We started a crime festival by accident. No, we really did.
Just four years have passed since David Hewson, Gregory Dowling and I held an evening event in the upstairs room at Libreria Studium, just a short walk from Piazza San Marco. People were queuing down the stairs. Although to be fair, it is quite a small room.
The following year our Power Trio became a Fab Four as Tom Benjamin joined us from Bologna. This time we managed to fill St George’s Anglican Church (yes, Venice does have one. Indeed, I once killed a public school teacher in the organ gallery there, but that’s another story…)
In 2024, we tried a half day festival at Sant’Apollonia. Catherine Fletcher and Anna Mazzola came over to join us from the UK; whilst Stefano Dall’Aglio and Matteo Strukul represented the Italian side of the programme.
How far, we started to think, could this go?
As it turned out, the answer was quite a way…especially with Marco and Silvia from Merchant of Venice and Libreria Studium on our side, both of whom have an almost preternatural ability to make things happen. As an example, if the Ateneo Veneto happens to be unavailable as a venue, Marco will merely shrug and suggest we move to La Fenice opera house instead. I have no idea how they do this but, by now, I have simply learned to accept that, somehow, they will.
And so to last year, when things became really interesting, when we discovered that it was surprisingly easy to get people to attend a crime festival in Venice. All the more so if Ian Rankin was the headliner. This time we held a full three day event with free panel discussions in the historic space of the Ateneo Veneto, collateral cocktail evenings and a final prizegiving in the Teatro Ridotto.
This year we’re back and it’s bigger and better than ever before. It all kicks off on the afternoon of Thursday 12th November, as Anna Mazzola, Gregory Dowling and Michelle Lovric investigate “Venetian Gothic.” Confession – I’d have loved to have done that panel, having written a book with that very title, but the second one of the day – discussing the giallo with Tom Benjamin, John Bleasdale and Tim Rideout – was a chance too good to miss. I’ll be getting my black gloves and hat ready for that one…
So, who do we have? Well, Ian Rankin is back (he said last year he was just going to come back as a visitor, but we weren’t having any of that!) in the company of Denise Mina and Ambrose Parry. We have four of the biggest hitters from our partners in Harrogate in the shape of Mark Billingham, Elly Griffiths, Abir Mukherjee and Claire Mackintosh. David Hewson investigates history’s most notorious poisonings in the company of Hallie Rubenhold, Emily Gowers, Catherine Fletcher and pathologist Suzy Lishman. Lucy Worsley makes the case for Agatha Christie fifty years after her death and – well, there’s a whole lot more as well.
But why Venice? Why write crime fiction or hold a crime festival in a city that is statistically one of the safest in Italy?
Here’s the thing : before moving to Venice I’d spent fifteen years in Edinburgh and had never felt inspired to write anything. To be fair, that was mainly the fault of that Rankin bloke having got there about twenty years before me. But there was something about Venice that just made me want to write. It doesn’t matter how safe the city might be – walk those narrow calli at night when the shadows lengthen, and every dark corner will become a place of mystery. Because the stones of Venice have been here for fifteen hundred years, and those stones have long memories and stories to tell. Small wonder La Serenissima continues to be an inspiration to writers. We hope it’s an inspiration to readers as well.
We look forward to seeing you at Venice Noir, from the 12th – 15th November, when one very deserving writer will be walking away with the Lama d’Ombra – the Blade of Shadow – the official award of the Festival.
We hope you’ll be there to share that moment with us.
Find out more at https://venicenoir.com/ and sign up to our mailing list for further information on “The most beautiful book festival in the world”
