The Herald described the novel as "a captivating psychological thriller ... very accessible and thoroughly satisfying."[11]

Burnet's second novel, His Bloody Project, was published by Contraband in 2016.[9] Purporting to be based on found documents, it tells the story of a triple murder in a remote Scottish Highland community during the 1860s. The novel won the 2016 Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year Award.[12] It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize[7] and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller.[13] The novel outsold the other five Booker shortlisted novels put together during the shortlist period and went on to sell 200,000 copies in the UK and to be translated into more than 20 languages.[14] The Dutch translation by Anne Jongeling, Zijn bloedige plan, won the 2017 Vrij Nederland Thriller of the Year Award.[15] The French translation by Julie Sibony, L'accusé du Ross-Shire, was shortlisted for the 2017 European Crime Fiction Prize.[16] The Telegraph's Jake Kerridge described the novel as "an astonishing piece of writing".[17] The Guardian stated that the novel "richly deserves the wider attention the Booker has brought it".[18]

The Accident on the A35 is the second in the Georges Gorski trilogy that began with The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau.[10] In The Guardian, Mark Lawson described it as continuing Burnet's experimentation with a genre that might be called "false true crime". Lawson praised the novel's pleasant recreation of "a France of francs and call boxes" and its "successive expectation reversals" but noted "stretches of prose that it's hard to believe really were composed by a Man Booker prize-shortlisted author".[19] The book was longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2018[20] and the Hearst Big Book Awards – Harpers Bazaar Modern Classics 2018.

Burnet's next novel, Case Study, was published by Saraband in 2021 and was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and the Dublin Literary Award.[21][22] Its metafictional framework involves "a series of notebooks apparently sent to the author in 2020 to aid his research into a rogue 1960s psychotherapist".[7]

Published by Saraband in 2024, A Case of Matricide is the third in the Georges Gorski trilogy. Like the previous books in the series, it features a metafictional framework presenting the novel as the work of deceased author Raymond Brunet. The Times Literary Supplement praised the vivid characterisation, comedy, and unshowy prose, calling the trilogy "remarkable".[10]

In October 2025 Polygon published Benbecula, part of Birlinn’s Darkland Tales series,[23] which sees Scottish writers re-imagine episodes from the country’s history and legends. Unlike Burnet's other books, this one is based on real historical documents.[14] Set on the island of Benbecula, the novella fictionalises an 1857 triple murder and is narrated by the killer’s brother.[24][25] The novel was shortlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize.[5]

Awards and selected recognition

  • Shortlisted for the 2017 European Crime Fiction Prize for His Bloody Project
  • Vrij Nederland Thriller of the Year Award for His Bloody Project
  • Longlisted for the 2018 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year for The Accident on the A35
  • Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize for Case Study
  • Shortlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Benbecula[26]

Bibliography

Gorski trilogy

  • —— (2014). The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (paperback 1st ed.). Saraband. ISBN 9781908643605.
  • —— (2017). The Accident on the A35 (paperback 1st ed.). Saraband.
  • —— (2024). A Case of Matricide (hardcover 1st ed.). Saraband.

Other

  • —— (2015). His Bloody Project (1st ed.). Contraband. The first edition was a "paperback original."
  • —— (2021). Case Study (1st ed.). Saraband. ISBN 9781913393199.
  • —— (2025). Benbecula (1st ed.). Polygon (Birlinn). ISBN 9781846977312.

References

  1. ↑ "New Writers Awards 2012/13: Graeme Macrae Burnet | Scottish Book Trust". scottishbooktrust.com. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  2. ↑ "Graeme Macrae Burnet | The Man Booker Prizes". themanbookerprize.com. Archived from the original on 3 October 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  3. ↑ "Interview: Graeme Macrae Burnet on His Bloody Project and Man Booker Prize nomination - The Scotsman". scotsman.com. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  4. ↑ Shaffi, Sarah (26 July 2022). "Booker prize longlist of 13 writers aged 20 to 87 announced". The Guardian.
  5. 1 2 "Five authors in the running for historical fiction prize". BBC. 16 April 2026. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  6. ↑ Major, Nick (1 January 2017). "Interview with Graeme Macrae Burnet". The Herald.
  7. 1 2 3 "Graeme Macrae Burnet". The Booker Prizes. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  8. ↑ "Graeme Macrae Burnet". Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  9. 1 2 Jordan, Justine (12 August 2016). "His Bloody Project review by Graeme Macrae Burnet – murder in the Highlands". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  10. 1 2 3 Clee, Nicholas (15 November 2024). "Mud, blood and booze". Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  11. ↑ "Graeme Macrae Burnet: The Disappearance Of Adele Bedeau (Contraband)". Herald Scotland. 19 July 2014.
  12. ↑ "Scotland's National Book Awards 2016". Saltire Society Scotland. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  13. ↑ "2016 Los Angeles Times Book Prize - Mystery/Thriller Winner and Nominees". Awards Archive. 25 March 2020. Archived from the original on 13 March 2022. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  14. 1 2 Mansfield, Susan (12 November 2025). "Graeme Macrae Burnet on the island murders that inspired his new novel". The Scotsman. Retrieved 30 April 2026.
  15. ↑ "VN Thriller van het jaar 2017 bij Libris Venstra". Amstelweenweb (in Dutch). 6 June 2017. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  16. ↑ "Malin Persson Giolito remporte le prix « Le Point » du polar européen". Le Point (in French). 5 April 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  17. ↑ Kerridge, Jake (25 October 2016). "Man Booker Prize shortlist 2016: His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet is a tricksy, ingenious puzzle – review". The Telegraph.
  18. ↑ Jordan, Justine (12 August 2016). "His Bloody Project review by Graeme Macrae Burnet – murder in the Highlands". The Guardian.
  19. ↑ Lawson, Mark (10 November 2017). "The Accident on the A35 by Graeme Macrae Burnet review – games within games". The Guardian.
  20. ↑ "Child, Rankin and McDermid on Theakston longlist". The Bookseller. 16 April 2018. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  21. ↑ Bayley, Sian (26 July 2022). "Booker Prize longlist dominated by indies as judges pick youngest and oldest ever nominees". The Bookseller. Retrieved 27 July 2022.
  22. ↑ "Case Study". Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved 23 April 2026.
  23. ↑ "The Darkland Tales Collection | Birlinn Ltd - Independent Scottish Publisher - buy books online". Birlinn Ltd. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  24. ↑ "Benbecula | Birlinn Ltd - Independent Scottish Publisher - buy books online". Birlinn Ltd. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  25. ↑ "Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet review: 'elegant and eerie'". The Scotsman. 1 October 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2025.
  26. ↑ "Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 21 April 2026. Retrieved 22 April 2026.
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