Detectives Beyond Borders: Crimefest 2017, Part I

Another edition of this fine Bristol crime fiction convention has wrapped up, the most enjoyable of the seven Crimefests I've attended even though a seagull shit on my head the convention's first day. Details of the convention will follow over the next few days, minus the bird shit.

Martin Edwards

In the meantime, a few words about Martin Edwards and Peter Lovesey, as entertaining and informative a combination of interviewer/moderator and subject//panelist as has ever graced a crime festival stage. I've read just a few novels from Lovesey's extensive output, but they include one of the best of all angry-cop novels (The Last Detective) and the most virtuosic performance by a crime writer that I have ever been privileged to read (Bertie and the Seven Bodies). Lovesey was a guest of honor at this year's Crimefest, and it was a pleasure to see him interviewed on stage by Edwards, to hear him hold forth during a panel on short stories, and to offer my compliments on his work, to which he reacted with humility and good humo(u)r.

Peter Lovesey

Edwards has changed my ideas about traditional mysteries, served as a model of how to moderate a panel, and won a number of crime fiction quizzes in which I finished second several times and fifth once. He was also a member of a panel I moderated at Bouchercon 2016 in New Orleans, where we enjoyed a convivial pre-convention dinner discussing his subject for the panel (Michael Gilbert), the legal profession (Edwards is a lawyer), and the differences between the profession as practiced in the United Kingdom and the U.S.

Edwards and Lovesey obviously love the work they do, are good at it, and are engaging and entertaining when talking about their own writing and the history of crime fiction. Edwards often attends Bouchercons and Lovesey will be a guest of honor at Bouchercon 2019 in Dallas. You should see these guys on this side of the ocean or that.