Lyon's Quais du Polar festival is celebrating its 20th edition from 5 to 7 April. It has grown and grown and this year will welcome 135 authors from 15 countries.
As far as the Anglophone contingent is concerned, you will no doubt recognise some stars like John Grisham and his legal mysteries; Donna Leon, specialised in Venetian murder; Val McDermid's series around clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, and cold-case detective Karen Pirie; Dennis Lehane and his often filmed bestsellers such as Mystic River and Shutter Island; and Peter May, who writes about the Scottish Hebrides while living in France, and a Scottish-Italian forensic expert working in Toulouse. And there are some you may just be discovering like M.J. Arlidge, Eliza Clark, Terry Hayes, Abir Mukherjee, Dominic Nolan, Alice Slater, Joe Thomas, Tim Willocks from the U.K. and S.A. Cosby, Gabino Iglesias, Meagan Jennett, and Catriona Ward from the U.S.A. You can find out about the authors here, including their reading recommendations for other authors.
Amongst the internationally themed sessions, you might want to catch one of these:
POLITICAL PAGES: DIALOGUE AROUND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION with S. A. Cosby – John Grisham – Gabino Iglesias – Dennis Lehane
CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, 60 YEARS OF FIGHTING AGAINST RACISM IN THE UNITED STATES with S.A. Cosby – Dennis Lehane
THE AMERICA OF THE DISINHERITED AND THE SHUT OUT with S.A. Cosby – Gabino Iglesias – Joseph Incardona – Meagan Jennett
ENTENTE CORDIALE: 120 YEARS OF CROSS-CHANNEL ALLIANCES with Caryl Férey – Peter May – Val McDermid – Tim Willocks.
If you can't make it in person, catch up with conferences live or on replay.
The festival even features its very own collaborative crime novel, the fourth it has commissioned. This time the authors are Caryl Férey (France) and Tim Willocks (U.K.). It features Ged Mackie, fresh out of the French Foreign Legion and back home in Manchester, wher he faces family tensions and local gangsters.
Festival director Hélène Fischbach points out that, "Crime fiction is not just 'stories of murders and investigations' or 'books to read on holiday'" and "crime-fiction readers (mostly female readers) are naturally curious and demanding." So why not exercise your curiosity and check out some of these great stories?
Quais du Polar
5-7 April 2024
Tag(s) : "crime fiction" "David Vann" "Dennis Lehane" "detective fiction" "Donna Leon" "festival" "John Grisham" "literature" "Lyon" "Peter May" "Val McDermid"
