This was our first visit to Yorkshire with the triple aims of birding, literature and family (I wonder if this is the right order?) with the 8th Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival our only goal for 19th to 22nd July – to enjoy the criminal intent, to see how the writers shape up in a public forum.
The sole venue was the Old Swan Hotel famed for where Agatha Christie was found after she went on her own journey away from domestic un-bliss and booked in using the name of her husband’s girlfriend – there’s imagination for you! We enjoyed our stay but the hotel must have been much grander in years gone by.
A well organised event ran to a strict time line with all the guests and chaired panels acquitting themselves well. The opening and award for the crime novel of the year went smoothly with the oil being added by a ‘free’ pint of Theakstons ‘Crime of Passion’ ale, it being sweetened with almonds just like the smell of cyanide on a corpse. I wonder if the brewer is still alive! However, from the short list of six, Denise Mina won with The End of The Wasp Season, she made a brilliant acceptance speech so we bought it together with £200 worth of other books. What a cheap week-end!
We enjoyed it all, heard some great writers, met some lovely people and had our writer/book horizon expanded.
High and lows were Ian Rankin with Peter Robinson being disappointing for me and their session could be re-labelled ‘Two Grumpy Old Men having a Chat over a Beer’ although I suspect that they could have done a lot better. There were many other sessions that were excellent such as John Connolly (you can’t keep the Celts out of it), Peter James and Kate Mosse. There was some smooth work done Mark Lawson and Barry Forshaw who were impressive. Mark Billingham and his committee all deserve accolades for creating the programme. A bloody could show – well done.
For next year start looking at www.harrogateinternationalfestivals.com why don’t you?
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