Thoughts on CrimeFest 2024

I’ve just got back from Bristol where I attended my first CrimeFest, as Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy was nominated for the HRF Keating award. I didn’t win but met so many wonderful people, including the fabulous Ayo Onatade, that I felt like a winner. I’d heard a lot of great things about CrimeFest over the years and I’m happy to report that they’re all true. It is definitely the funniest event that I have attended. When you’ve got brilliantly witty moderators such as Donna Moore, you can be sure to be laughing non-stop.

The list of featured guests was excellent. Ayo interviewed Laura Lippman onstage (they are old friends). Lippman dazzled the audience with her caustic Baltimore wit. She is ‘Charm City’ to her fingertips. She described being harangued at parties for what her ex-husband had done to the city’s reputation. ‘I was married to a writer named David Simon. He had some success’ she commented drily. A former journalist, Lippman broke down in tears when describing losing five colleagues in the Capital Gazette shooting.

‘Dame’ Denise Mina was just as memorable. She tells people she has the Royal honour, but admitted that she made it up. Her best piece of writing advice was fiercely blunt, ‘Have you ever made a fool of yourself? Did you survive it?’ Then fuckit!’

Rounding off this trio of strong women was the extraordinary Lynda La Plante. A former actress, La Plante is still every inch the RADA-trained performer. It’s as though she has never left the stage. She doesn’t just tell an anecdote, she performs it, with all of the accents and body movements necessary to nail every part of the story. The release of her memoirs later this year promises to be a publishing event.

One of the many highlights of the festival was to see James Lee Burke interviewed via videolink. Known for being elusive and for refusing to travel by air or sea, Burke gives very few interviews but came across as a complete natural. Shortly before his appearance we were told that the interview might be scuppered by a large storm near Burke’s home. Inevitably, conference delegates were bracing themselves for disappointment, but I remember thinking that it was somehow apt. Landscape and its malleable nature is such an important feature of the Dave Robicheaux novels. To our relief, the interview went ahead and Burke struck me as an old-fashioned Southern gentlemen and with bags of charm. For an octogenarian, he appeared to be in great shape. Burke insisted that the ghostly figures that haunt the Robicheaux novels exist. He wouldn’t be drawn on whether he had ever seen a ghost, but claimed that he had ‘experiences’.

And that pretty much describes my first CrimeFest. It was a shame I didn’t bag that Keating award, but the night before I left for Bristol I discovered that Love Me Fierce in Danger had been nominated for an Anthony Award which will be presented at Bouchercon in Nashville later this year. Wish me luck!