A "Peculier" LIneup

Harrogate International Festivals revealed the full program for the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, one of the world’s largest celebrations of crime fiction, at a special reception at Hachette, Carmelite House in London.

This year’s slate was curated by bestselling psychological thriller writer, Lisa Jewell, and features over 140 crime and thriller writers, making it the biggest event ever in the Festival’s illustrious twenty-three-year history. The all-star line-up of bestselling authors and crime fiction names includes Richard Armitage, Ardal O’Hanlon, Andi Osho, Denise Mina, Adam Kay, Abir Mukherjee, Elly Griffiths, Vaseem Khan, Val McDermid and M.W. Craven join Special Guest headliners Ann Cleeves and Brenda Blethyn, Anthony Horowitz, Holly Jackson, Chris Brookmyre, Chris Whitaker, Jane Harper, LJ Ross, Nadine Matheson, Gillian McAllister, Steve Cavanagh, Alice Feeney, and David Baldacci.

Taking place at Harrogate’s Old Swan Hotel from July 23-26, this year’s Festival offers crime fiction fans even more opportunities to hear from superstar writers and discover new talent with the launch of the Swift Half Stage. This innovative new space seeks to champion brilliant storytellers, rising stars and boundary-pushing creatives in a series of bite-size events. Those scheduled to take part include  Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall, Mick Herron, Ahana Virdi, Will Carver, Clare McGowan, Kia Abdullah and Traitor’s star Harriet Tyce.

Other festival highlights include the prestigious Theakston Old Peculier Crime Awards Ceremony and the much-anticipated Critics’ New Blood panel showcasing four extraordinary debut novelists, Anna Maloney, Leodora Darlington, M.K. Oliver and Mel Pennant, selected by leading crime fiction critics. For aspiring writers, Creative Thursday offers an immersive day of workshops and talks led by industry experts and bestselling writers including A.A Dhand, GR Halliday and Julie Mae Cohen, with the rare opportunity to pitch work in the "Dragon’s Pen."

Evenings offer exclusive opportunities for fans to engage with authors at relaxed events, include the hilarious Interview Bingo and the hotly contested Late Night Quiz, compèred by Val McDermid and Mark Billingham. Two Author Dinners will see readers join forces with crime writers K.T. Nguyen, Sean Watkins, Emma Christie, Rupa Mahadevan, William Hussey and many others to solve a fiendishly twisty murder mystery, hosted by Mel Pennant.

Media Murder for Monday

It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news:


THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES

Rachel Sennott (I Love LA) has booked a key supporting role alongside Chris Hemsworth, Taron Egerton, Zazie Beetz, and Alec Baldwin in Matt Ross’s feature Kockroach, which begins filming in Australia next week. The New York-set crime pic, based on the William Lashner novel, is the story of a mysterious stranger who takes on the city’s criminal underworld, transforming himself into a larger-than-life boss in a city where power is everything. Ross directs from a screenplay by Jonathan Ames (You Were Never Really Here).


Chris Hemsworth has closed a deal to reprise his role of Tyler Rake in Extraction 3, the new installment in the hit action-film franchise. Insiders add that Sam Hargrave is back to direct, with Idris Elba and Golshifteh Farahani also back on board to star. David Weil is writing the script, and although plot details are unknown at this time, it's a safe bet there will be another high-octane thrill ride as Rake (Hemsworth) and his team are sent on another dangerous extraction mission. The series is based on the graphic novel Ciudad by Ande Parks, from a story by Parks, Joe Russo & Anthony Russo, with illustrations by Fernando Leon Gonzalez.


Emma Elle Paterson (Amazon’s The Boys), has signed on to lead and produce a feature titled Candy from filmmaker Jessica Michael Davis. Based on a short story by Mindy McGinnis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Davis, the film has been described as an "elevated genre-bending thriller" and follows a young woman (Davis) who reclaims autonomy through a radical bodily transformation, yet as she adopts the persona of "Candy," empowerment becomes a seductive descent into vengeance and moral ambiguity. Also attached to star in the film is Darius Jordan Lee (Dexter: Resurrection).


