Granite Noir 2024: Crime Writing Festival

By Hannah McLaren | Feb 16, 2024
Granite Noir 2024 returns to Aberdeen Performing Arts this month. Image is a promo shot for David Suchet's 'Poirot and More' show which will be at Granite Noir 2024. In the background are a series of actors dressed as characters from his stories. They are under a faded blue layer. An image of David Suchet has been placed on top of this. He is in full colour wearing a black suit jacket. His name and the title of his show is in white text, which has been positioned over his chest.

Granite Noir 2024 returns to Aberdeen Performing Arts next week! Do you dare to be there?

This annual celebration of crime fiction, detective stories, and all things noir will return to Aberdeen, Scotland from 20-25 February, 2024. Taking over “Granite City” this unique event will bring together authors, readers, and enthusiasts of the crime genre from around the world.

Established in 2017, Granite Noir has quickly gained recognition as one of the premier crime writing festivals in the UK.

From classic whodunits to contemporary thrillers, this atmospheric festival caters to a wide range of tastes within the genre, ensuring there’s something for everyone to enjoy. In addition to celebrating the literary aspect of noir, Granite Noir 2024 will also explore the darker aspects of society, delving into themes such as justice, morality, and the human psyche.

For the first time ever, this crime writing festival is also hosting a short story writing competition with the winning entry to be published in The Press and Journal and Evening Express.

Granite Noir 2024: Who Will Be there?

  • David Suchet will give audiences an insight into his career in Poirot and More: A Retrospective
  • Sophie Hannah will host a screening at Granite Noir 2024 of her musical film The Mystery of Mr E
  • Best-selling author Lisa Jewell will discuss her latest masterpiece, with talks also planned with writers Charles Cumming, Denise Mina, Louise Welsh, Alice Bell and Olga Wojtas
image is a headshot of best-selling author Lisa Jewell. Her short blonde hair is tied back in a low ponytail. She has a slight smile on her face and she is wearing a black suit jacket, with a plain grey top underneath.

Lisa Jewell

  • Lawyers Catherine Kirwan and Ruth Mancini will discuss their compulsive psychological thrillers
  • Authors Alice Slater, Lynsey May, Adam Oyebanji, Maud Woolf, Briar Ripley Page, Callum McSorely, Sophie White and DV Bishop will discuss their work
  • Aberdeen’s own Emma Christie will be joined by authors Michael J Malone, Alex Nye, Phil Miller, Ajay Close and ES Thomson at the Literature at Lunchtime events
  • Ireland’s first female state pathologist Marie Cassidy will be attending Granite Noir 2024 to share her debut book Body of Truth
Granite Noir 2024. Image is a headshot of crime pathologist, Marie Cassidy, looking stern. She has a grey bob haircut, and is wearing a black leather jacket and a white shirt with a large collar, which she has popped up.

Marie Cassidy

  • Jackie Uí Chionna will unveil the true story of an extraordinary woman in British codebreaking
  • David Swindle, the detective who caught serial killer Peter Tobin, will share a gripping lecture in The Makings of a Murderer
  • Scared to Death will detail a true crime event in Aberdeen
  • Comedy CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation will return for Granite Noir 2024
Granite Noir 2024. Image shows the CSI improv team. They are on the crime scene and each either holding up items of evidence, taking notes in a pad, taking crime scene photographs or just looking very serious. The setting is very rustic, with old, worn and broken furnishings covered in 'Police Crime Scene' tape.

CSI – Crime Scene Improvisation

  • Dr Kathryn Harkup will deliver her Agatha Christie-inspired Poisoned Afternoon Tea and Bond-inspired Cocktails – Shaken not Stirred
  • Alan Windram will host a picture-book event, MG Leonard will share her birdwatching adventures and Sue Lawrence will examine food in stories
  • Patrice Lawrence and the audience of Granite Noir 2024 will solve an 18th-century mystery
Granite Noir 2024. Image is a headshot of author Patrice Lawrence. She is smiling and appears to be standing on a hill with a backdrop of rolling green fields and rows of houses from a little town.

Patrice Lawrence

  • Workshops will be hosted by the Scottish BPOC Writers Network, Zine Noir and Shane Strachan
  • Jørn Lier Hors, a former investigating officer in Norway, will join author Agnes Ravatn, while Iceland’s best-selling crime writer Sólveig Pálsdóttir will talk to Óskar Guðmundsson
  • Enjoy this free exhibition at Granite Noir 2024: Gunpowder, Tattoos and Transportation: Aberdeen’s Inked Convicts

Buy tickets for Granite Noir 2024 over on the Aberdeen Performing Arts website

Learn How To Write A Cosy Crime Story (CLICK HERE)

 

Author image of Hannah McLaren

Hannah McLaren I've worked at DC Thomson for six years! I began as an intern at My Weekly and The Scots Magazine, which was extended by a few months to help out at The People's Friend. I then covered maternity as Celebrity Editor for My Weekly, before I became Multimedia Journalist at The Scots Magazine. Currently I'm writing digital content across each title.

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