Every year, the Yorkshire town of Harrogate hosts one of the UK’s biggest book events – the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. Whether you were there this year or followed proceedings from afar, it’s clear that books were the heroes. We try our best to keep you up to date with the best of the best, but the four-day event tantalised us with some books we haven’t tried yet, and revealed some equally fascinating releases on the way. So, we decided to pick out a few highlights from Harrogate 2024 that need to go on our reading list, and share them with you. Some names may be familiar, others not so much – but all are worthy of adding to your list as well.
See our full show report here.
In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan
The newly crowned Theakston Crime Novel of the Year takes on one of the most headline-grabbing subjects of the monent – artificial intelligence – for a debut novel that’s won lots of plaudits. Widowed DCS Kat Frank is picked to lead a pilot programme that pairs her up with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock. Kat is a copper who has always trusted her gut instincts – how will she cope with an AI partner? Their fledgling relationship is put to the test when a cold case becomes active again. If you like this one, Kat and Lock are back in the follow-up, Leave No Trace.
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Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney
Winner of the festival’s inaugural McDermid Debut Award, Marie Tierney’s Deadly Animals has a strange 13-year-old girl as its protagonist. Ava Bonney is obsessed with studying roadkill and entranced by the process of decomposition, but things take a nasty turn when one night she finds the dead body of a classmate, Mickey Grant. The police are on the case, but Ava’s unusual skillset and local knowledge give her the advantage as the sets out to solve the case before more people die.
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We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
A retired cop, a bodyguard and a cat called Trouble feature in We Solve Murders, the first in a new series from Thursday Murder Club creator Richard Osman, out on 12 September. Photo booths, an airport departure lounge and even free breakfast baps were part of the publicity machine for this one at Harrogate, with Osman talking about it at length in his Saturday night appearance in the Big Tent. Steve Wheeler is enjoying retirement and the odd pub quiz when his private security guard daughter-in-law calls for his help. Suddenly Steve is in a private jet, racing to Amy’s side – and the pair are thrown right into the thick of it.
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Ice Town by Will Dean
Deaf and bisexual local journalist Tuva Moodyson is back in Ice Town, Will Dean’s next Swedish-set thriller that comes out on 7 November. Dean was in Harrogate handing out preview copies of his book and assorted Ice Town merch to festival goers. Tuva joins the search when a deaf teenager goes missing in Esseberg, an isolated community that lies on the other side of a mountain tunnel, which is the only way in and out of town. As weather conditions worsen, it becomes clear that there’s a killer on the loose in Esseberg…
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The Kill List by Nadine Matheson
Nadine Matheson was part of one of the festival’s most entertaining panels – Cops and Robbers – and as a practising defence lawyer it seems appropriate that her novel The Kill List focuses on a possible miscarriage of justice. It’s 25 years since Andrew Streeter was jailed for brutally murdering five young people. Streeter’s ‘kill list’ of victims was found in his home, and he was convicted of all five crimes. Now Streeter’s convictions are being overturned as new evidence implies the original investigation was corrupt. The arresting officer back then was DCI Harry Rhimes, a mentor of DI Angelica Henley, who must now put personal feelings aside as she and her team reopen the investigation… and the killings begin once more.
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What’s on your reading list at the moment? Let us know in the comments below.