Deadline reported that Ride Along 3 is in early development at Universal with stars Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, director Tim Story, and producer Will Packer all in early discussions to return. The news coincides with an announcement that the studio closed a deal with scribe Daniel Gold (Tough Guys) to pen the screenplay. The first Ride Along came out in 2014 and followed security guard Ben Barber (Hart) who must prove himself to his girlfriend’s brother, top police officer James Payton (Ice Cube). In doing so, Ben rides along with James on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta. In 2016's part two, the duo head to Miami to take down a drug dealer who is supplying drugs to Atlanta.


Vertical has acquired U.S. rights to Oscar nominee Andrew Niccol’s crime thriller, Lords of War, from Oscar-winning studio Vendôme Pictures, which produced and financed the film. The sequel to the 2005 movie, Lord of War, which starred Oscar winner Nicolas Cage, sees the actor reprising his role as Yuri Orlov, the world’s most notorious arms dealer. When Yuri discovers he has a son, Anton (Bill Skarsgård), a ruthless mercenary mastermind bent on surpassing his father by building a private army and exploiting America’s wars in the Middle East, he is thrust into a deadly battle for legacy with the global arms trade hanging in the balance.


Anthony Mackie (Captain America) and Dafne Keen (Deadpool & Wolverine) are starring in the action-thriller, Barracuda, which gets underway this week in New Mexico. Neil Burger (Divergent) is directing the movie, which will also star Steven Bauer (Ray Donovan) and Anthony Del Negro (Running Point). The story centers on Karl (Mackie), a former smuggler with a haunted past, who storms a nightclub in Mexico to rescue Jodie (Keen), a kidnapped teenage girl. The breakout turns into a high-speed race when Karl kills the brother of the ruthless club owner and steals his prized 1973 Plymouth Barracuda. Now hunted by relentless criminals, Karl and Jodie tear across the desert with no way to slow down.


TELEVISION/STREAMING

Kevin Bacon is set to lead Southern Bastards, a new Hulu drama pilot from director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard). Based on the award-winning graphic novel series by Jason Aaron and Jason Latour, Southern Bastards follows a tenacious military vet into Craw County, Alabama, in search of her estranged father. What she finds is a murderous hornet’s nest of organized crime run by the winningest high school football coach in the South. Bacon plays Earl, the son of the legendary Sheriff Bert, who ruled Craw County with an iron fist. Earl is a tough but humble blue-collar army veteran — eager to mend fences and reconnect with his daughter, and not afraid to stir the hornet’s nest that is Craw County.


Filming has begun on the new series of the acclaimed BBC murder mystery drama Shetland, with Ashley Jensen and Alison O’Donnell reprising their roles as DI Ruth Calder and DI Alison "Tosh" McIntosh. Most of the cast regulars also return, including Steven Robertson (playing DC Sandy Wilson); Lewis Howden (Billy McCabe); Samuel Anderson (Procurator Fiscal Matt Blake); Steven Miller (Rev Alan Calder); Anne Kidd (pathologist Cora McLean); Angus Miller (Donnie, Tosh’s partner); Conor McCarry (PC Alex Grant); and Eubha Akilade (PC Lorna Burns). Originally based on award-winning novels by crime writer Ann Cleeves, the forthcoming new series centers around an historic murder which will forever change the lives of all those connected in the present day.


Fox has renewed Memory of a Killer for a second season. Inspired by the book and the 2003 Belgian film, De Zaak Alzheimer, the drama stars Patrick Dempsey as hitman Angelo Flannery/Doyle, who leads a dangerous double life while hiding an even deadlier personal secret: he is slowly losing his memory. To further complicate things, he discovers his wife’s recent death may not have been an accident. When someone comes after his pregnant daughter Maria (Odeya Rush), it’s clear the wall between his lives has been breached. Angelo must stop whoever’s coming for his family by searching his past hits for clues, and the list is very long. Michael Imperioli plays Dutch Forlanni, whose restaurant is a front for criminal enterprise, and who serves as Angel's employer, giving him the targets for his hits. The cast also includes Richard Harmon, Peter Gadiot and Daniel David Stewart.


