Theakston Crime Festival report!

Phew! I'm back from a hot and crowded festival. Well, what an adventure! We had a 8 hour car journey to get there, made a little slower by a tiny complication charging our car at a Tesla charger for the first time. We were evacuated twice from our hotel at quarter to midnight thanks to the fire alarm going off. Still it breaks the ice when you're all standing in the gardens in pj's chatting. Then, since I don't walk well, our one Uber got in a very minor shunt as we were on our way to meet our daughter and her lovely partner for dinner on Friday! Good things _ I met some of my wonderful readers who had taken the trouble to come find me. My lovely agents Saskia and Fran who are just fab. Since the actual festival website was so absolutely terrible to navigate I did't get tickets for anything really and didn't even get a site pass for Friday as they were all sold out. My thanks to Spellbound books who scored me a pass to get on site on the Friday afternoon so I could at last look around. My daughter and her partner had to miss out since they couldn't get passes at all. They had tried well beforehand but couldn't find them on said terrible website and there were no tickets on the day to get on site. It was very, very hot! There was a shortage of accessible seating. The folding deckchairs seemed to be baffling most people and if you have a disability with balance or walking those are a no go anyway. The fabled beer tent stank and was impossibly hot. The bar in the hotel was much nicer and cooler. Fun talk from Graham Bartlett and T M Payne on what happens at an arrest. The mystery dinner on Saturday evening was again very hot but fabulous company! I met lovely Michael Wood and we had a wonderful time. I went off piste on Firiday to Val Penny's book launch which we all enjoyed very much and Saturday we went off piste again to Mark Wrights book launch in a very old and atmospheric pub with Victorian gas cigar lighters and gas lamps. It's also haunted which I knew as soon as I went in. We also had lovely cake and coffee and music at a Christian festival called Hope Now which was on at the same time in the Crescent Gardens. If you are a cozy crime fan or an historic crime fan or true crime fan then there was nothing much there but If you love thrillers and police procedurals and contemporary then there was much more going on. If you can, go with friends or in a group. On your own it's difficult, I was glad I had Mr Nell with me on Saturday. No pics of the signs or green chairs as they were full of people. I missed loads of people as I'm rubbish at spotting faces. So, now I have to catch up on my wordage and get my nose back to the grindstone for the next Miss Underhay book and the new Secret Detective Agency book.