The Isle of Wight Literary Festival

This weekend, I was delighted to take part in the Isle of Wight Literary Festival, at Northwood House in Cowes. It's a long time since I last visited the island (back in the days before I had a car; the future Mrs Edwards and I spent a few days touring around via the local bus service...) and so I seized the opportunity to combine the event with some sight-seeing. The luck I've had all year with the weather finally ran out, but even in damp conditions, the island is a pleasant place to visit, and this time I travelled over via the car ferry from Southampton, which made it possible to drive around from place to place and dodge the showers.

The Festival has been running for a number of years now, and the Chair, Maggie Ankers, has an excellent team of colleagues assisting her and making sure that this is an event that many writers, ranging from Dan Snow to Alexander McCall Smith, are keen to attend. The hospitality was first-rate, with not one but two receptions, each followed by a pleasant meal in the setting of a yachting club. I enjoyed learning about the island.

It's a place with a lot of history, and I visited Newtown, once a major medieval harbour, now a highly atmospheric coastal village, as well as the Bembridge Windmill and the Needles. There's a chairlift for sight-seers at the Needles, but the wind was so strong that it was out of action when we visited Alum Bay.

In Victorian times, tourists flocked to the island, and many of the resorts are now enjoying a renaissance. Again, we didn't see them at their most inviting, but Yarmouth, Ventnor, Shanklin, and Ryde all have a lot going for them, and I'd like to return sometime. One of the most memorable places was one I'd never heard of. This was Quarr Abbey, a magnificent brick-built Benedictine monastery, with ruins of a medieval abbey in its grounds. A very special place. After my talk, it was fun to meet fellow crime fans before making the long journey back to Cheshire. All in all, a memorable weekend. 

The CWA annual conference in Edinburgh

I'm just back from the annual conference of the CWA, which this year took place in one of my favourite cities, Edinburgh. I first visited the Scottish capital as a teenager and, as so many others have been over the years, I was bowled over by its character and its history.  Way back in 1989, when I was a newish member, the CWA conference was also in Edinburgh. The organisers were Alanna and Alistair Kinght, and it was a great pleasure to sit next to Alanna once again at the gala banquet on Saturday and present her with a bouquet of flowers as a reminder of our appreciation of all she has done for the CWA.

We broke the journey to Edinburgh by stopping at several fascinating places, and stayed overnight at New Lanark Mill on the banks of the Clyde. The evening walk up to the Falls of Clyde was memorable, as was a visit to the spooky ruins of the Carmichael House, on the way to New Lanark. Scotland is a country of contrasts, and duality was a theme of the conference's reception event, a double act by Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith, which was thoroughly enjoyable. It was a great pleasure to meet Sandy McCall Smith for the very first time.

The quality of the speakers throughout the weekend was of the highest order. Two retired senior police officers gave us gripping insights into major crime in Scotland, while a leading forensic soil scientist, Professor Lorna Dawson, and a top forensic pathologist, James Grieve (who features in Ann Cleeves' Shetland books) completed a very impressive line-up. Add to that an underground tour of the historic Mary King's Close and a superb after dinner speaker in Leeona, Lady Dorrian (the second most senior judge in Scotland, who turned out to be a keen fan of classic detective fiction), and you had the recipe for an excellent week-end. A group of local students, the crime writers of tomorrow, helped with the arrangements, and a Sunday afternoon event at Blackwell's saw the announcement of the winner of the young writers' flash fiction prize.

A lot of hard work goes into the organisation of such a conference, so congratulations once again to Aly, Alex, Aline and Marianne for all their successful efforts. And at the AGM, I was elected to serve a full year as CWA chair after taking over from Len Tyler mid-term. A busy twelve months ahead...

Brit Noir by Barry Forshaw

Brit Noir is another contribution by Barry Forshaw to the Pocket Essentials imprint of Oldcastle Books; his previous titles in the series are Nordic Noir and Euro Noir. The sub-title is "The Pocket Essential Guide to the Crime Fiction, Film and TV of the British Isles". All this in just over 200 pages! Naturally, it's a selective overview, but I've found it not only readable but also informative. Barry Forshaw has already directed me to one or two books and authors I knew very little or nothing about, and that is always one of the great benefits, in my opinion, of a decent book about the genre, whatever angle the author takes.

Barry's angle is wider than the word "Noir" might imply; I'm one of the many authors featured, yet my novels (unlike some of my darker short stories) don't fall within a conventional view of noir fiction. The same is true of Kate Ellis' work and that of many other authors included - such as, to take Barry's own example, Alexander McCall Smith. So just because you're not a noir fan, don't disregard this very wide-ranging guide.

Barry explains his approach more fully in a useful introduction. He also makes the point that, although authors are listed by geographical location, the best way to find them is by looking at the index. I didn't expect to find Kate n the North East section, to be honest, but the explanation derives from the fictionalised York in which her Joe Plantagenet books are set. So the index is the place to go when trying to see if your favourite author is featured.

There are, at least, three main ways in which reviewers tend to criticise books about the genre. The first is to argue about the author's opinions. The second is to complain about omissions, and the third is to quibble about errors. (A cynic might add that a fourth method is to ignore the book and simply promote the reviewer's own opinions!) All of us who write about the genre understand that none of our books is ever definitive, and Barry would be the first to acknowledge that this is true of Brit Noir. But as I say, despite the fact that I've soaked myself in fictional crime over the years, he's highlighted plenty that was unfamiliar to me, above all, various interesting films, some of which I intend to check out as soon as I can. And that makes me very glad indeed to have a copy of this short and snappy book on my shelves.