Meet Jo Nesbo at Harrogate Crime Festival – Part 4

Finally it’s Sunday, the last day of the Harrogate Crime Festival and it’s up early to pack my suitcase. Now where can I put all those books I’ve bought, plus can’t forget to pack the bottle of Old Peculier that came in my goody bag. The only solution is to pack the canvas goody bag and carry it slung over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

 
Breakfast next, and I decide not to collect my flyers and bookmarks from the unwanted books table until after the first panel of the day – bad decision – when I went to collect them they’d all been binned. The Scot in me mourned the loss of my material, the hours spent preparing it, never mind the ink and paper. Ah well, that’s life. Next year I’ll be there a lot earlier.
 
The highlight of morning had to be the special guest, Jo Nesbo. The ballroom where all the events are held was packed, illustrating the popularity of this event. Jo Nesbo is one of the Scandinavian writers who have risen to popularity over the past few years. And he’s Norwegian, which means I have a special affinity with him because of my Norwegian grandfather, not that he’d know it, of course.
 

Mark Lawson interviewing Jo Nesbo

 

He was an entertaining speaker who expressed a reluctance to talk at events, however, he said he was forced by Mark Billingham to come. He claimed to be unable to write in his apartment and said he preferred to write on trains, planes and in airports, and that he was delighted when his plane was delayed. His main character is Harry Hole, which he said was a common Norwegian name which should be pronounced ‘Hoola’. The first of his books published in the UK was The Devil’s Star, although the first book in the series is The Bat, which doesn’t seem to be available in a UK or US version.

 
He took five weeks to write the first draft of The Bat, which is set in Australia, however, Harry Hole was not fully developed until The Redbreast, his third novel. The Bat – in Norwegian it is The Batman – is based on an Aboriginal myth about a half-man, half-bat, with links to the devil.
 
His second book, also unavailable in the UK or US, is The Cockroaches and is set in Bangkok, Thailand.
 
The Redbreast his third book is the first of the series available in the UK and US. It is set in the trenches outside Leningrad, on the Eastern Front, in 1944. When talking about this book he provided details of his family’s dynamics. His mother and her family were in the resistance during the Second World War, but his father was in the German army and fought Stalin, therefore they were on opposing sides. This was not unusual in Norway at the time because many people fought against the Germans, and many fought with them, but most people did nothing. As a result of his wartime career his father was imprisoned for two years after the war. The Redbreast was written using his father’s memories of the trenches, and as a result he considers this his father’s book.

Jo Nesbo

 

I found this session with Jo Nesbo interesting, fascinating, and I’m glad I didn’t miss it. Now, I really must read his books.
 
I won’t bore you with the details of my journey home, including train breakdowns, but before I left, I made sure I paid my deposit for next year’s Old Peculier Crime Festival at Harrogate. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

 

http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk

 

Harrogate Crime Festival 2012 – Part 1

It’s that time of year again – the time all crime writers look forward to – the Harrogate Crime Festival, where crime writers and readers gather to celebrate crime fiction in all its varieties.

Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, where the crime conference is held

I’m not entirely sure what you would call a gathering of crime writers – would it be a murder of crime writers? Maybe not, because we don’t want to be associated with crows. After all it’s a murder of crows, isn’t it? What about a massacre of crime writers? Do you think that would suit any better? If you have any ideas I’d love to hear them.

Anyway, whatever you call them, you won’t find a bigger gathering anywhere this summer, than Harrogate. They all gather at the Old Swan Hotel, that’s the one where Agatha Christie was found after her vanishing act more years ago than I care to remember.

This is the tenth Harrogate Crime Festival, although to give it its proper title I should be saying the Theakstons Old Peculier (yes the spelling is correct) Crime Writing Festival. The first one took place in 2003, and it was meant to be a small weekend of literature events that would be part of the larger Harrogate International Festival. However, probably because of the early involvement of Val McDermid, it was like Topsy, it grew and grew, until it is now the largest and most prestigious crime fiction event in Europe.

Over the years many of the biggies of the crime writing world have appeared at Harrogate, including PD James, Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, and many more. Not forgetting our international counterparts such as Jeffrey Deaver (a favourite of mine), Michael Connolly, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Jo Nesbo, I could go on and on. But you don’t want a list of names of the world’s most prestigious crime writers, do you? You want me to get on and tell you about this year’s festival. The only thing is, there is so much going on, there is no way I’ll be able to get it all into one blog post, so I’ll talk about each day in a separate post, so you’ll just have to watch this space

Well, I arrived on Thursday afternoon. There were people there before me because the festival runs a creative writing day prior to the opening events on Thursday evening. I have taken part in the creative writing day in past years and it is something well worth attending. But because I didn’t do it this year I won’t comment on it.

Mark Lawson, from BBC Radio 4 Front Row

The festival started on Thursday night with the presentation of the awards. Mark Lawson introduced this with a hilarious speech, and I’m sure the laughter could have been heard in Harrogate town centre. The locals must have wondered what was going on.

Some of the bits I remember was where he referred to Cambridge being like downtown Detroit, and Oxford as the most lethal town in England, while going for a walk in Suffolk was quite risky because you’d be lucky to return from it. He also reckoned that with the recent reported drop in UK crime figures we’d all soon be out of a job.

 

Colin Dexter, author of the Morse series

Mark Billingham then came on stage to announce the recipient of the lifetime award for an outstanding contribution to crime fiction. This was presented to Colin Dexter, by Simon Theakston, the festival’s sponsor. Colin entertained us with a short speech, laced with his usual dry humour, and he got a standing ovation from the audience. He was a very popular choice for the lifetime award. But I wasn’t surprised by this, because Colin is a lovely man whom I’ve had the honour to meet on several occasions, and I still treasure the photograph he gave me earlier this year, of his portrait which hangs in the Randolph Hotel.

After this came the presentation of the Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award which was won by Denise Mina, for End of the Wasp Season. I’ve read Denise’s Garnethill trilogy and she’s a great crime writer, so I made a note to myself – get End of the Wasp season as soon as possible.

Denise Mina with the Theakston Old Peculier award for crime novel of the year

We finished up with the Festival opening party, which was mobbed and quite quickly became uncomfortably hot. However, no one seemed to mind and there was lots of networking, chatting and meeting up with old and new friends. I spent a fair bit of the time with Sonia, Lucy, Justine and Isobel, and we had a lovely time.

The top tier of the cup cake mountain at the festival party

Oh, and by the way, Justine is now my BFF because she told me she’d read my book, Dead Wood, and loved it. She also said she was reading another author (quite a famous one, who shall be nameless), and thought my book was the better of the two. Yay, The perfect end to a perfect day.

From left - Isabel, Lucy, Sonia, and Justine

Well, that’s Thursday taken care of, I’ll write about the Friday events in the next post, so watch this space, and I’ll try not to be too long.

http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk