Full house for Crime Panel

The Crime Panel conversation featuring three masters of mystery, held at the City Hall on Saturday morning, was a sold-out event and as it turned out, it deserved to be.

It was billed as “one killer conversation” and ably hosted by Josephine Cassaglia, who works in UK publishing. Three of the UK’s best known crime writers Janice Hallett, Tom Hindle and Ian Moore discussed their writing processes, inspirations, their literary characters and current books.

After introductions, each author was given the opportunity to put forward a description of their festival-present book but without giving away their plots. They gave us ‘trailer’ information dotted with insights and humour, especially from Ian Moore who is a touring comedian and lives in France.

Janice Hallett had chosen pub quizzes as a setting for her book. She is a seasoned pub quizzer herself and is known for her intricate and puzzling mystery thrillers.

She said that the setting comes first unless it impacts on a character. The reader has to be kept informed and, with the help of dates, kept abreast of developments at the time the story is set.

She said that some of her characters arrive fully formed, while others develop with the story.

She plants reader information based on her deep knowledge of pub quizzing and thus finds original threads for motive, murder and resolution.

Tom Hindle, who has been hailed as a modern heir to Agatha Christie, agreed that the story’s setting comes first for the characters to follow and the story to flow.

He described himself as a “laborious writer” and his output can be double what gets into a book after editing.

He never deletes first drafts as he can come back to them and develop threads to keep to the intended story’s direction, or to change course if need be.

He likes to read inspirational books and write about settings about which he has first-hand knowledge about.

His current book features the story of an epic champagne tourist airship flight to the North Pole wherein a murder is committed.

A polar whodunnit in an airship - now there’s a plot to ponder upon.

Ian Moore is a self-confessed cozy crime writer who marries humour and intrigue.

He likes to start a novel with a motive and develop the story from there.

He has amazing wit and, with great respect for his fellow writers always, peppered his contributions with humour. The three writers had all read each other’s work.

He said that his characters, especially in crime serials, have to grow all the time and the stories have to resolve satisfactorily for reader interest.

All three writers were not afraid of the AI world we live in and agreed that there will be a future where book branding stamps marked ‘AI Free’ will play a part in guiding readers to book selections.

Tom Hinden told us that it is possible to feed as little as two bullet points into ChatGPT and it can write your first chapter. A sobering thought.

Ian Moore said that if you can’t be bothered to write your own story, why should a reader be bothered to read AI-generated stories?

Janice Hallett likes to read true crime to find inspiration and draw from them.

She said that we live in the ‘golden age of true crime’, which drew laughter from the floor and funny comments from Ian Moore.

The panel always complimented each other and the atmosphere it created was excellent throughout the hour.

The “killer conversation” as billed ticked all my boxes and drew an interesting Q&A from the floor, some questions seemingly from writers, about writing disciplines, yearly output and ebooks.

All three authors agreed that any medium that gives writers exposure is good.

Time flew fast, the conversation flowed richly, and it left us with a greater understanding of crime writers and their methods.

Entertaining and excellent panel which I’m glad I did not miss.