Recommends: Detective Weekend

First published in Prospect (Issue 193) 

Sleuths! The English Riviera Festival of Crime and Thriller Writing
Various venues in Torbay, 18th-21st April, Tel: 01803 665 800

Although most fictional detectives are eccentric loners, crime fans are an ever-expanding mass. Witness the cult following of Danish TV thriller The Killing or the popularity of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, which has spawned a film franchise and inspired a clothing line by H&M. But the Queen of Crime is still Agatha Christie, whose books have been translated into over 100 languages (a world record) and whose play The Mousetrap is the longest running (from 1952 to the present) in the West End.

The fourth annual Sleuths! crime-writing festival takes place over a long weekend in Christie’s hometown, Torbay. On the Sunday her grandson Mathew Prichard will present a talk about the letters she wrote while on a round-the-world trip in 1922.

This year’s headline act, however, is Colin Dexter, who created one of the best-known sleuths of his generation: Inspector Morse. Having killed off Morse in 2000, Dexter recently revisited the inspector’s youth in the prequel Endeavour, and he will talk about the crime-ridden Oxford of his books at the festival. Alongside the talks, there will be writing workshops, a mystery trail and a psychological thriller play performed by the Bijou Theatre Company.