The writing team of Tawnya Bhattacharya and Ali Laventhol have a new project in development at Hulu: a TV adaptation of the Trish Lundy YA thriller, The One That Got Away With Murder. The show’s logline is as follows: "When a guarded new girl with a dark past transfers to a high school across the country, she’s drawn to the former golden boy who is now a notorious outcast suspected of killing his girlfriend. Determined to know the truth, she secretly investigates, uncovering a web of secrets and lies, as she closes in on the killer who got away with murder."


Prime Video has given a straight-to-series order to the Texas-set crime thriller, Calamities, from showrunner, writer, and director David Weil (Hunters). Per the streamer: “Calamities is a gripping and propulsive Texas crime thriller like no other. After a drug deal explodes into violence, a quiet border town is thrust into a deadly collision course between a small-town sheriff looking for answers from her past, a sociopathic hit-woman, an overly eager FBI agent, and a ruthless sect of the cartel.”


Paramount+ has added the heist thriller, The Day (working title), to its British slate, to be led by Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting), Luca Pasqualino (The Musketeers), and Louisa Harland (Derry Girls). The eight-part series is based on the Belgian show, De Dag and is set across a single day, following a terrifying bank siege that starts when police stumble across a bank robbery mid-heist, prompting the criminals to barricade themselves inside. The story opens from the police perspective, led by hostage negotiator Sylvia “Vox” Voxley (Driver), as she battles time and rising pressure to save the hostages. But as the crisis hurtles towards a breaking point, the story rewinds, with viewers pulled inside the bank to relive the same events through the eyes of the robbers and their hostages.


Peabody Award-winning producer, showrunner, and writer Gary Lennon (Hightown) is developing the new crime drama Los Feliz at Starz. The show is an emotional high-stakes crime drama about an affair that destroys friendships, marriages, and careers – ultimately leading to a murder case that divides a community and destroys them all. The series is set in the Los Angeles neighborhood of the same name near Hollywood.


PODCASTS/RADIO/AUDIO

NPR's Scott Simon chatted with V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke, the friends and authors who co-wrote the novel The Ending Writes Itself, part mystery and part send-up of the publishing industry.


On Read or Dead, Katie McLain Horner and Kendra Winchester discussed missing person mysteries and thrillers by Tana French, Tiffany D. Jackson, Jess Kidd, Ginger Reno, Kalynn Bayron, and Luke Dumas.


On the latest Murder Junction, hosts Vaseem Khan and Abir Mukherjee chatted with Anthony Horowitz, creator of the Alex Rider novels and TV shows such as Midsommer Murders and Foyle's War. Anthony discussed his latest crime novel, A Deadly Episode, and what keeps him writing.


Alan Peterson, host of the Meet the Thriller Author podcast, spoke with bestselling author Mark Stevens, creator of the Flynn Martin thriller series, about his latest novel, Two Truths and a Lie.


On the Cops and Writers podcast, Patrick J. O'Donnell interviewed bestselling author and publicist, Deborah Levison, whose first book, The Crate, won several awards and garnered rave reviews including an endorsement from Lee Child, about her newly released title, A Novel Crime.


The Pick Your Poison podcast with Dr. Jen Prosser investigated a toxin so powerful that a little smeared on the tip of a blowgun arrow is enough to silence every muscle in your body, including your diaphragm, stopping your breathing—and how a poison like this became a commonly used drug in modern medicine. She also went inside a Siberian prison cell where one of the most high-profile political prisoners on the planet collapses and dies. Was this a state-sponsored assassination using a poison from the rainforest?

Sunday Music Treat

Renaissance music and interstellar space travel - doesn't seem like they'd make good partners, but actually, they do! One of the pieces included on the Golden Record on the Voyager I spacecraft was "The Fairie Round," performed by David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London. This work has many levels of meaning for me, since I was in a top-notch recorder ensemble as a youth, but also because I was a fan of Munrow, who championed and popularized early music but whose life and career were tragically cut short by his suicide at the age of 33. Here's a little legacy he left that is currently 16.1 billion miles or roughly 26 billion kilometers (one light day) from Earth as of April 2026 and will reach the Oort Cloud in about 300 years. (If you want to know what else was included on the record, here's a list.)

