The Shots team enjoyed an energetic time last week,
as guests of Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival (aka TOPCW), as the
2018 Program of events was released at a wonderful party, hosted in London’s
Covent Garden.
It was timely, as in 2017 for the first time, Crime
and Thriller outsold General and Literary fiction in the UK, with Lee Child the
UK’s biggest selling author, and who is the chair for programming for the 2018 TOPCW,
hosted in Yorkshire’s historic Harrogate?
But, earlier I found
myself meeting Julia
Heaberlin for lunch in Convent Garden, thanks to Gaby Young of Penguin
Randomhouse. I had been rather taken with Julia’s BLACK EYED SUSANS a remarkably
creepy gothic thriller, meeting her a few years ago at Theakstons Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate
in 2016. Joining us were Jon Coates Deputy [News Editor at The Express], Joe Haddow [BBC broadcaster and literary commentator], Ayo Onatade and
colleagues from Penguin RandomHouse.
After a most entertaining lunch, we thanked Gaby
and Penguin RandomHouse, I headed off to spend time in the various bookstores
along the Charing Cross Road, eventually arriving at Goldsboro Books, where I sat
with coffee for some reading.
During the afternoon, I met up with Simon Mayo, who was
signing some First Edition stock of his remarkable historical thriller Mad Blood Stirring. Simon will
be attending TOPCW this summer where he will be joining fellow historical
writers Andrew Taylor, SJ Parris,
Antonia Hodgson and Joe Kanon.
I was also delighted to bump into Sarah Hilary, as
she was signing copies of her latest DI Marnie Rome adventure - Come and
Find Me, which was reviewed enthusiastically at Shots Magazine HERE.
And soon it was time to head off into deep, darkest
Covent Garden, to hear what’s in-store for the 2018 TOPCW, of particular
interest [to literary commentators] is of course Val McDermid’s New Blood Panel.
Welcoming the guests to the party: CEO of the
Festival Sharon Canavar and Principal Sponsor, Simon Theakston of Theakstons
Brewery, which we have recorded.
And with barely enough time to refresh my glass of gin,
Lee
Child took to the podium to give us some insight into the 2018 Program that
he and the Harrogate International Festivals’ Team have planned for this
summer.
And then we headed to the bar to drink, and talk
Crime and Thriller Writing and Reading, between the finger nibbles that flowed
most generously.
To attempt to list all the guests to the launch
party would be a folly, so instead we provide an array of photographs from the
evening.
More information about the 2018 Festival Program,
as well as attendance packages please click HERE and remember
there is the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year Award, the Dead Good Reader’s Award as well the
most sought after literary trophy, the fabled Harrogate Crime Fiction Quiz – this year,
I have promised Mark Lawson and my colleagues I will not be drinking so much gin
prior to the competition.
So we look forward to meeting up with our
bibliophile colleagues in Harrogate 19 – 22 July, for to miss it would indeed
be a criminal act.
For information please CLICK
HERE
So we look forward to meeting up with our
bibliophile colleagues in Harrogate 19 – 22 July, for to miss it would indeed
be a criminal act.
For information please CLICK
HERE
