Newcastle Noir 2020 Programme

10am – Friday 1 May 

Play Dead – Dangerous Places, Dangerous Faces: Lucy Atkins; Maggie James; Nuala Ellwood 

11am – Friday 1 May  

The Kids are Alright: Matt Wesolowski; Sif Sigmarsdóttir; Thomas Enger

1pm – Friday 1 May  

In the Library with the Dagger: Frances Brody; Fiona Veitch Smith; Martin Edwards 

2.30pm – Friday 1 May  

Ye Shudda Seen us Gannin: Howard Linskey; Caroline England; Mik Brown; Rob Scragg 

3.30pm – Friday 1 May 

In Dublin’s Fair City & Beyond: Antony J Quinn; Sam Blake; Catherine Ryan Howard 

6pm – Friday 1 May  

Stranger than Fiction: Ian Patrick; Fiona Erskine; Eve Smith 

7pm – Friday 1 May  

Lindisfarne Prize for Debut Crime Fiction

8pm – Friday 1 May  

Friday Night Spotlight: LJ Ross 

10am – Saturday 2 May  

Crime Does Pay  Celebrating 20 years of the Murder Squad: Margaret Murphy; Chris Simms; Cath Staincliff; Martin Edwards; Helen Pepper; Kate Ellis 

11am – Saturday 2 May  

Come in from the Cold: Judith O’Reilly; Alex Shaw; Humphrey Hawksley; John Lawton 

12pm – Saturday 2 May: 

What Lies Hidden: Kath Stansfield; Cal Smyth; Chris Lloyd 

1pm – Saturday 2 May:

Writing the Detectives Workshop with Cath Staincliffe

2pm – Saturday 2 May  

Am I Losing my Mind?  Lisa Ballantyne; Louise Candlish; Barbara Copperthwaite; Sarah Stovell 

3pm – Saturday 2 May  

The Thin Blue Line: Valentina Giambanco; Johana Gustawsson; Adam Peacock; Katerina Diamond

4pm – Saturday 2 May  

To hell in a Handcart: William Smith; Will Carver; Bogdan Teodorescu 

5pm – Saturday 2 May  

Southern Cross Crime: Kirsten McKenzie; Helen Fitzgerald; Nikki Crutchley 

6.30pm – Saturday 2 May  

Spotlight: Mari Hannah and Jane Casey 

10am – Sunday 3 May  

#metoo – That’s What The Authors Say: Louise Beech; Madeline Black; Michael J Malone 

11am – Sunday 3 May  

New Blood, New Voices:  Trevor Wood; Suzy Aspley; Robert Craven; Heleen Kist 

2pm – Sunday 3 May  

Murder They Wrote: Ed James; Zoe Sharp; Noelle Holten; Neil Broadfoot 

3pm – Sunday 3 May  

Women in Gangland: Marnie Riches; Simone Buchholz; Anna Smith; Jane Corry 

4pm – Sunday 3 May  

Sir, There’s Been a Murder: Lesley Kelly; Ian Skewis; Jackie Mclean; Tana Collins 

5pm – Sunday 3 May  

Chilled to the Bone: Sif Sigmarsdóttir; Eva Björg Ægisdóttir; Kjell Ola Dahl; Thomas Enger; Marit Reiersgård

6.30pm – Sunday 3 May  

Sunday Night Spotlight: Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Liz Nugent 

Further information and tickets can be found here.

Valentina Giambanco on Locked Room Mysteries

When I started writing Sweet After Death I decided that I wanted to write what was in essence a locked-room mystery but instead of walls I would use impenetrable landscape to isolate my characters. Imagine a small town – barely more than a village, imagine it pretty in a kind of American gothic way. Now, surround this lovely example of Americana with mountains and wilderness of the type we don’t get here – where the landscape is tidy and polite even in its wildest forms. In short, make it beautiful but make it deadly.

It was enormous fun taking my main character, Homicide Detective Alice Madison, away from her usual Seattle location and drop her in the middle of completely unknown territory. There is something very appealing about living a life away from the pressures and the grim realities of an urban environment – and Madison has always felt a deep connection with the nature and wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. However, the truth is that the lovely inhabitants of the town of Ludlow are far more dangerous than the wolves that roam the nearby plains.

The murder that has led Madison to Ludlow is the first ever in the county and quite horrific. And soon she realises that the murderer must still be among the group of people who have welcomed her so kindly.

There are many challenges in this set-up because I wanted not only the structure of a locked-room mystery but also a sense that the killer was not done yet, and that Madison herself would become part of his or her end game. The problem was that everyone in Ludlow had secrets – that’s why most of them had decided to live in such an out of the way place – and some of those secrets were lethal.

Madison herself has been keeping her own secrets and the investigation brings back memories that she had not dealt with for a long time – the monster in her past is just as dangerous as the one in her present.

The beauty of writing a locked-room mystery in the middle of the mountains is that I could take advantage of the claustrophobic nature of dark, forbidding forests while at the same time using the very same landscape as a release and a passage to freedom for some of the characters.

In the end, as ever, nothing is quite what it seems – maybe not even Madison – and the locked room opens up to let in light as much as darkness.   

Sweet After Death by Valentina Giambanco

In the dead of winter Homicide Detective Alice Madison is sent to the remote town of Ludlow, Washington, to investigate an unspeakable crime. Together with her partner Detective Sergeant Kevin Brown and crime scene investigator Amy Sorensen, Madison must first understand the killer's motives...but the dark mountains that surround Ludlow know how to keep their secrets and that the human heart is wilder than any beast's.  As the killer strikes again Madison and her team are under siege. And as they become targets Madison realises that in the freezing woods around the pretty town a cunning evil has been waiting for her.