Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival 2025

The world’s largest crime fiction festival returns to the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate for it’s 22nd year

This year marks the fifth year I have attended the festival since moving to Harrogate. Here are my previous posts: 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

However last year I only managed to make the awards, so this was the first proper year I had attended since I set up my Instagram, @BethReadsCrime, and began blogging. It was really nice to be invited as press this year, with thanks to the Harrogate Festivals team and EDPR. Most importantly, it was fantastic knowing so many more people this time around. That being said – if you are thinking of attending for the first time, or solo, then you absolutely should. The festival has freshers events, open chat tables and everyone is so friendly and welcoming.

Day 1: Thursday

The festival kicks off on the Thursday evening with the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Awards. I started the day by heading to Noir at the Bar, which is held at the Blues Bar in Harrogate. There I met author Alessandra Ranelli. A group of us had volunteered to help with a photoshoot and surprise for her dad, promoting her 2026 debut Murder at the Hotel Orient, so I had arranged to collect a VIP kit from Alessandra there.

From there I headed to the train station to meet Kim (WhatTheBook.co.uk), who was staying with me for the festival. After enjoying some amazing tacos from Paradise, we headed to the Old Swan Hotel to collect our passes. We arrived prior to the awards starting as the authors were doing a signing before hand, plus the beer tent was open! We both took in our copies of Sick to Death to get signed by Chris Bridges, who was shortlisted for the McDermid Debut Award. I was really hoping Chris would win!

The winner of the Crime Novel of the Year was Hunted by Abir Mukherjee!

And the winner of the McDermid Debut Award was A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman! After the awards were over, we headed back to the beer tent for the night.

Day 2: Friday

My day started with heading to local coffee shop Crema Coffee to meet with Hodder and other bloggers for a brunch celebrating the release of Kelsey Cox’s Party of Liars. This was my first experience of doing anything like this. It was great to be invited, and the other bloggers in attendance really made an effort to include me, as most already knew each other.

I had halloumi eggs benedict which was lovely and at the end of the brunch, Hodder surprised us with proofs of Tiffany Crum’s This Story Might Save Your Life!

In June, we sadly had to say goodbye to our 12-year-old Labrador, Brambles, who had been struggling with severe end-stage arthritis and hip dysplasia. It was honestly one of the hardest things we have ever been through. We decided to get a new family member, Cheddar, to keep our golden retriever, Daisy, company. So with a new puppy at home, I kept heading back to help out with walking Daisy, as he hasn’t had his second vaccinations yet. You can probably see the gaps in my schedule where I do this but I just wanted to highlight as the festival does an amazing job of putting on a packed schedule of fantastic panels. In other circumstances I would have absolutely attended more during.

Later that afternoon, I headed to the Majestic Hotel, thanks to an invite from Penguin Michael Joseph, to celebrate an amazing 15 years of Tim Weaver’s Raker books. It was so lovely to be invited to this, and they had the best themed cocktails, such as the Cosmopolitim!

From there it was a dash back over to the Old Swan Hotel, where we had agreed to meet in our Hotel Orient bellhop tees for a video call with Alessandra’s dad to surprise him for his birthday! This was super wholesome and there are some great videos of this here.

On the evening we headed over to the Bowling Green tent where we had been invited to the Pan Party. As well as an opportunity for drinks and chat, here they had proofs of Jo Murray’s debut Dissection of a Murder! It sounds great and I will be posting a separate blog post about the different proofs I got during the festival including all key info and publication dates!

Finally, we headed back inside as we had purchased tickets to see the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers! If you haven’t seen them before then you absolutely should as they are so much fun. It’s a band comprised of Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Doug Johnstone, Chris Brookmyre and Luca Veste.

Day 3: Saturday

An early start due to Cheddar but also exciting as my friend Lauren, (@teasandthankyou) was arriving to stay at mine. We have been friends for around 13 years and reconnected through books so it was so good to spend time together again!

Saturday marked another brunch, this time at The Ivy with thanks to HQ Stories. What a special invite this was, we met with Becci and Sophie from HQ and just six bloggers were invited. Waiting for us at the table were proofs of the illusive The Ending Writes Itself. If you haven’t heard about this, then it’s a 2026 release that has been co-written by two authors. But their identities are still yet to be revealed! Only a couple of clues have been released so far and I’m itching to find out who the authors are!

In the book itself, six authors are invited to try and write the ending to the most anticipated book in history which remains unfinished after the death of the author… HQ are doing so good with the mystery of this marketing campaign and I love that they mirrored this by selecting just six of us – like in the book! Each of us had badges for us with the different types of authors within the book. I was the Thriller Writer, @TheFirstElevenMinutes was the Horror Writer, @SusiesBookReviews / InMyGoodBooks was the Young Adult Writer, @Kelly_TheReadingMachine was the Debut Writer, @MyLittleBookHome was the Romance Writer and @ElizabethsBooks was the Sci-Fi Writer!

