Our theme:  ‘All Our Yesterdays’: historical crime fiction.
Find yourself unleashed upon the London of the Swinging Sixties, the winding backstreets of 1950s Bombay, the gin shops and brothels of Georgian London, and some dark doings as Brighton hangs out the bunting for the Coronation – and all in pursuit of Murder. They do say Time heals everything…

Our participants, subjects, and speakers:
Val McDermid, Mick Herron, William Shaw, Sarah Hilary, Abir Mukherjee, Vaseem Khan, Tom Wood, Sara Sheridan, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, Jill Dawson, Mary Paulson-Ellis, Elly Griffiths and Anna Mazzola. Alison Joseph and Jake Kerridge will be sharing the chairing with subjects ranging from Christie and Highsmith, du Maurier and Vine, to CJ Sansom and Dr Who. Andrew Wilson will be celebrating Agatha Christie in this the 100th anniversary of The Mysterious Affair At Styles with Everything Agatha! Click on the programme for timings and details.

Our puzzler and prize:
No event exploring Historical Crime Fiction would be complete without Andrew Taylor. Not only our 2020 Guest Of Honour, he is penning this year's dramatic Whodunnit. The Murder of Lucy Ackroyd is a chillingly implausible whodunit set in Oxford. The demise of a famed literary novelist takes place in a former women’s college located in the academic badlands beyond Magdalen Bridge. Starring: Chief Inspector Taylor, Val McDermid, Sarah Hilary, Triona Adams, Abir Mukherjee, and Mick Herron. Blackwell's Bookshop have provided a splendid prize: a signed, first edition of PD James' The Lighthouse (Faber and Faber, 2005.)

Our accessibility: One ticket buys our attendees (from across the globe) access to all of the live sessions, and to all the recordings which will made immediately available and remain accessible for a month. In this way you can be flexible with what you view and when. Further details and simple joining instructions will be sent out to all attendees a couple of days prior to the big event.

Our extras: Blackwell's will be providing us with an online bookshop featuring deals and discounts on titles from our speakers and their subjects. Furthermore, our friends at Isis Audiobooks are gifting all of our attendees with Mick Herron's novella The List, the private link to which will be sent out with the joining instructions.

Our bookings: We feel very strongly that authors should be renumerated for their work so this year our speakers will receive the usual, though very modest, fee. Furthermore, when you book a ticket £5 will automatically go to the PD James Fund and be directed towards the student, and library, support vital in these difficult times.