Black Widow, a novel of ‘twists within twists’, takes £1,000 award now rebranded as the William McIlvanney prize

Chris Brookmyre has beaten Val McDermid to the Scottish crime book of the year award with his novel Black Widow, a story of cyber-abuse in which, judges said, “even the twists have twists”.

Telling of a surgeon, Diana Jager, whose personal details are released online after she is exposed as the author of an anonymous blog about sexism in surgery, Black Widow was named winner of the inaugural McIlvanney prize at the Bloody Scotland festival this weekend. Formerly the Scottish crime book of the year award, the prize was renamed in honour of the late author William McIlvanney, who was known as “the godfather of tartan noir”.

In his review in the Guardian, John O’Connell called Black Widow “a knotty mystery that’s not just richly, provocatively political but one of the most perceptive excavations of a dysfunctional marriage I can remember reading”.

Judges said that reading Brookmyre’s novel, which sees his long-time character, the reporter Jack Parlabane, seeking out the truth, was “like watching Olympic diving – just when you think the plot can’t twist again, it takes a new turn”.

“Even the twists have twists,” declared a panel featuring journalist Lee Randall, librarian Stewart Bain and former editor of the Scotsman Magnus Linklater. “With a theme of cyber-abuse, this shows an author taking a long-running series to new heights.”

On 13 February, Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that she had been given the novel as an early Valentine’s Day present by her husband. “Finished in early hours of this morning – brilliant!” she wrote. Sturgeon also tweeted her congratulations to Brookmyre on his win this weekend, saying it was “well deserved”.

Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) @cbrookmyre so it is! Finished in early hours of this morning - brilliant!

Brookmyre, whose Black Widow is also shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger award, beat three other shortlisted authors to win the £1,000 award: McDermid, who was in the running for Splinter the Silence, Doug Johnstone, picked for The Jump, and ES Thomson, chosen for Beloved Poison.