 

 

Quote of the Week

 

Friday's "Forgotten" Books - The Port of London Murders

Josephine Bell, the pen name of  Doris Collier Ball, was born in Manchester in 1897, educated at Cambridge, and became a University College Hospital of London physician. She married a fellow physician who died at a young age in 1936, which is when Bell turned her hand to writing, even as she maintained her medical practice.

She was a co-founder of the Crime Writers' Association, serving as its chair in 1959, and also became a member of the Detection Club. She eventually closed her medical practice at age 57 but continued to write full time until she was 85, creating numerous sleuths in her more than 40 crime novels (at the rate of two a year), such as AmyTupper, Dr. David Wintingham, Dr. Henry Frost, and Scotland Yard Inspector Steven Mitchell.

Not surprisingly, her novels often feature a strong medical component, not the least of which were two of her doctor-protagonists. She also featured poison and other unusual methods of murder prominently in her plots. Bell and her family were experienced sailors, and the author drew upon this knowledge, too, using many vivid passages in her books that relate to the water and to various nautical details.

Water is certainly at the heart of the setting in Bell's novel The Port of London Murders from 1938, specifically as the title suggests, the port area of London's River Thames. It's a tough neighborhood, but the death of one Mary Holland is still a bit of a shock, even though it appears at first to be a suicide by Lysol poisoning. Tell-tale needle marks on the victim's arm lead Detective Sergeant Chandler to suspect murder tied into a drug ring—which seems even more chillingly apparent when Chandler disappears shortly after he starts to investigate, right before he's due to testify at the inquest. It's up to Inspector Mitchell of Scotland Yard to unravel the layers of deception and addiction that are exploiting rich and poor alike in a way that hasn't changed much in the seventy years since the book was written.

Bell is particularly good with settings, even the squalid ones that pop up in the novel, no doubt witnessed first-hand in her role as a physician who saw people from every walk of life. Her take on the state of medicine in her day was often somewhat bleak, as in this passage from the book—again, as true today as it was in 1938:

For the great majority of these cases, too poor to have a doctor of their own, there was little he could do...Dr. Freeman could encourage them with a bottle of medicine and help them with a pint of milk a day, but it was not in his power nor that of anyone else to effect a lasting cure of their complaints. There were others, too, not old, but equally hopeless, who attended the dispensary as regular visitors; those struck down in youth or middle age by tuberculosis, rheumatism, heart trouble, and a number of more rare diseases. They had come to the end of their resources, their insurances, and their capacity for earning. The hospitals could do nothing more for them, but they still lived, in the worse possible surroundings, and the Public Assistance saw to it that they did not die too soon.

Mystery Melange

The festival schedule was revealed for Capital Crime 2026, set to return to London's Leonardo Royal Hotel June 18th-20th, with the Fingerprint Awards hosted by Ryan Tubridy on the 18th. Newly confirmed authors include Jeffrey Archer, MJ Arlidge, Chris Brookmyre, AA Dhand, Sabine Durrant, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Janice Hallett, Lisa Jewell, Vaseem Khan, T.M. Logan, Abir Mukherjee, Catriona Ward. They will be joining the previously announced headliners Jane Harper, Lee and Andrew Child, Claire Douglas, Andrea Mara, Ardal O’Hanlon, and Andi Osho, joining in panels and discussions around closed communities, Agatha Christie, courtroom dramas, and much more.


Likewise, the Whitby Lit Festival in the UK  announced the first authors confirmed for its 2026 program, as the event returns from November 19–22 following a highly successful inaugural year. Leading the first wave of announcements are Ann Cleeves OBE (creator of the Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez/Shetland series), Joanne Harris OBE (best known for her bestselling novel Chocolat), Dr. Sian Williams (an award-winning broadcaster and chartered counseling psychologist), and Mark Billingham (the Tom Thorne crime series). Set against Whitby’s dramatic coastline and historic streets, the festival will once again feature author talks, panel discussions, workshops, book signings, and special events across multiple venues.


There are only a handful of free tickets left for the upcoming Noir at the bar Sunderland in the UK on May 13. This in-person event brings together some of the best crime writers from the North East and beyond as well as some fresh new talent to share extracts from their novels. Authors currently scheduled to attend include Trevor Wood, Michael Wood, Marisse Whitttaker, David Mark, Helen Aitchison, L.M. Milford, Iain Rowan, Tom Sibson, Pam Plumb, and Kellie Appleby.


