For those seeking yet more criminal activities in their life, this will be of interest:

Introducing Berwins Salon North!
If you haven’t already experienced this unique event then we invite you to join us for what will be a criminally good evening – ‘Punishment’ on Thursday 29th October at The Crown Hotel, Harrogate! Three brilliant expert speakers will take to the stage for the second event in our ‘Crime, Punishment and Retribution’ Autumn Berwins Salon North series, as we turn our focus to raising some serious and complex questions about the path to criminal justice.

Ever since Harrogate International Festivals brought London’s most talked about evening to the town, it’s been a sell-out sensation.…

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Six strong contenders have been shortlisted for the prestigious 2013 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.

Denise Mina is set to defend her 2012 title as winner of one of the most prestigious crime writing prizes in the country. Mina’s Gods and Beasts, is pitted against fellow winner, Mark Billingham, who has twice-won the Award, and could make it a hat-trick with his Florida-holiday thriller A Rush of Blood, considered his most ambitious work to date.

The two face stiff competition from acclaimed Faber and Faber author Stav Sherez, whose unflinching, intelligent novel, A Dark Redemption, explores the London underworld of illegal immigrants.…

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Just did a bit of tracking back through an old hard drive and found this, rather lengthy, report on my festival experiences from 2005. Might be of interest to anyone booking up for this year’s festival:

Theakston’s Old Peculier 

Harrogate Crime Writing Festival 2005

By Keith B Walters

This, the third of Theakston’s sponsored annual Crime Writing Festivals in Harrogate, has got to be viewed by all concerned as nothing short of a complete success.

Over four days, crime fiction fans and writers from all over the world gathered in the pleasant surroundings of the Cedar Court Hotel to immerse themselves in all things related to the world of crime fiction writing and its greatest exponents.…

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A debut novelist muscles up against giants of the genre as the longlist is announced for the 2013 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, one of the most prestigious crime writing prizes in the country.

Lee Child who won the Award in 2011 returns to the longlist with The Affair, dubbed ‘his best book yet’. Sizing up to the phenomenal Jack Reacher is the master of the race-against-time thrillers, Simon Kernick, with Siege.

Other giants of the genre on the long-list are Stuart MacBride with Birthdays for the Dead, and two-time award-winner Mark Billingham for his stand-alone novel, Rush of Blood, said to be his most ambitious and accomplished work to date.…

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Okay – here we are at the last event of this year’s amazing Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and (with the exception of my interview with CJ Box – which will follow soon) my last report to post.

Crime supremo Dennis Lehane took to the stage with Mark Billingham to discuss his work and the huge success he has enjoyed with the cinema adaptations of his novels.

He kicked off by saying how much stories had a been a part of his young life when his father would take him to the farmers’ market for a rush round to do the shopping so that he could then take him to a pub to drink ginger ale and listen in on the stories that his father and his friends would share over beers.…

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The later start on the Sunday morning is always a welcome change, but in most cases the extra hour is spent clearing the hotel room, loading the car ready for the drive home and checking out of the hotel, with just two events left until hometime.

There is a strange tipping point at the festival.  On the Saturday morning events, with plenty of good stuff still lined up, it feels like the festival will have days to run.   Get just past lunchtime on the Saturday and all of a sudden it hits that the following morning it will be packing time.  …

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Special Guests in conversation: David Baldacci & Joseph Finder.

A great double-header event and one that showed clearly that no moderators are required when you get a couple of great crime writers together for what was essentially a good old chin-wag. Within a few moments, this was as though we as the audience were just listening in on a private chat between two writing buddies discussing their work and little anecdotes of their careers.

David Baldacci told a great story where he was mistaken by a fan for being John Grisham in a diner. They spoke about their research and that the best way to treat it is like an iceberg – only ever using the 10% or less you would see above the surface.…

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Chaired by author and journalist SJ Parrish, this panel was set to discuss the depiction of sex and violence in crime fiction and whether it is an exploitation of those who have already been exploited.

The panel was made up of authors James McCreet, Val McDermid, Adam Creed and former senior police officer and the inspiration for Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennyson, Jackie Malton.

Jackie kicked off by saying that part of a detective’s strategy is to feed the media, the Jill Dando case being a good example – but it can lead to multiple inputs and things to follow up on.…

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Unfortunately I had to miss the next event on the schedule (the Readers’ Book Group with Martyn Waites discussing novels by Cathi Unsworth and Christa Faust) – a real shame as it was Christa’s only event other than the dinner event that I knew I was also having to miss (more of that later).

So, after a much needed break and another great lunch, it was back to the main hall for ‘Legal Eagles’.

Chaired by the hilarious Peter McCormick (Senior Partner of McCormick’s Solicitor, who sponsored the panel) this was an insightful discussion between MR Hall, Frances Fyfield, Martin Edwards and Helen Black concerning how much of their professional legal careers they now bring to bear on the pages of their novels.…

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Bounding onto stage sporting a headset mic set and doing the first line of ‘Like a Virgin’ before admitting that Martina Cole beat her to it with her ‘Britney’ the day before, festival favourite Val McDermid took to the stage to introduce the ‘New Blood’ event.

This has been a very popular panel since first being put on at Harrogate as it gives readers a chance to hear debut crime novelists describe their route to publication and provides a chance to get started reading new crime authors from their very first book and see how they then develop over, hopefully, years to come.…

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