Chairperson: Arlene Hunt

"A beautiful piece, written with great lucidity and respect for the reader. A classic…"
John Le Carré on The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

"There is no one in contemporary crime fiction who has managed to combine the visceral and humane… as well as Val McDermid."
New York Times

The murder mystery is part and parcel of our cultural heritage. But how and when did the causes and consequences of crime make the leap from the closed door to the open page? In a special event that traces the connections between true crime and its literary counterpart, Kate Summerscale – author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher – and contemporary crime master Val McDermid examine the evidence.

Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr Whicher has all the hallmarks of a classic Agatha Christie: a body, a detective, a country house and a whole family of suspects. But Summerscale’s runaway bestseller is a scrupulous reconstruction of a real-life Victorian murder, a crime that provoked national hysteria and inspired a whole new fiction genre.

Val McDermid is one of the world's best-selling crime writers. Her novels have won international acclaim and a number of prestigious awards including the coveted Gold Dagger. From her early Lindsay Gordon mysteries to the chilling ‘Wire in the Blood’ suspense thrillers, she has brought a dark psychological depth and rare humanity to the genre.

Join Summerscale and McDermid as they stake out the hinterland between crime fact and crime fiction.