The sixth edition of the International Santiago Noir Festival will be held from September 22nd to 25th, 2026, in a fully in-person format, at the premises of the Faculty of Letters at Pontificia Universidad Católica of Chile, the Faculty of  Communication and Letters at Universidad Diego Portales, and Centro Cultural of Spain. The main objective of the Congress will be to bring together all kinds of specialists and creators who will contribute new perspectives on themes related to the noir genre. For more information about attending or submitting papers (due June 26), follow this link.


There are some other new calls for papers on crime fiction themes, including Crime Narratives on Screen for a conference in Durham in July, which invites papers that explore how crime narratives engage with social, political, and cultural issues within rapidly transforming screen industries (due May 31st);"Economic Crime in Practice" for the Journal of Economic Criminology (due January 27, 2027); and chapter proposals for "Tana French and Ireland," offering commentary chapters on each of French’s novels, including her Dublin Murder Squad series (due May 1st).


Here's a competition that hadn't crossed my radar before: The Association of Thriller Writers (UPiT) has officially opened the application process for the second annual Golden Thriller award, a regional competition across Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro aimed at identifying the most compelling crime fiction published in the previous calendar year. Interested participants must submit three printed copies and an electronic version of their manuscript to the association by the May 1, 2026, deadline. The five finalists will be revealed on October 15, 2026, before the final award ceremony in December.


The bestselling author of psychological thrillers like The Housemaid has revealed her true identity. Freida McFadden has used a pseudonym, wig and glasses to maintain her privacy in public but she says "it's time" to reveal her identity. McFadden is in reality Sara Cohen, a doctor who treats brain disorders and only created the pseudonym because she didn't want her writing career to conflict with her hospital job. "My whole goal was to keep it a secret until I was (ready to) step back from my doctor job, so it wouldn't be like everyone I work with suddenly knew and it compromised my ability to do my job," McFadden says. In late 2023, she stopped working full-time. "But I have stepped away from my job. I'm only working like once or twice a month." McFadden was the second best-selling author of 2025 in the UK, selling 2.6 million books, and sold six million print copies in the U.S.


The BBC investigated seven places around the world where Agatha Christie found inspiration for murder, from South Devon in the UK to Petra, Jordan.


This week's crime poem up at the 5-2 Crime Poetry Weekly is "Right" by Craig Kirchner.


In the Q&A roundup, Mark Stevens, author of The Flynn Martin Thriller series, applied the Page 69 Test to Two Truths and a Lie, his latest novel with reporter Flynn Martin; another intrepid author to take the Page 69 Test was Susan Furlong, talking about her new novel, Amish Country Homicide; and the Self-Publishing Review interviewed Anthony Lee, who has a background in clinical medicine and health technology assessment, about his new medical thriller, Poison Pill.

30 Years of Short Crime Fiction Excellence

The recently announced Derringer Award finalists from the Short Mystery Fiction Society marks the 30th year of the organization and the 28th anniversary of the awards. The honors currently include the categories of Best Flash Story (up to 1000 words), Best Short Story (1001-4000 words), Best Long Story (4001-8000 words), Best Novelette (8001-20,000 words). (Best Anthology was added last year.) I've been fortunate to have been a four-time finalist and also a winner in the Short Story category.

On Art Taylor's "The First Two Pages" blog feature this week, I was featured as part of the new anthology, Hot Shots: Celebrating Thirty Years of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, which was just released. Editor Josh Pachter chose one story from each of the 28 years the SMFS has handed out Derringers for the anthology. I was thrilled to have my 2012 winning story, "The Touch of Death," chosen for inclusion, especially to be slotted alongside such luminaries as Doug Allyn, Michael Bracken, Bill Crider, John Floyd, Slesar, Cathi Stoler, Art Taylor, Melissa Yi, and many more.

For some of the best short crime fiction, from hardboiled to cozy, check out this celebratory anthology and enjoy some fun, thrilling quick reads. And if you're a writer in this genre, consider joining the SMFS. Membership is free and is open to writers, editors, publishers, and anyone with an interest in the subject.