A weekend among crime fiction giants: From literary dreams to reality

I spent my weekend at a literature festival, which is not something I say lightly. This is not how weekends usually go. My weekends are typically spent convincing myself that reading counts as productivity and that one day I will write a novel. Not today. Not tomorrow. One day. A vague, forgiving day in the future.

I call myself a crime fiction geek. This is accurate. I don’t casually enjoy crime fiction. I devour it. I read about murder to relax. I find comfort in morally questionable characters and unreliable narrators. I also have a very vivid imagination, which means I don’t just read crime novels, I mentally audition myself as their author.

I am absolutely convinced I will write one. I am equally committed to not putting my thoughts on paper. This is where the literature festival enters my life like an unexpected plot twist.

I went in with the enthusiasm of someone who believes they are among their people. And I was. I met four crime fiction writers over one weekend and discovered that talking to crime writers is just as gripping as reading a whodunnit, except you get to interrupt them and no one dies. Also, I went home with an alarming number of books. The kind that make you briefly question your upper body strength and your self-control.

First was Alex Shaw, whose novels blend geopolitical intrigue with military realism. His characters are elite, trained, disciplined, and capable of dismantling governments before lunch. Naturally, I asked him if he was a spy. This was not a joke. This was investigative journalism. He smiled in a way that revealed absolutely nothing, which confirmed everything. If he ever disappears suddenly, I will not be surprised. I will simply nod and say, that tracks.

Then came Louise Candlish, whose novels are rooted in ordinary, recognisable lives. Neighbours. Families. Streets that look harmless until they absolutely aren’t. Listening to her talk made me realise that the most dangerous setting in crime fiction is not a dark alley or a foreign city. It’s a perfectly normal neighbourhood with good schools and people who say “let’s do coffee sometime.” I now trust no one who smiles too warmly in the lift.

Mirna El Mahdy genuinely unsettled me, and I mean that as praise. She is Gen Z with a dangerous imagination and an even more dangerous work ethic. She spoke about research with the kind of seriousness usually reserved for forensic labs. She has personally visited places most of us would avoid on Google Maps, just to understand how a scene should feel. Dark alleys. Uncomfortable spaces. Places where instinct tells you to turn back. She goes forward, for accuracy.

Somewhere in that conversation, she gave me what may be the best compliment of my life, telling me this was one of the best interviews she had done. I pretended to be composed about it. Internally, I was already building a shrine. It felt like a meeting of like minds, the kind where you recognise the same curiosity, the same obsession, just channelled more productively on her end.

Then there was Greg Mosse. I told him, without hesitation, that I am a fan of his wife Kate Mosse, specifically Sepulchre, because admiration should be stated clearly and often. We talked about what it’s like to marry another writer, particularly a crime writer, which sounds romantic until you realise it probably involves a lot of conversations about murder over dinner.

Mosse proceeded to give me what can only be described as an unsolicited masterclass. On writing. On discipline. On actually doing the work. Then he gifted me a book that wasn’t even available at the festival. I could choose to be modest about this, or I could accept the far more satisfying possibility that he was impressed. I have chosen the latter.

As if this wasn’t enough stimulation for one weekend, I ended it by attending a session called Wonderland of Words by Shashi Tharoor. He spoke. I listened. He signed books. I stood there completely awestruck, incapable of forming a sentence. For someone who prides herself on loving words, I had absolutely none.

I went home with bags full of books, a head buzzing with ideas, and the quiet discomfort of knowing that my imaginary future author self had been paying very close attention.