Crime writer Steve Mosby, chair of this year's Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, tells JULIAN COLE about the darker side of his imagination, and discusses festival highlights.

STEVE Mosby got in early as a novelist. His first novel was published at the age of 26. Eleven years later, he is the author of seven crime novels, with another due out soon.

Steve submitted his first novel to publishers at the age of 17 or 18. His early attempts were not a success.

"I had six or seven novels rejected," he says. Mostly this is good for a writer, he believes. "I was a terrible writer at 18. I thought I was wonderful, but I wasn't. Writing's a craft and you have to learn that craft, learn how to shape your characters and your story."

Steve is from Leeds and will this year be chairing the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, down the road in Harrogate.

In person he is charming and cheerful, but as a writer he draws his material from a deep well.

"I have always been drawn to the darker end of the crime spectrum," says Steve, who grew up reading horror novels by "the usual suspects", including Stephen King.

Dark Room is his most recent crime novel. There is indeed much darkness in the book, in which a random series of hammer attacks strikes fear into a town.

"I studied philosophy at university and I've always been very interested in the philosophy of evil," says Steve. "I wanted to write a novel in which a character doesn't really believe in evil and yet is faced with evil and its results."

The novel was partly inspired by a series of actual murders in Ukraine. "Two teenagers killed about 20 people in the space of about two weeks for no real reason. There was little reporting on this case here. I researched it a lot and that became the basis for Dark Room."

The book is violent and bleak, yet well written, with good characters and a steady human eye behind the suffering. It is written in the first and third person, with the main detective taking the first-person passages.

Steve likes this mixed approach. "I guess some people think it's cheating, having your cake and eating it," he says "But I think it works, so long as its not too clunky."

Dark Room, in common with all of his novels to date, is a stand-alone and not part of a series. Steve has so far resisted any pressure to return to characters – something publishers tend to like.

"Publishers are keen on series, but I've never done that," he says. "It's partly that I come up with a story and then that shapes the characters and setting. It's never been a deliberate decision... but never say never."

The settings of his novels are imagined, not real places. "There are all invented places that seem to fit the stories," says Steve. "It's just the way I do things."

Dark Room seems almost bleakly futuristic, yet Steve says it is set here and now, more or less. His novels are, he says, set in "our world but one step sideways". And Dark Room was definitely not set in Nottingham, as some readers believed; news which will be no doubt be relief to the good people of Nottingham.

Steve's new novel, due out in June, is The Nightmare Place. He says: "A female police officer is tracking a house intruder who breaks into women's homes and attacks them. And then there's another story strand about a woman who volunteers on a helpline, who takes a call and she has to decide whether to pass this information on."

Steve has been a regular at Harrogate's crime writing festival, familiar both from his appearances on stage and from his much-tattooed arms.

He discovered he would be chairing this summer's festival in Harrogate two years ago.

"I knew when I lost out to Denise Minah [for the novel of the year] and I had a call to my room in the hotel from Val McDermid. She asked me to go downstairs and outside, and she was there with Mark Billingham, and they asked me. I thought at first that they'd got the wrong person..."

His role involves shaping events at the festival, with help from the panel. "And then putting my touch to things." Steve cites the cross-over element of crime writing as one of his influences, the way crime and other genres mix.

During the festival, Steve will be discussing cross-genre crime fiction with Lauren Beukes, Sharon Bolton, James Smythe and Lavie Tidhar, four authors who blur the boundaries.

The headline event this year will be Scottish crime writer Val McDermid, the patron saint of the festival, interviewing Robert Galbraith – better known as Harry Potter author JK Rowling. Rowling published her first crime novel, The Cuckoo's Calling, as Galbraith and wanted to stay 'hidden' until her cover was blown.

"The way she was published showed that she understood and respected the fundamentals of the genre," says Steve.

Why does Steve thinks crime remains such a popular genre?

"Ah, well, there are probably a million different answers to that question," says Steve. "They are exciting stories and they deal with scary scenarios and explore dark themes in a different way from real life."

Does the bad guy always have to be caught?

"The development of the story has to be satisfying on many different levels. The resolution has to make sense, because you start a story saying something has happened, so you have to have a satisfying conclusion."

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival runs at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, from July 17-20. Writers taking part include Mark Billingham, Julia Crouch, Denise Mina, Anne Cleeves, Lynda LaPlante, Sophie Hannah, Laura Lipman and John Harvey. For a full programme and ticket details, visit: harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crime/events or phone 01423 562 303.