Now Europe's biggest crime fiction event, the festival allows fans and would-be novelists to rub shoulders with their favourite authors and learn first-hand the tricks of the trade.

In this special edition of OutLoud Sarah Walters joins the crowd at the Crown Hotel to chat with four of the UK's top crime writers, Stuart McBride, Simon Kernick, Martyn Waites and Sheila Quigley and asks what it is that sets British crime fiction apart, who are the authors to be looking out for and why the facts should never get in the way of an edge-of the-seat story.

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Stuart MacBride has written three novels featuring DS Logan McRae. His first, Cold Granite, was published to acclaim in 2005 and the latest, Broken Skin, which was shortlisted for this year's Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, is published by Harper Collins. He was recently awarded a Crime Writers Association Dagger Award for his work. MacBride lives in north-east Scotland with his wife Fiona.

Simon Kernick is the author of six crime novels. His first, The Business of Dying caught the imagination of readers and critics alike, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Barry Award for Best British Novel. Its sequel, A Good Day to Die, was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller of 2005 as well as the Theakston's OP Crime Novel of the Year. His latest book, Severed, is published by Transworld. Kernick lives in Oxfordshire, where he is grappling with his seventh novel.

Sheila Quigley started work at fifteen as a presser in a tailoring factory. She married at eighteen and had three daughters: Dawn, Janine and Diane, and a younger son, Michael. Recently divorced, she now has eight grandchildren. Having hit the headlines with the publication of her first book Run For Home in 2004, after a £300,000 two book deal with Random House, Quigley has penned three others in the Lorraine Hunt series. The latest, Every Breath You Take, was published earlier this year. She has lived in Houghton le Spring near Sunderland for thirty years.

Martyn Waites is the author of seven novels set in his native Newcastle Upon Tyne. His first, Mary's Prayer was published in 1997 and introduced character Stephen Larkin. Investigative journalist Joe Donovan has starred in his latest three novels, and was introduced in The Mercy Seat, shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller 2006 and the LA Times Crime Book Prize. His eighth book, White Riot, is due to be published in 2008 while Bone Machine, his latest Joe Donovan book was published by Simon & Schuster earlier this year. Waites lives with his wife and children in Hertfordshire.