Crime Fiction Weekend
Sarah Hilary
Programme Chair
Sarah Hilary’s debut, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and was a World Book Night selection, and a Silver Falchion and Macavity Award finalist in the US. Her short stories have won the Fish Criminally Short Histories Prize, the Cheshire Prize for Literature, and the SENSE Prize. Sarah’s latest novel, The Drowning Place, introduces readers to DS Joseph Ashe at the start of a brand new series set in the Peak District.
Jane Casey
Committee Member
Jane Casey was born and brought up in Dublin, and studied English at Jesus College, Oxford. A former editor, she has written twelve novels for adults and three for teenagers. Her books have been international bestsellers and the Maeve Kerrigan series has won many awards. The Killing Kind was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in 2021 and was filmed for television in 2023.
Jean Buchanan
Committee Member
St Hilda’s alumna Jean Buchanan is co-founder with Eileen Roberts of the Crime Fiction Weekend, which began in 1994 with ‘Women Crime Writers’. Jean is mostly a scriptwriter. She created and wrote many episodes of the children’s TV sitcoms The Wild House (BBC, series 3 short-listed for a British Comedy Award) and Welcome to Orty-Fou (ITV). Her first foray into TV was a play, The Princess and the Lute-Player, for the series Jackanory Playhouse. Jean tackled crime with her Radio 4 dramatisation of David Dodge’s 1952 novel To Catch a Thief, the book behind the iconic Hitchcock film, and tracked down Dodge’s small rented villa on the Riviera for a tie-in Radio 4 Arts feature, In Search of the Villa Noel Fleuri, written up for Kindle as Mr Dodge, Mr Hitchcock, and the French Riviera. She used to work for Oxford University Press on the revision of OED and on quotations dictionaries, and began her writing career in the traditional way, with short stories in magazines.
Mick Herron
Committee Member
Mick Herron is a bestselling and award-winning novelist and short story writer, best known for his Slow Horses thrillers. Raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, Mick studied English Literature at Oxford, where he continues to live. He was awarded Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year 2022 for Slough House, the seventh book in the series. Mick has also won the CWA Steel, Gold and Diamond daggers.
Jake Kerridge
Committee Member
Journalist and literary critic. Jake has been the crime fiction reviewer of The Daily Telegraph since 2005 and has judged many crime and thriller prizes.
Carolyn Kirby
Committee Member
Carolyn Kirby read history at St Hilda’s and is the author of three novels. The Conviction of Cora Burns was listed for prizes from the Historical Writers’ Association and the Crimefest/ Specsavers Award, and When We Fall was chosen by The Times and Sunday Times as one of the best novels of the year. Her latest novel, Ravenglass, is an 18th century family mystery and an adventure into identity.
Abir Mukherjee
Committee Member
Glasgow native Abir Mukherjee is a Times bestselling author of the Wyndham & Banerjee series of novels set in Raj-era India, which have sold over 400,000 copies worldwide and been translated into 15 languages. He has won the CWA Dagger for best Historical Novel, the Prix du Polar Européen, the Wilbur Smith Award for Adventure Writing and the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year for his thriller, Hunted. His latest book, The Pinnacle, is out now.