In the afternoon we had an exciting invite to the Transworld Author Lunch with big thanks to Alison. Here Alison introduced us to three authors with debut books publishing with Bantam in 2026. As well as that all the Transworld authors from the panels at the festival and more were in attendance! It was great to chat to one of my favourite authors, Catherine Ryan Howard as well as Andrea Mara. Both write such fantastic thrillers. See my review of CRH’s latest Burn After Reading here.

And about those debuts? I honestly can’t believe how up my street they ALL sounded! Here is more about them all, which will you be adding to your TBR?

Esther is Now Following You by Tanya Sweeney. Publishing 29/01/26

After locking eyes with Ted in London, Esther becomes obsessed. She starts by reading up about his life and work as an actor, consuming everything she can about him. It isn’t long before she’s joined Ted’s fan site online where her and the ‘Tedettes’ stalk his every move.

When Ted gets a new celebrity girlfriend, Esther releases that she needs to act now and books a ticket to Canada. After all, Ted might not know it yet, but they are meant to be together – he just needs a little bit of persuading.

A Bad, Bad Place by Frances Crawford. Publishing 12/02/26

Glasgow, 1979. While walking her dog, 12 year old Janey finds a dead body and her innocent childhood ends.

When the victim is named as daughter of a local hardman, Janey’s nana, Maggie, is distraught and deeply afraid. Janey claims she can’t remember what she saw that day, but the police think she’s hiding something, and they’re not the only ones interested…

How to Get Away with Murder by Rebecca Philipson, Publishing 12/03/26

Denver Brady claims to be the most successful serial killer of our time – and that’s precisely why you’ve never heard of him.

But with the publication of his manual for aspiring serial killers, How to Get Away With Murder, that’s about to change.

When a copy is found at the home of a girl who was tragically murdered, DI Samantha Hansen is given the job of tracking down the elusive author.

As Denver and Sam’s stories unfold and converge, it becomes clear that there’s more to both than meets the eye. And once Denver’s book goes viral, the pressure to find and bring him to justice brings Sam close to breaking point.

But who is hunting whom?

After the brunch we headed to some drinks put on by Century Crime. There they had a selection of books on offer and Century authors in attendance too. Thanks Century for the invite! I picked up a copy of The Pie & Mash Detective Agency by J.D. Brinkworth, which is a pseudonym of London-based writing duo Jo Dinkin and Catherine Brinkworth.

Then back to the festival site and over to the Masham tent. Viper had transformed this into The Case is Altered, the fictitious pub and setting of Janice Hallett’s upcoming The Killer Question! I’ve read all of Hallett’s work and The Killer Question shot to the top as her best yet when I was lucky enough to receive a proof earlier this year. Check out my review and my ranking of every Hallett book here!

Whilst at the event, we also got to meet the lovely Caroline Hulse, whose upcoming Vivian Dies Again had just had it’s gorgeous cover revealed. So I was very excited to spot proofs in the wild!

A big thank you to Emily, Drew and Miranda at Viper who were all so accommodating and friendly.

The rest of the day had some amazing panels and pop-up events but it was back to puppy duty for me! After some quality time at home and refueling, it was back to the tent and ready for The Late Night Quiz! I did well in the picture round, but the less said about the rest – the better!

It was really nice to meet local debut author Kathryn Sharman during the festival and spend some more time chatting before the quiz. I adored her forthcoming debut The Family at No. 23 which will be publishing on the 28th August. Read my review here. Harrogate’s local independent bookshop Imagined Things has signed and dedicated copies available to order here which can either be posted and collected in store.

Day 4: Sunday

The final day of the festival is a half day with 3 panels. I headed over with Lauren and Kim to attend the It’s The Way You Tell ‘Em panel with Janice Hallett, Cara Hunter, Antony Johnston and John Finnemore moderated by Rev. Richard Coles.

This was a really interesting panel. Having worked in the video games industry previously and being a big fan of mixed media – I was all over this one. The Harrogate Festivals team and the festival chair (this year it was Mick Herron) always do such a fantastic job of curating interesting panels.

After the panel I got Making a Killing signed, which I absolutely loved when Harper Fiction kindly sent me the proof over. It was the first in the Fawley series I had read though so I also got Close to Home signed and I’m looking forward to reading from the beginning!

I also picked up some of The Dog Sitter Detective books. Mystery and dogs?! Count me in. I have already reviewed Antony’s latest book, his choose-your-own-adventure style crime novel Can You Solve the Murder? here after attending a fantastic interative event at Waterstones Leeds earlier in the year.

On top of that, I grabbed The Researcher’s First Murder. Being an escape room nerd, this sounds so intriguing to me although I’m worried the puzzle might be a bit hardcore for me! Still, I’m looking forward to giving it a go!

With that it was time for one last walk around the festival, mopping up any classic photo opportunities we had missed and time to say farewell to my friends!

Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival will return in 2026 on the 23rd – 26th July. Will you be attending?