December 2021 was cause for a flying visit to the Geordie homeland for the return of Newcastle Noir. Run by the fabulous Jacky Collins and her team of crime fiction-fuelled volunteers, the festival was perfectly placed on a dark winter's day at the heart of the city library. With loads of Covid-safe measures in place, Dr Noir put on a brilliant showcase for the best of Northern crime writers and what an absolute treat it was to see real writers and readers gather at an event in real life. Zoom has been great, but sometimes, you just want to see folk in the same room! And as you can see from the finale session below, it was a lot of fun.

From multi-award winning greats like Mari Hannah, Anne Cleeves and SJ Watson, there were writers such as the brilliant Trevor Wood and Danny Marshall, who's debuts were published in the grips of the pandemic, a wonderful line up from the Orenda publishing stable, historical crime writers, police procedural greats, speculative fiction and thrillers, there was something for virtually every crime-fiction fan to enjoy.
The festival has now permanently moved to December, so watch out for dates for 2022.
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