Last Friday saw me head over to Bristol and specifically to the Marriott Royal Hotel to enjoy a day at CrimeFest, the first of this year’s UK international crime festivals (the Harrogate crime festival is coming up in July).

And it was a pleasure to see our attending authors including Adrian Magson, who was up for the eDunnit Award for Death on the Rive Nord (although he was pipped to the post by Denise Mina for The End of the Wasp Season ), Martin Edwards (and you can read his post about CrimeFest here), and Alison Joseph, who I bumped into in the powder room as we both rushed to spruce ourselves up before braving the crowds (frankly, I needed far more sprucing up than she did – early wake up calls do not suit me).

I sat in on two panels featuring our author Jacqueline Winspear, author of the Maisie Dobbs mystery series. The first was entitled The Joys and Perils of Writing Historical Crime Fiction, where she was joined by authors Danny Miller, William Ryan, Jason Goodwin (who I think could be Hugh Grant’s long-lost brother – there’s something of a resemblance) and Christopher Wakling as chair.  The second was called Kicking Ass: Spirited Protagonists and Tricky Situations (pictured below) which saw her on a panel with Lee Child (who professed his novels were mostly autobiographical…), Sue Grafton, Brian McGilloway and fellow-A&B author Zoë Sharp as moderator (who expertly revealed the 6-degrees of separation – however tenuous – between each participating author and announced she’d be calling upon them to answer her questions in  order of their respective heights. )

You’ll notice from the angle of this shot that I was forced to sit on the floor as the room was full and all the chairs were taken. Fine with me as nothing is better than seeing a room packed with crime-fans!

So, here’s to another successful year at CrimeFest and here’s hoping for more packed rooms and even more crime fans for next year!

Chiara Priorelli, Publicity & Online Marketing Manager