The Stars Come Out at Harrogate, Part III

Novelist Charlie Higson signs a book for fan Alex Karim.

(Editor’s note: This is the third installment of British correspondent Ali Karim’s report from the recent Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. Part I can be found here, while Part II is here.)

So, after concluding our interview with Cody McFadyen and wishing him well with The Darker Side, my son, Alex, and I headed off to that day’s James Bond panel discussion. The event was moderated by Simon Brett (Blood at the Bookies) and featured thriller writers Joe Finder, Catherine Sampson, and James Twinning, as well as British TV comedy writer Charlie Higson, author of the Young James Bond novels. As it happened, the panelists were divided on their opinions of Sebastian Faulks’ recently released Devil May Care, but were unanimous in their appreciation of Ian Fleming’s original novels. Which is not to say that they thought every one of those early Bond books excellent; the panelists agreed that the series’ quality dropped off as Fleming’s health deteriorated. On the whole, the panel was entertaining and lighthearted but didn’t really offer great insight into Bond or his adventures. Then again, so much has already been written about Agent 007 and his creator that it would be difficult to find a fresh angle. The highlight of this event, for yours truly anyway, was having my son meet Charlie Higson at the signing table. He’s an avid reader of the Young Bond books.

Then it was back to the hotel’s Thackeray Suite, as we’d been invited by publisher Hodder and Stoughton to help celebrate the 21-year career of Inspector Alan Banks, Peter Robinson’s music-loving Eastvale police detective. It happens that Robinson, British born but for many years now a resident of Canada, is a favorite author of mine, and I’m looking forward to reading his forthcoming 18th Banks novel, All the Colours of Darkness.

I was staggered by the turnout in celebration of Robinson’s novel-writing career. Basically, anyone who is anyone in this genre (and was at Harrogate, of course) stopped by to raise a toast to this gentle Yorkshireman’s success. When asked to take the microphone, Robinson was, as ever, modest in the extreme. He thanked everyone for their support and then reassured us--and his publishers, no doubt--that there’s still plenty of life in both Inspector Banks and himself. Afterward, I chatted briefly with Robinson (shown below), who I have known ever since the publication of In a Dry Season (1999), which proved to be his breakout book. I congratulated him on his writing and told him that I think the Banks novels are probably the most interesting police procedurals still being written. I also thanked him again for helping to engineer my meeting with Stephen King in 2006. He, in turn, thanked me for taking a photograph of him with King, which he says he cherishes as a memento of that night.

Anyone who regularly attends crime-fiction conventions knows that you never get to relax much at these affairs, even with writers you know, admire, and wish to talk with at length. And so it was with Alex and me. Following a bit of mingling amongst the Hodder and Stoughton folks, my son and I had to return quickly to our hotel and change in order to make a dinner engagement with the Headline Publishing crew, headed by Vicki Mellor, that house’s commissioning editor for crime and thriller fiction.

Soon after, finding our places at a table in the nearby Loch Fyne restaurant, we discovered that we were seated next to Headline authors Joe Finder, Anne Perry, Charlie Owen, and Quintin Jardine. Finder laughed when he saw that I was wearing one of the Paranoia promotional T-shirts he sent to me several years ago, following my excitement in reading the novel that changed his writing direction.

Now, I must admit that while I’ve consumed all of Finder’s books, I have read only a couple of novels each by the prolific Perry and Jardine. (Jardine’s new Aftershock, the 18th entry in his Detective Chief Constable Bob Skinner series, just happens to be on my TBR pile currently.) So, while both were delightful dinner companions, I found interrogating them about their written works a bit daunting. Fortunately, the Headline team took up a bit of slack with Alex, making sure that he was kept in the conversation as it rolled along. And we all shared a passion for crime and mystery fiction, so I didn’t have to test the true limits of my knowledge about my table mates.

The evening was a long one, and meant that I would miss seeing American author Robert Crais (Chasing Darkness) interviewed on stage by Mark Lawson of BBC Radio 4. But since I already had my own meeting with Crais lined up for the next afternoon, Saturday, I just relaxed with the Headline team and drank like a fish (the Loch Fyne was a seafood restaurant, after all). The time also allowed me to quiz my friend Finder about the new novel he was preparing to submit to Headline. It’s the first book in a series, and his editors in the UK and United States are both said to be excited about it; but Finder proved that, as a member of the former intelligence officers association, he could remain tight-lipped. We’ll all just have to wait to learn more.

As desserts were offered, Alex could be heard to groan a bit. The lethal combination of too little sleep and too much alcohol at the various parties that day had started me off on a favorite subject: conspiracy theories. Reading so many thrillers has made me interested in real-life conspiracies, as well; and my scientific nature causes me to analyze some of them in considerable detail. Sure, many of these theories are as nutty as filberts, but a few are troubling, indeed. And in a few of the biggest ones, the evidence appears to be in “plane” sight.

But before I could spend too much time pointing toward grassy knolls, Alex decided it was time for us to head off for bed. He made the case that the next day would be extremely busy (including the infamous Harrogate quiz and that Crais conversation). So, after thanking our Headline hosts for an excellent repast, we retired to our hotel. All the rich food and talk of plots and counterplots, though, caused me to sleep fitfully, my dreams filled with men who spoke in whispers into their starched cuffs and wore Ray-Ban sunglasses, even at night. These were the folks who really scare me.

Maybe I really do read more thrillers than is healthy ...

(Part IV can be found here.)