Kate Mosse CBE
Pirates, Secrets and Revenge on the High Seas.
Launching off for 2024, join festival Patron Kate Mosse to hear her about her latest No 1 bestseller The Ghost Ship – a swashbuckling pirate novel of revenge, secrets and adventures set in 17th – as well as have a sneak preview of the final novel in The Joubert Family Chronicles (publishing Autumn 2024) and plans to celebrate the anniversary of her multi-million bestselling novel Labyrinth in 2025.’
Best-selling author of ten novels and short story collections, four works of non-fiction.
Gordon Griffin
Speaking Volumes
He is best known as a multi-award winning narrator of audiobooks. He has recorded 950+
An established actor from Shakespeare to rock musicals. He presented Playschool and in his first film he acted in a scene with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. He was in the first two series of Byker Grove. He recently recorded an episode of The Crown. In 2020 his autobiography SPEAKING VOLUMES was published and the audiobook (read by him of course!)
Louis de Bernières
A Writers Life
Selected as one of the “20 Best of Young British Novelists”, part of a promotion in Granta magazine. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin author and multi award winning novelist Louis de Bernieres is a hugely successful and diverse writer of novels, plays and poetry works include The Book of Job, one in a series of books reprinted from the Bible, a play, Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World. He is also a writer of short stories. He has recorded four albums of his own songs.
Dominic Holland
Late in!
English comedian, author, actor and broadcaster. Author of 5 novels, his first novel, Only In America, was published to excellent reviews. He has written episodes of an animated sitcom called, The Wild World of Warren for ITV.
In addition, Dominic has made numerous guest appearances on such television shows as Have I Got News For You, The Clive James Show, The Brian Conley Show, The Des O’Connor Show, The Stand Up Show, and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
THE CRIME PANEL
Last year there were 602 homicides in the UK. But in the same period over 40,000 murder mysteries were published. Crime fiction is the biggest-selling genre in the UK.
Why are we so fascinated by crime? Is our thirst for frightening deaths, fiendish mysteries and clever detectives unquenchable? Wouldn’t we all be happier if we weren’t so worried about meeting a grisly end?
What makes a great murder mystery? How do crime writers resist the clichés of crime to keep the genre fresh and innovative?
Our expert author panel will be discussing great crime fiction and talking about their newest work.
Crime Panellist :
Greg Mosse
‘Writer and encourager of writers’ and husband of international bestselling author, Kate Mosse. He has lived and worked in Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Madrid as an interpreter and translator, but grew up – like his cosy hero Maisie Cooper – in rural south-West Sussex. In 2014, he founded the Criterion New Writing playwriting programme in the heart of the West End and, since then, has produced more than 25 of his own plays and musicals. Murder at Bunting Manor is the second and latest book in the Maisie Cooper series.
Crime Panellist :
Nicola Williams
Nicola Williams started her career as a barrister specialising in Criminal Law, including three successful Commonwealth death penalty appeals. She was a legal expert on BBC World for the OJ Simpson trial verdict in 1995. A member of the first Independent Advisory Group to the Metropolitan Police. She is a part-time Crown Court Judge. A winner of the Cosmopolitan magazine Woman of Achievement Award, Her latest novel, courtroom thriller Until Proven Guilty, published in 2023
Crime Panellist :
Lesley Thomson
Lesley Thomson’s first novel, Seven Miles From Sydney came out in 1987 and made
the City Limits top ten best books for that year. After that life and ‘proper jobs’ took over so it wasn’t until 2007 that she published A Kind of Vanishing. This won the People’s Book prize for fiction in 2010. The Detective’s Daughter a long-running #1. She has gone on to write seven more in the series and is now on #9. She runs a crime writing certificate with Elly Griffiths at West Dean College in Sussex.