A VERY 'peculier' honour is about to be bestowed on a crime writer at the genre's leading festival.

The shortlist for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year has been announced, ahead on the festival later this month.

Celebrating its tenth year, the awards feature six titles.

Denise Mina could make it a hat-trick, after winning the title in 2012 and 2013. Her novel, The Red Road, features DI Alex Morrow investigating a network of power and corruption that reaches back to Glasgow on the night Princess Diana died.

Fellow Scot Malcolm Mackay’s debut novel, The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, is also in the running. The first in a trilogy, MacKay has been praised for an original thriller that shines a light on Glasgow's underworld.

Another Scottish crime author, Peter May, is nominated for The Chessmen. Featuring ex-detective inspector, Fin MacLeod, the Isle of Lewis series has been praised for its visceral descriptions of the Hebrides.

The CWA 2010 Gold Dagger Award-winning author, Belinda Bauer, is also in the line-up. Bauer received glowing reviews for Rubbernecker featuring Patrick Fort, a medical student with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Elly Griffiths’ intriguing crime story, Dying Fall, is the fifth novel in her Ruth Galloway series starring the forensic archaeologist. It brings together neo-Nazis, New Age hippies in Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the archaeology of early Britain.

Stav Sherez launched his new police procedural featuring DI Jack Carrigan and DS Geneva Miller with A Dark Redemption, which made the 2013 shortlist. He’s back with the second in the series, Eleven Days. Set eleven days before Christmas with 11 victims, it spans four decades and two continents.

The winner will announced on the opening night of the festival in Harrogate on July 17. Broadcaster and festival regular Mark Lawson hosts the ceremony at the Old Swan Hotel.

Also on the night, Lynda La Plante will receive the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, joining past winners Ruth Rendell, PD James, Colin Dexter and Reginald Hill.

Simon Theakston, executive director of T&R Theakston and one of the judges for the prize, said: “The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award was created a decade ago to celebrate the very best in the genre, as this remarkable shortlist shows. It’s also a great honour to be recognising the extraordinary achievements of Lynda La Plante.”