Friday September 19th 2025
David Goodman singing his novel at a book signing
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
East Lothian local, David Goodman, picked up a prestigious award at this year’s Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival for his novel, A Reluctant Spy.
David, 44, recieved the award last Sunday at the festival’s annual awards ceremony, being honoured with receiving the debut writing prize, which celebrates his debut novel in the crime catagory.
His novel, A Reluctant Spy, was completed during the 2023’s Bloody Scotland Festival with David going on to take part in panels and talks surrounding his novel in 2024 . Now three years since it was written, he came back to his home in Longniddry with the prestigious debut award.
Reading the novel live at the festival last Friday, exactly a year after he submitted the first copy to his editor, the festival helped develop him as an author.
“It was quite amazing to have that thread where I was sitting in the bookshop at the Albert Hall (Stirling) in 2023, and then I was sitting there again, signing that book a year later with Frank Gardner sitting beside me, which was amazing. Then this year, I actually was going to be on a panel”, David explained.
Growing up between Edinburgh and Longniddry, David explained that his career path has expanded 20 years.
“You always hope that those things [winning awards] are going to happen, but I think one of the things you learn quite early on as a writer is that there’s dreams and then there’s goals, and they are quite different.”
Alongside his award at Bloody Scotland, David won the inaugural Theakston Old Peculier McDermid Debut Award in July.
David grew up in Longniddry and after many years away returned four years ago to live in the village with his family. He has had a versatile career, doing many different jobs, until recently receiving attention for his crime writing talent, winning various awards since his debut novel.
“I was just happy to be there to be honest”, David explained on being awarded on the day, “It was an absolute peak experience as a writer. Then to win it, it was like a sort of full-body, out-of-body experience.”
David has been writing since he was a teen, starting to take his writing seriously in his early to mid twenties after he moved to London for his job.
“I was about to turn 40 and I was like, I thought I kind of need to get off the fence here. I need to go one way or the other. I needed to either decide if it was going to be a hobby that I’ll just keep doing for the rest of my life beacuse I love writing or I need to give it a go and see if I can actually make it happen.
“There was a lot more barrier to entry and I kind of gave up on looking for an agent for a long time. I just wrote books for years and years until about 2019.”
With the thought that he may have a chance to become a professional writer, David picked up one of his older books named ‘The Burning Line’ and using it for practice in editing and querying to editors, it was picked up by his agent Harry.
Being offered representation by his agent, he submitted the book in February of 2022. At this time he pitched ‘A Reluctant Spy’, he explained that his agent liked this story the best, going onto selling the book as a sample in 2024. It took 19 years to publish a novel from his start in writing in November 2005 to this year when his debut novel came out.
“It’s funny. I’ve always been into spy fiction, I’ve never been a huge crime reader. But that’s been one of the funny things, that I’ve ended up debuting in crime and thriller.”
Despite being a massive fan of spy fiction, which his award-winning novel ‘A Reluctant Spy’ is about, and writing his dissertation at University on the topic, David is also writing and publishing science fiction, both short fiction and novels.
“I’ve been very lucky that the crime community has a really good, well-developed festival circuit.”
Bloody Scotland is in its 13th year, celebrating Scotland’s exceptional crime writing through awards and events.
David expressed his gratitude for the festival, with this award both benefiting his career and proving to him that his 20 years of dedication has paid off.
David with his award at Bloody Scotland last Sunday (14th of September)
His award-winning debut novel centers around a young Edinburgh man named Jamie Tulloch, who after a rough up-bringing in the West of Edinburgh makes his way to Cambridge where he is approached by the SIS (MI5) for a unique programme named the ‘Legends Programme’. This unusual SIS programme provides him with a safety net in return for giving his identity to a spy for a mission in the future. The story takes a turn where, in his 30’s, during the exchange of identities, he finds the SIS spy dead.
Despite moving to London for six years and many years living in Edinburgh, in 2020 David and his wife moved back to Longniddry, only a couple of streets away from his fathers house.
Recently touring his novel alongside other writers across Scotland, David is hoping to continue his new found success.
David explained, “This book has kind of had its run but the sequel comes out next June which is called ‘Solitary Agents’ and I am hoping that will get nominated for awards”.
With hardback copy’s of his award-winning novel almost sold-out and with his award from Bloody Scotland, this will only propel the popularity of himself and the novel even further.
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