Bloody Scotland Festival diary: Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre and Harriet Tyce's karaoke hits revealed

Officially kicking off today when the prestigious McIlvanney Prize is due to be announced, last night, the town was already awash with crime writers, from both Scotland and further afield. Indeed, every other person in the Golden Lion bar was clutching a crime novel, possibly in some kind of secret signal to other Tartan Noir fans that they, too, are here for the books.

A pre-festival party at Stirling Distillery hosted by iconic crime novelist and former Scotsman sports hack Chris Brookmyre, proved to be quite the event. Marking 30 years since the publication of Brookmyre’s debut novel Quite Ugly One Morning - and the recent publication of Quite Ugly One Evening - the do allowed Brookmyre to indulge in his second-favourite pastime of singing.

He, along with Mark Billingham and Val McDermid, along with various other colleagues, are members of band Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers.

Brookmyre was the first to take to the microphone, performing Killers song All These Things That I’ve Done with gusto - and later a rendition of Deacon Blue classic Dignity. His son, Jack, who had a stand-up show at this year’s Edinburgh festival Fringe, was next, with an impressive performance of System of a Down’s Chop Suey.

Meanwhile, McDermid, alongside her wife, Jo Sharp and her publicist Laura Sherlock, rivalled Meryl Streep and co with their rendition of Abba classic Super Trouper, however, Edinburgh-born Blood Orange author and former Traitors contestant Harriet Tyce arguably stole the show with her performance of Stan by Eminem, featuring Dido.

Harriet reportedly confused the crime writing community when she turned up on series four of the hit show earlier this year, ostensibly as a normal punter. Her true profession - and the fact she had previously been a barrister - she tried to conceal from her fellow contestants amid fears the truth could place her under suspicion.

“When I heard Harriet Tyce was going to on the non-celebrity Traitors, I thought, ‘why is she in the civilian version?’ She was already a huge name in these circles,” a Bloody Scotland insider tells me.

Harriet’s sales increased by 96 per cent following the show, according to The Bookseller, so it was clearly a smart move.

Speaking at the party in between karaoke songs, Brookmyre’s editor, Jack Butler, paid tribute to the author as “one of the nicest and most generous people that you will work with in this industry”.

Butler also recalled when the author first told him about his plans to revive The Quite Ugly theme.

“He was telling me about Quite Ugly One Evening,” he said, of the book published in May which heralded the return of Brookmyre’s protagonist, Jack Parlabane, after a nine year hiatus.

“And then he pitched me Quite Ugly One Afternoon and then Quite Ugly One Brunch and I said, ‘let’s start with Evening’.”

I think he was joking, but you never know.