Chiltern Kills is the perfect place to start.
Organisers Paul Waters and Tony Kent have got it spot-on in every department. All the authors give their services for free, the thriving local independent bookshop sells the books and local businesses provide all the catering.
And because Paul and Tony attract sponsorship to pay for the tents and other facilities, all the profits from the sale of £40 tickets - for what has quickly become Britain’s biggest one-day crime festival - goes to charity. What’s not to like?
This was my second time at Chiltern Kills but because my debut crime thriller, Deadly Protocol, has been published, I was asked to be a panel this year. How fun – if bizarre – it turned out to be. More of that later.
One notable absentee this year was the publishing legend who became the festival’s patron, Frederick Forsyth. He died at his nearby home in June, so the Mayor of Gerrards Cross cut the tape to open proceedings.
L-R Organisers Paul Waters and Tony Kent, with Neil Child-Dyer of the Centrepoint Charity and Gerrards Cross Mayor Prerna Bhardwaj
Joint organiser Tony Kent collaborated with the Day of the Jackal author on his final thriller and paid tribute to him. “Freddie will remain the patron of Chiltern Kills,” he said. “He was the person who made people take us seriously.”
Centrepoint receives all the profit from the festival and the homelessness charity’s Neil Child-Dyer revealed that this was a cause very close to Freddie Forsyth’s heart.
“He experienced homelessness early in his life and was a huge advocate for our work,” he said. After the tributes to the doyen of the spy thriller, it was time for the doyennes of the craft to take centre stage – and give aspiring author a few tips on how to pen that best seller.
First up were Deadly Women, where four of the finest - Teri Terry, Marnie Riches, Emma Tallon and Alex Chaudhuri - showed they had all had different ways of writing a thriller.
L-R Deadly Women Teri Terry, Marnie Riches, Emma Tallon and Alex Chaudhuri
Do they plot in advance or write by the seat of their pants?
“I’m a pantser,” confessed Emma. “The characters take over when you start writing.”
“I write character profiles,” said Alex, “but I’m not one of those detailed planners.”
Teri confesses she does write a plan but doesn’t always follow it.
Marnie also writes a plan but a short one. - an outline of six to eight pages. “Because I don’t write a detailed synopsis, there’s space for the magic to happen,” she told the audience.
At Cops, Robbers and Courts there was a chance to meet a real life Deadly Woman. Linda Calvey – dubbed by the tabloids' as the Black Widow - was convicted of an armed robbery she admits she carried out. But she also served a life sentence for a murder she swears she did not commit.
Now she’s taken up the pen and writes crime thrillers for a living.
As someone who was introduced to Ronnie Kray – “he kissed my hand like a proper gent”, she says – Linda has half a lifetime on which to base her characters.
“A lot of my characters are based on real people,” she told chair
Imran Mahmood.
Linda Calvey makes a point to chair Imran Mahmood
In the afternoon, the Queens of the Bestseller took to the stage. Together, Claire Douglas, Anna Mazzola, Janice Hallett and Nikki Smith have sold millions of copies.
They were asked by chair Cass Green for their advice to aspiring writers.
L-R Chair Cass Green, Anna Mazzola, Janice Hallett, Nikki Smith and Claire Douglas
“Love what you do,” said Anna. “Write what will fascinate you after years of rejections.”
“Write what you know,” said Janice.
“Don’t compare yourself with anybody else,” said Nikki. “Publishing is such a rollercoaster, so if you judge
yourself against other people, that’s a real recipe for misery.”
And she had one further piece of advice for the aspiring author: once you get that precious debut published, it doesn’t get any easier!
But writing did get easier for the writing phenomenon that is Lisa Jewell – the moment she bumped somebody off in one of her novels.
She didn’t start out as a crime writer: her first book, Ralph’s Party, was the best-selling debut novel of the year in 1999 and it very quickly established her as a chicklit author.
“Then I killed someone and that really marked a turning point for me,” she told interviewer Jeremy Vine. “The
minute that happened, the publishers said ‘now we know how to publish her’.”
And she too had some advice for the aspiring author.
“Just stop thinking about everything all the time,” she said. “Just sit down and write some words on a screen.”
So we come to perhaps the most bizarre panel I’ve ever seen at a crime festival – and I was part of it. New Kids on the Chopping Block was this year’s debut author’s panel, so I qualified. And so did one of the other participants even though they have sold more than half a million books and generated more than £5m in sales. That’s because we were on the stage with the best-selling Secret Barrister, who has just written a first crime novel, The Cut Throat Trial, a brilliant read.
Except that the Secret Barrister wasn’t on stage with us. An actor, in full wig and gown, was there, reading out the answers to the questions put by moderator Tony Kent. The questions were picked up by a TV camera and beamed back to him/her – I still have no idea whether the Secret Barrister is a man or a woman – and he/she sent the answers to the actor to read out.
It worked brilliantly.
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