The Arts festival started with a bang (and a throttling and a blow with a blunt instrument) at the cRYme Day, which took place at the Methodist Church. Four popular crime writers took part and John Case and Guy Fraser Sampson hosted.
The first writer was Willam Shaw who talked about his series of books set in Dungeness. This started with Salt Lane, which took DS Cupidi, one of the characters from his stand-alone Birdwatcher novel and set her centre stage. His latest book Deadland carries on the story.
Next up was Martin Edwards who as well as writing his own crime novels, also published an excellent study of the interwar crime writers, particularly Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers and Anthony Berkeley. Martin’s latest book, Gallows Court is the first of a new series set in 1930s London.
Then at half time some of the guests adjourned to the Mermaid for a four-course slap-up lunch. The meal consisted of death cap soup, sinamon lamb, a lethal injection palate cleanser and death by chocolate. The lethal injection was of course served in a syringe.
Then the afternoon session commenced with Lynne Truss who published her first crime novel A Shot in the Dark last year. The second book in the series, The Man that Got Away has just been published, and features a trio of detectives investigating the murder of a hapless romantic in Brighton. Lynne of course will always be famous for her best selling 2003 book on the importance of punctuation, Eats, Shoots and Leaves.
The final author, Simon Brett has written over 100 books, including four distinct series. These follow the fortunes of elderly widow Mrs Pargeter, unsuccessful alcoholic actor Charles Paris, brother and sister aristocrats Blotto and Twinks and finally neighbours Carole and Jude. His latest book, The Killer in the Choir is the latest in the Fethering series, set just along the coast.
It was a tremendously entertaining and interesting day.
Image Credits: Seana Lanigan .