It’s time! The Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival is back and its more dastardly, devious and deadly than ever.

From April 17-19 and 22-24, 2024, Wales’s only dedicated crime fiction festival is returning for its fourth year of murder, mystery and mayhem, fully online and absolutely FREE. So,start booking your tickets now at www.GwylCrimeCymruFestival.co.uk.

The Mugshots – (Who’s Who?)

With events in both English and Welsh, this year’s line-up includes the cream of the crime writing world, including Sam Blake, John Banville, Abir Mukherjee, Vaseem Kahn, Sarah Ward, Simon McCleave, Alis Hawkins and Fflur Dafydd. They’ll be chatting about their fiction, ranging from the heartlands of Wales to the canals of Venice; from the narrowboats of the UK and the rugged shores of Shetland, to the vast national parks of North America – with a few imaginary worlds and fascinating historical eras in between.

• The programme kicks off at 6.30pm on April 17 with All in the Mind, when Penny Batchelor, Liz Webb and BE Jones will be chatting to Louise Mumford about theirpsychological thrillers.
• Join the fun with the GCC headline event at 8.00pm on April 17, when Dr Jacky Collins (Dr Noir) will be in conversation with Elly Griffiths, author of the bestselling Dr Ruth Galloway series and the Brighton Mysteries. Elly won the 2020 Edgar Award for her novel The Stranger Diaries and, in 2016, was awarded the CWA Dagger in The Library. The Last Word, published in January 2024, is the fourth book to feature her detective DI Harbinder Kaur.

In addition to sessions on psychological thrillers, police procedurals, historical fiction and much more, the festival programme includes panels on true crime and writing crime for teenagers. Leading crime podcasters VaseemKhan and Abir Mukherjee, both award-winning crime writers and hosts of the Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast, will be discussing their craft. 

The Scene of the Crime (Why Wales?)  

When you consider that readers’ appetite for crime fiction just keeps on growing, it might seem something of a mystery that, until recently, Wales never had a dedicated crime festival of its own. Nothing to rival the likes of Scotland’s hugely popular Bloody Scotland, Newcastle’s Noir or Bristol’s Crimefest events.  

Crime Cymru, the Welsh crime writing cooperative behind the Gŵyl CRIME CYMRU Festival, aimed to change that and to show crime readers across the UK, and farther afield,what Wales has to offer.  For many years, Wales has been home to, or the inspiration behind, the works of bestselling crime authors like Clare Mackintosh and Belinda Bauer, withWelsh crime dramas like Hinterland/Y Gwyll, Keeping Faith/Un Bore Mercher, Hidden/Craith and The Light in The Hall/Y Golau attracting international fans and taking TVlistings by storm.

Crime Cymru believes Wales has something to shout about when it comes to crime fiction and, following two highly successful online festivals in 2021 and 2022, hosted Wales’s first crime fiction festival in Aberystwyth in 2023 (inassociation with Aberystwyth Council and Waterstones, with the support of the Welsh Government, Literature Wales and The Arts Council of Wales.)

The Criminal Masterminds 

Authors Alis Hawkins and Matt Johnson (both shortlisted for Crime Writers’ Association Dagger awards) and author Rosie Claverton, established the Welsh crime writers’ collective, Crime Cymru, in 2017, with three principal aims:

• To support crime writers with a real and present relationship with Wales

To help in the development of new writing talent 

• To promote Wales, Welsh culture and Welsh crime writing in particular, to the wider world

From this plan came the idea to bring Wales its first crime festival. Now Crime Cymru has more than 80 author members, all with a connection to Wales, writing and reading and spreading the word.