Crime Writing Festival set for Gladstone’s Library next month

A crew of crime writers and fans are coming to a crime writing festival in Flintshire.

Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden will host Alibis in the Archive on June 10 to June 12, and in-person and online tickets are now on sale.

Now in its fifth year, this festival features a weekend of talks with authors on topics as diverse as medical poisonings, spies, forensics, Charles Dickens and Sherlock Holmes

Among the nine speakers, whose published work ranges from sleuthing in Elizabethan London to cutting-edge forensics, is bestselling author Lynne Truss (‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’ and the Constable Twitten series).

She will present the Bodkin Adams case from 1957, where a doctor poisoned his wealthy female patients in Eastbourne using morphine. She is well known for her multi-million bestselling book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

She is joined by Wirral writer Margaret Murphy (Before He Kills Again), who has eleven psychological crime novels published in her own name and five forensic novels under the pen names Ashley Dyer and A D Garrett.

The other award-winning writers include Bonnie MacBird, the original writer of the science fiction film Tron, who now authors sequels to the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, Philip Gooden, whose books include the Nick Revill series and Jean Briggs, who will discuss Charles Dickens, drawing on her own works which feature Dickens as a main character.

Organiser Martin Edwards, a novelist known for his Lake District mysteries and Rachel Savernake novels as well as his new history of the genre, The Life of Crime, will also be speaking about the British Library’s Crime Classics, to which he is series consultant.

He said: “Alibis in the Archive is a crime writing festival like no other. Gladstone’s Library, which is also the home of the British Crime Writing Archive, is a stunning location – it very much stirs the imagination.

“As always, I’m looking forward to joining my colleagues in crime writing for this event. I always say that crime writers are a lovely bunch of people, and at Alibis, crime fans have the opportunity to meet these marvellous writers either in person or online.”

Louisa Yates, Director of Collections for the Library, said she was looking forward to holding Alibis in the Archive in person, after it was suspended in 2020 and went online last year due to the pandemic.

She said: “It’s wonderful to host such an immersive festival. All the talks come one after another and nobody misses anything. The authors often mix with the audience, so it’s a brilliant, sociable weekend where everyone has something in common – a keen interest in crime stories. And we’re bringing back the popular crime quiz on Friday night, too!”

In-person festival tickets include access to all nine talks and other activities, as well as two-course dinners on Friday and Saturday evening and two-course lunches on Saturday and Sunday, plus refreshments. They cost £160. Numbers are limited.

Individual view-online tickets are available for £5, and a £30 ticket bundle allows online access to all talks.

More information is available on the events page of www.gladstoneslibrary.org