Meet Denise Mina, the woman behind Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival which returns to Harrogate this month

One of the topics that fires conversation, says Denise Mina, the Chair of this year’s Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, is where they’ve been, and what they’ve been up to.

Denise laughs: “One of the subjects always seems to be comparing other festivals and events, and discussing the reception and audiences that they got. ‘Have you been to Melbourne, that’s a great gig’, ‘No, but I went to Adelaide, and….’ That sort of thing.”

There’s a slight pause, and she adds: “And the fees, of course.”

One of the delights of the up-coming West Yorkshire weekend, she says, is that “we all stay at the same place, in the same hotel. So, unlike a lot of other festivals, there’s no one-upmanship, if you like to call it that. We generally bump into each other at breakfast, and then over and over again throughout the day.

“There’s nothing like ‘Have you heard that Hilary Clinton is being helicoptered in for her appearance – and whisked straight back out again when she’s done?’ Harrogate is so egalitarian, and we love it.

“We talk about cricket, football, theatre, and we also swap stories about how well – and sometimes badly – personal appearances can go. We’re talking to colleagues here, sometimes ones we haven’t seen for a while. Our partners are already so familiar with our stories and tales, and they just roll their eyes, so at least we have someone fresh to talk to.

“One of our fellow writers actually turned up at a book-signing in Belfast, and had decided to wear a suit. None of the audience recognised him, and thought that he was, in fact, one of the security guards, and several queued up so that he could check their handbags. Not a boost to his confidence.

“And I have to tell you that, personally, my decision to lecture an audience in Texas recently about gun control might, perhaps, have been, er, unwise. Or inappropriate. Not something that I want to repeat, and I learned my lesson. We authors have all, at one point, been mortified – or humiliated.

“But what’s not to love about Harrogate? There’s always a good sale on somewhere, the architecture is beautiful, there are some great pubs and bars, so many opportunities for a good walk, and plenty of charity shops for bargains. I’ve been there every year for the last 15 years, and I love it, wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

Denise emphasises that getting the Festival together is very much a team effort, and that “there is such a lot of work behind the scenes, the organising and creating a structure. It’s not just the likes of me swanning in, and then swanning off again – just like those lovely birds, there’s an awful lot of energetic paddling beneath the surface.”

A little research about Denise will reveal that, in her teens and before she went to Strathclyde University, she did a fair few menial jobs, just to bring in the pennies. One was in a meatpacking and processing factory. The image of a teenage young woman with a meat-cleaver in her hand, and surrounded by warm corpses may pop into your mind. Did that inspire her in any way? She hoots with laughter. “Oh dear,” she chuckles, “what an imagination you have. In reality, it was rather more like sliding slices of ham into plastic packages, and then sticking on a label with the name Sainsbury, or Tesco on them. As mundane as that. Sorry!”

She constantly notes down ideas, and is an incorrigible people-watcher. “But my jottings and observations are generally done on the back of receipts,” she admits, “a scribble that I them put into my purse for later, I’ve discovered that if I use something like a reporter’s notepad, when I close it, it remains closed… a little odd, but true. Whereas that receipt can come in very useful!

“I listen a lot to the radio and podcasts, read the papers, look at TV news, and I think ‘What’s that all about, then?’ and I proceed to slip down the rabbit hole of exploration.” An instance was one novel, where ideas were sparked by her reading about a group of urban explorers – the people who enter locked, shuttered and barred premises to discover what lies within – and where, in one abandoned room, they had found a table all laid neatly for a meal. They claim that they never touch anything, or take away souvenirs, but they observed knives, forks, plates and glasses. The question was, of course – why had no-one enjoyed the feast? What had caused the diners to flee?

“One of my own favourites”, she says, “is the story by Arthur Conan Doyle, where he picks up on the mystery of the Marie Celeste, where the sailors who find the abandoned vessel. There are no crew, no humans at all. But there’s that table again, with all the bits and pieces on it. But Conan Doyle’s inspired twist is that... in one cup, the tea is still warm! A great story. Brilliant. That man was a genius!”

In one of her novels, she adds her own frisson of excitement to the “abandoned space” meme, in that a locked silver box discovered in an abandoned chateau is believed to have been owned by Pontius Pilate. But what secrets and truths does it contain? And will it shed light on Christ’s crucifixion?

“You never know when something is just going to pop into your head and fire the imagination”, she asserts.

It was while she was at Strathclyde that her first novel emerged. Garnethill was published in 1998, and it emerged because she was doing research for a PhD thesis on “the ascription of mental illness to female offenders”.

Denise says: “To be blunt, I thought ‘Well, this is just work, and how many will read it? Just a handful. Wouldn’t it be better to get a far wider audience?” Her instinct was proved to be absolutely correct, and over a dozen novels have followed over the years, as well as several graphic novels.”

Why, does she reckon, have so many well-respected crime writers, popular in their day, fallen out of fashion?. She says: “Good question – I know that I started reading the Penguin black-spined paperback classics, by people like Raymond Chandler, but yes, there are many who aren’t half as well-remembered as they should be. Those who are, and whose reputations are kept alive (and I name no names) are, in many cases,much championed by their descendants, who keep a very close eye on their estates.”

Denise calls the Harrogate Festival “unique, in so many ways”.

“I love it. And one of the best things of all is that many of the audience go away and set themselves down to write their own crime stories. That’s marvellous. They come in and think ‘Well, I may not be able to give a new War and Peace, but I might be able to manage a decent crime story’. And they do. Which is brilliant.”

Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, July 21-24.