Grand Mercure hotel in central Bristol.
On Friday the first panel I attended was
A skeleton in the cupboard: Keeping Secrets
The panel was skilfully moderated by Caroline England.
L-R: Caroline England, Kaaren Warren, Felix Francis, Simon McCleave, Mark Ellis.
The next panel I attended was
Columbo: Just One More Thing
L-R: Caroline England, Kaaren Warren, Felix Francis, Simon McCleave, Mark Ellis.
The discussion was about the series Columbo, a TV series that ran from 1971-2003. It immediately became clear that here were four devotees of the series. The panel discussed every aspect of the behaviour of the lead character Columbo, a detective who wore a shabby raincoat and had the habit that after quizzing a suspect, he starts to walk away. The suspect breaths a sigh of relief and relaxes, but as Columbo reaches the exit, he always turns and fires off a question to the now relaxed suspect, completely throwing him. Known as a ‘curved’ ball.
The panel talked of individual episodes in great detail and it was blatantly obvious that they had all seen every one of them. They were alive with their recollections and the audience was totally drawn in. Well not all the audience I personally watch and read crime fiction to see if I can solve the mystery, i.e. whodunit? And I admit that I watched a couple of episodes of Columbo when the series was first aired. However it quickly became clear that the murder and the killer were revealed before the credits even went up. Then one had to sit for two hours while this chap in an old raincoat showed how clever he is. How boring is that? Yep, you got it I thought that it was a waste of time and only ever watched a few early episodes. Still we can’t all like same things.
As it was then just after midday, along with my husband and my friend Ruth we did what we always do on a Saturday at CrimeFest, we went for lunch on a boat that is moored on the water called
’Under the Stars’.
The food is great and as you will see by the photograph there is always something to watch.
No, I m not going to tell you what we were watching.
Ovidia Yu shares with us her enjoyment of some of the panels
she attended at CrimeFest.
Ovidia was born in, lives in and writes about Singapore.
Her series set in 1930s Singapore featuring amateur sleuth Su Lin.
There are nine books in the series.
Thursday17:00 – 17:50
L-R: A j Chowdhury, Alex North, Jeffrey Siger, Kate Ellis, Sam Holland
This was interesting because it went beyond writing for people's entertainment to talking about what even 'entertaining' writing can do to make people aware of things going on around them. But for me the shock here was realising Sam Holland was female. Somehow from her books like Echo Man and Puppet Master I'd assumed she was a guy--she's very very good as a moderator!
Saturday 09:00–09:50
Tick Tock: A Race Against Time
L-R: Brian Price, Simon McCleave, Michelle Kidd, Stanley Trollip, Martin Edwards.
This was about building suspense. They mentioned a whole bunch of books and writers I'd not read and have to look up now, like Cornell Woolrich. I feel like if I could read a 10th of the books mentioned by panellists it would better than a year in university. Also, they talked about how creating suspense is just about creating good plots and if you do it well enough the momentum you build up at the start takes over and carries you to the end.
Saturday 16:00-16:50
CWA Diamond Dagger Recipient: James Lee Burke interviewed by Vaseem Khan
James Lee Burke
for receiving the CWA Diamond Dagger). It's not easy to manage a Zoom interview and at one point JLB went off screen and we didn't know if he was coming back but VK kept telling us about his (JLB's) work and answering questions with what felt like a mix of respect and affection. We were saying we need to remember this so that if one day VK receives the Diamond Dagger we can bring up this photo and say we saw it coming!
Sunday 09:30-10:20
The Indie Alternative Panel
L-R: Zoe Sharp, Nikki Copleston, S.J. Richards, Susan Glossey, Sherry Hostler
The Indie Alternative panel was great because I'd been thinking about Indie publishing & never realised how many potential problems there were. But it was also funny and positive. Zoe Sharp was moderating, and she stressed that you just keep on trying and asking questions and trying different things and developing different skills because things are always changing so you can't take a bunch of set rules and follow them to success. But one thing that doesn't change is it's important to get reviews. Susan Grossey saying technical stuff is always changing but people don't change and how now we're uncomfortable switching to cryptocurrency (I was surprised how many places in the UK don't take paper money but only want cards) but two hundred years ago people were afraid in the same way of switching to paper money!
Other interesting things: at the Denise Mina interview, they said that 'everyone is doing someone' like Chandler who was doing Hammett who was doing the Pinkerton Reports. And that Chandler wrote like PG Wodehouse, only they were telling different stories.
The breakfasts at Keepers were superb!
The gala dinner was great, and Cathy Ace was such fun.
L-R: C.V. Chauhan, M.A, Hunter, Jen Faulkner, Alison Bruce, Elizabeth Chakrabarty
For me, the best panel of the conference was:
Saturday 14:50 – 15:40
A Question of Ethics: Moral Dilemmas and
Difficult Choices
Moderated by Stanley Trollip, the writing half of Michael Stanley the discussion was in-depth. Prior to the event Stanley had requested the panel to each recall and relate a moral dilemma that they had each faced. It was enthralling. It was impressive how Stanley kept all the participants on the this interesting topic. I wish I had recorded it.
L-R: Liz Fielding, Alex Stone, Felix Francis, Alex Shaw, Stanley Trollip
It will be clear from the foregoing that there were some terrific panels. There were 50 panels available and as there are three panel options running most of the time, visiting all of them was impossible, but I hope that the ones reported on will give you a flavour of what a terrific conference it was.
Below are some photographs courtesy of Gary Stratmann.
Thursday 20:00 - 21:30
The after dinner speaker and Leader of Toasts was
Cathy Ace
who gave a rousing and lively speech. One of the best after dinner talks I have heard in a long time.
Photograph left
Zoe Sharp,
Ali Karim and
Nev Fountain
CrimeFest 2025
15-18 May
Put it in Your diary NOW!
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