Why crime writer Ruth Ware is following in the footsteps of Ian Rankin, Lee Child and Val McDermid in Harrogate

“I used to work in publishing and so I came to the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, in Harrogate pretty much the first time it was held – there is something very special about the atmosphere there. Everyone is together, no one is hiding out in a green room it is so friendly,” says Ware.

"Then when I first began writing, one of my most cherished dreams was a panel at the Festival. To be invited to chair the festival is truly an honour I could never have imagined – and it’s been my privilege and delight to work alongside the phenomenal programming committee to create a programme that showcases the strength, diversity and sheer literary inventiveness of our brilliant and bloody craft.

"From writers I've admired for years to newcomers I've been thrilled to discover - I can’t wait to share it with you all.”

Ware’s 2015 debut thriller In a Dark, Dark Wood, about a hen party gone disastrously wrong, was a Richard and Judy Choice, and a Sunday Times and New York Times top ten bestseller.

Since then, her novels have repeatedly appeared on bestseller lists around the world and have sold more than six million copies.

Her books have been optioned for both film and TV, including her latest thriller Zero Days which was snapped up by Universal International Studios – although she’s still waiting for them to hit the big and small screen, and she is published in more than 40 languages.

In June 2023, Ware’s psychological thriller The It Girl was shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Ware, who lives near Brighton with her family, says she was always writing as child – although she didn’t turn to crime writing until she was in her thirties.

“I was always scribbling out little stories, and when I was about seven or eight my mum went back to college and took a typing course, so then I began to type them out on her old fashioned type-writer, which somehow felt much more like a “real” book,” says Ware.

" All through my teens I kept writing, mostly on sheets of lined A4 paper, clipped into a ring binder, and the stories got longer and longer, until they began to resemble full-length books. A “novel” would take about one whole ring binder. But I was always too shy to show them to anyone so they spent most of their time under my bed.”

She started working for a publishers in her twenties and although she found it helpful in her bid to become a published author herself as she could see how the book industry worked, but it was also daunting.

"It gave me a massive attack of stage fright. I was working with some amazing, award-winning writers, and had a first-hand glimpse into the number of brilliant books published every single week, and it became increasingly hard to imagine that there would ever be a place for me on those heaving bookshop shelves.”

It as a friend who suggested that Ware should try her hand a crime writing, something that had never occurred to her before despite being a lover of the genre. The same friend also said she’d never read a crime novel centred around a hen party and the idea for In a Dark, Dark Wood was born.

"I’d been writing for teenagers – more fantasy and sci fi – for some reason crime was never on my radar despite being a lover of Agatha Christie and Daphne Du Maurier. But as soon as I gave it a go I knew it was me.”

Ware refers to her type of crime writing as more psychological thriller with a crime thrown in. “I call them psychological crime thrillers. They all have a bit of a mystery

With two small children she realised she had to give up her day job and concentrate on writing as she just didn’t have time to fit it in to her life as purely a hobby.

She eventually plucked up the courage to send her manuscript to publishers and despite numerous rejections she persevered and in 2015 In a Dark, Dark Wood was published.

Since then she has written nine crime thrillers – the ninth is due to be published soon and she is currently writing her tenth.

"I did think once I gave up the day job and started to write full time that I might be able to do more than one a year – but I think that creatively that’s about my maximum,” says Ware.

"Also during Covid lots of authors were writing like mad – I was home schooling and so didn’t have as much time as normal.”Ware likes to shut herself away to write in her little office in the eaves of her Brighton home, normally during school hours.

“My perfect day is when everyone is out and I have the house to myself. But now my husband works from home its rare that happens.”

She knows the rough plot of her novels before she starts to write, and ‘who dunnit’ although she develops the story as she goes, trying hard not to back her characters into any corners she can’t get them out of.

"I like to give the reader the chance to work out ‘who dunnit’.”

Ware is looking forward to choosing some of her favourite authors for panels at Harrogate although for the moment she remains tight lipped as to who we can expected.

“I am really enjoying the process. There are 12 of us on the programming committee which means there is a huge breadth of knowledge, I am really looking forward to it. There is something very special about the Harrogate festival.

"People keep proclaiming the death of the crime novel but it never seems to happen. I think even in hard time people want to read about people having harder time then them and they like the fact that there is normally a resolution of some sort. It might not always be the one you expected or want, but there is a resolution and for the main characters and at times of uncertainty I think that’s what people like.”

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival runs from 18 – 21 July 2024, bringing together some of the world’s most popular crime and thriller writers to discuss anything and everything to do with crime fiction.

Harrogate’s award-winning Festival is one of the biggest and most talked about dates in the literary calendar, offering audiences from around the world a unique opportunity to discover the next big names in crime writing and hear giants of the genre discuss their work, as part of a programme of exciting panels, creative workshops, and inspiring talks.

With its roots firmly planted in Yorkshire, the Festival is one of the friendliest around and has a longstanding partnership with Theakstons of Masham, one of the country’s most highly regarded brewers and the Festival’s title sponsor since 2005.

For more information visit harrogateinternationalfestivals.com