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.