Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. Born and raised in Harrogate, Lauren recently moved back to North Yorkshire after a stint in London, where she regularly reviewed theatre – everything from big West End shows to small fringe productions. She is now eager to explore the culture on offer in and around her home town. You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com
The twentieth-anniversary edition of Harrogate’s Crime Writing Festival went out with a bang on Sunday, with Lucy Worsley, acclaimed historian, curator and broadcaster, filling the final special-guest spot of the weekend.
Following the publication of her latest book, Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman, Worsley gave Sunday’s crowd an insight into the life of the beloved novelist (a woman whose books, they say, are outsold only by Shakespeare and the Bible). And how very apt that a celebration of the Queen of Crime should provide the grand finale to a weekend’s worth of the genre in all its glory, at a festival with Christie as its very raison d’etre. Christie is, as many Harrogate locals know, inextricably linked to our town’s history. It was in December 1926 that the already fêted Christie, grief-stricken by her mother’s recent death and her husband’s infidelity, seemingly disappeared without a trace. Eleven days later, she was discovered at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel – or the Old Swan, as we know it today.
Simply walking through the corridors of this grand old hotel is enough to spark anyone’s imagination, but for Christie fans, it must be magic to picture her there almost one hundred years ago. It is an enchantingly historic setting, but also one which was for Christie, according to Worsley, quite literally an escape from reality.
The novelist’s “disappearance” was subject to wildly varying interpretations. The discovery of her abandoned car led many to speculate she had taken her own life, yet, without a body, a mammoth police investigation ensued, a public circus involving all manner of theories and personalities: in her book, Worsley explains how Arthur Conan Doyle was said to have employed a psychic to connect to Agatha via one of her discarded gloves.
When a member of the hotel staff eventually revealed Christie’s location to authorities, she was found alive and seemingly well, but, as she claimed, with no memory whatsoever of events. The press pack claimed that such a tale had guilty written all over it: that either she had meant to frame her husband for murder, or it was an elaborate publicity stunt in the style of one of her very own detective novels (indeed, sales of her books went through the roof at the time).
What does Worsley think was really going on with Agatha during these fateful days? She presents evidence to suggest that Christie may have suffered a rare psychological condition described as “dissociative fugue”, thought to be a mechanism by which someone extracts themselves from a stressful situation as a form of self-protection. They forget who they are, taking on a new identity and reality. In Agatha’s case, she became Mrs Teresa Neele from South Africa; she appeared to enjoy her stay, participating in activities and making friends, apparently oblivious to the manhunt.
Worsley has found historical records, as well as autobiographical hints in Christie’s own later novels, to suggest it likely the author subsequently visited a psychotherapist, reinforcing the theory that Agatha was unwell. Worsley decries the injustice of the media frenzy and its enduring impact on Christie, writing “… people ever since have suspected her of duplicity and lies.”
It was, Worsley believes, a terrible time for the author, but asserts that 1926 also acted as a watershed year, one which marked a new phase in Christie’s life and writing. As the historian puts it, “… act one of her life was over […] and even she had begun to see that within an ending, may lie a new beginning”. She divorced her first husband, remarried, and lived out the rest of her truly remarkable life: the author of some eighty books, celebrated the world over. Christie is part of the fabric of the cultural history of this country, and of the small spa town of Harrogate, which, for eleven days in 1926, was home to a slice of crime-writing history.
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Review: Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival celebrates its 20th year
Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. Born and raised in Harrogate, Lauren recently moved back to North Yorkshire after a stint in London, where she regularly reviewed theatre – everything from big West End shows to small fringe productions. She is now eager to explore the culture on offer in and around her home town. You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com
2023’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival got off to a killer start on Thursday with the announcement of the winner of the Crime Novel of the Year, awarded to M.W. Craven for The Botanist, the latest in his Washington Poe series.
But this was just the start of a truly arresting line-up: a celebration of all things murder and mayhem (fictional, of course) and one of the biggest crime-writing festivals there is, now in its twentieth year. The Old Swan, its halls and gardens once walked by Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime herself, was ready and raring to play host to the “Glastonbury of Crime”.
Whether author, agent, publisher, blogger, reader or author, every visitor had one thing in common, and that was books. For four whole days, the festival hustles and bustles with people from far and wide who love books, want to talk about them, hear about them and meet the minds behind them. There was a tangible buzz about the place; a camaraderie and shared excitement among the reported 17,000 ticketholders.
Even the A-List of the crime-writing world gets right into the mix, mingling with their readers. You might, as I did, run into Val McDermid in the corridor, or spy Richard Osman browsing the shelves of the Waterstone pop-up. I heard excited word of Richard Armitage, actor and now debut author, charming guests at Saturday’s author dinner. I was lucky enough to chat to Shari Lapena, writer of the smash hit The Couple Next Door, and to hear about her latest penning, Everyone Here is Lying.
It was great to see some local authors on the panels, too. A.A. Dhand, writer of the Bradford-based DI Harry Virdee series (with a TV adaptation in the works) spoke of his hometown’s influence on his writing. Yorkshire-born debut author Heather Darwent got a golden ticket to the much-coveted New Blood panel (a choice of the year’s best debuts) to share her book, The Things We Do to Our Friends.
Talking of new blood: this is also very much a festival for the new kids on the block – the debut authors for whom this is an exciting new adventure, and the aspiring writers, who must truly be in their element, surrounded by stars of the crime-fiction world, sharing their processes and secrets to success. It’s a crash course in the process of writing crime fiction, from those authors who plan methodically with spreadsheets and pie charts, to those who simply invent as they go, with no apparent idea of where their writing will take them. It’s enough to make anyone want to (try to) write a novel.
I met audience members who had travelled from the other side of the world, and locals who’ve visited since the festival’s infancy, recalling its much smaller scale when it first began. Today, the festival’s programme is mammoth, set to appeal across the fanbase of the myriad of sub-genres found in crime fiction, from detective novels to domestic noir to police procedurals and everything in between. With interviews, panel discussions, book signings, incident rooms, meet and greets and more, there is such a constant stream of entertainment that even those not into crime writing would likely still find themselves engaged and inspired (but of course, a love of crime, intrigue and bloody murder is encouraged).
2023’s big names included the inimitable Ann Cleeves (who received the Outstanding Contribution Award), Jeffrey Deaver (on his whopping 42nd novel), Lee and Andrew Child (the now-collaborators on the multi-million selling Jack Reacher novels), and Lucy Worsley (whose recent biography of Agatha Christie throws new light on the Queen of Crime’s time in Harrogate). I also enjoyed Lisa Jewell and Ruth Ware in conversation, the Murder Most Joyful panel (creators of so-called ‘cosy’ crime, who, with their gallows humour, were just as amusing a bunch in person as on paper) and the Never-Ending Golden Age discussion, which delved into the enduring appeal and influence of Agatha Christie and her peers.
If you love crime fiction and want to get up close and personal with the masterminds, this is the festival for you. My first visit was an open and shut case: it was criminally good.
Tomorrow we will be publishing Lauren reviews one of the highlights of this year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival – a talk by well known TV historian Lucy Worsley on Agatha Christie.
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