Crime writers lined up for Old Peculier novel of year award (From York Press)
Get in touch: send your photos, videos, news & views by texting YORK to 80360 or send an email»
Crime writers lined up for Old Peculier novel of year award
10:36am Saturday 19th May 2012 in Books By Julian Cole
SJ Watson, who is nominated for his smash-hit debut, Before I Go To Sleep
TWO of the newer crime writers have been picked as contenders in this year’s Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.
Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers Of London, which imagines magical mayhem in the Metropolitan police force, goes head to head with SJ Watson’s smash hit debut, Before I Go To Sleep and Tom Rob Smith’s Agent 6, the final book in the trilogy about a former MGB agent, Leo Demidov.
Bigger name authors on the list include John Connolly, Ian Rankin, Robert Harris and Val McDermid – for The Burning Soul, The Impossible Dead, The Fear Index and The Retribution respectively – and Belinda Bauer, who makes the long-list for the second year running with Darkside, following her acclaimed debut, Blacklands.
Neil Cross, who will be discussing the hit TV series Luther at this year’s festival, also makes the list with The Calling.
The long-list will be whittled down to a shortlist of six, which will be announced on July 5.
The overall winner will be decided by a panel of experts which this year comprises of DI Tom Thorne actor David Morrissey, festival chair Mark Billingham, journalist and crime novelist Henry Sutton, Ruth Lewis, fiction buyer at Asda, and Simon Theakston, executive director of T&R Theakston Ltd, as well as members of the public.
The public vote opens on July 5 and closes on July 17 at theakstons.co.uk
The winner will be announced on July 19 at the opening night of the tenth annual Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.
• As part of this year’s festival, crime authors will be touring the region for events at which they will introduce two up-and-coming northern authors.
Peter Robinson will be visiting Explore York Library and Learning Centre on Wednesday June 6 at 6.30pm, where he will introduce David Mark and Steven Dunne.
The Yorkshire-born Robinson is the creator of the Inspector Banks novels, a series which began in 1978 with Gallows View. He divides his time between Toronto and Richmond, North Yorkshire. His most recent novel, a standalone thriller, is Before The Poison.
