Award-winning British women’s fiction author, Liz Fielding, turned to crime writing during the Covid pandemic “lockdown” when she finally got down to writing a story – inspired by an Open University documentary — that had been in her head for some years. Murder Among the Roses is shortlisted for this year’s People’s Book Prize – Patron, Frederick Forsyth CBE, author of The Day of the Jackal.
Noir at the Bar first appeared in Philadelphia in 2008. For those of you who’ve never been to one of these events, let me tell you a bit about it. The authors’ names are drawn from a hat by a member of the audience and that author then reads a short section from their book. Whoever drew the name out of the hat gets a free (and usually signed) copy of the author’s book.
The full story of how it began is here.
Brits, not slow to adopt anything that takes place over a drink in a pub, quickly caught on. Scotland is the home of some of Britain’s finest crime writers so it’s hardly surprising that the event first appeared in Glasglow in 2015. This was the line up–
Denise Mina (The Red Road)
Christopher Brookmyre (Dead Girl Walking)
Helen Fitzgerald (The Exit)
Kirstin Innes (Fishnet)
Graeme MacRae Burnet (The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau)
The evening was a huge success and the idea quickly caught on. It’s now popular with crime and mystery writers and readers across the UK.
Crawley, my nearest big town, has a month-long Festival of Words in March and it includes a very popular crime weekend.
There was a crime panel hosted by Derek Farrell – author of the Danny Bird Mysteries — who was talking to Elly Griffiths and Barbara Nadel. Caroline Green gave a workshop on writing “killer characters”. Spooky readings were the Saturday night treat in the ancient cloisters.
Was I nervous?
The culmination of the weekend was Noir at the Bar, held in an oak-beamed pub called the Old Punch Bowl. 
When I was invited to take part in the event I leapt at the chance. Who wouldn’t? I might have an international reputation as a romance writer but I’m new to this genre and I need all the exposure as a “crime” writer that I can get.
The terror, the why-did-I-say-I’d-do-this regret, would come later…
I’m applying the same technique to a couple of gigs I’ve been signed up for at CRIMEfest in Bristol in May. I have never moderated a panel before, but they say that doing something that scares you is a good thing. I’ll let you know…
But down to practicalities. Would I stumble over the words? Would the audience get bored and start talking among themselves? Or would I take one look at the expectant audience and just dry?
That happened to me once before. A radio interviewer tasked with interviewing me about writing romance — and who clearly wished she was anywhere else — snapped her first question at me in such a bored and hostile manner that my brain seized up. I still get nightmares…
Crime Reading Month
Derek, who puts his heart and soul into organising this festival — and who I shared a panel with last year at our local indie bookshop Crime Reading Month event — was again presenting.
There were seven of us reading that night. Apart from me there was…
From left to right: Casey Kelleher, Anna Mazzola, Liz Fielding, Erin Young, Laura Marshall, Helen Fields, and Graham Barlett
Graham Barlett, a former senior police office who not only writes crime, but teaches authors how to write procedural crime without getting the details wrong.
and
Our names were put into a hat and drawn by audience members. Inevitably, my name came out first.
Derek introduced me — 30 years, 80 books, awards on both sides of the Atlantic, 15 million sales. He was encouraging whooping at every statistic.
Gulp…
They lowered the microphone. (I’m short!) I returned to my table to get my reading glasses — they may have thought I was escaping — pulled up the metaphorical big girl pants and took a deep breath.
Which book? Which piece to read?
Choosing which book was easy. The Maybridge Murder Mysteries are a series. I thought it safe to assume that not everyone attending Noir at the Bar would have read them, so I went for the first book, Murder Among the Roses.
Deciding which piece to read was less easy. The opening scene, the moment when my amateur sleuth, Abby Finch, finds the skull of a new born baby was dramatic. It would have been perfect, but the ideal length for reading is about ten minutes and it was too short.
I’d rehearsed the piece where a bloodied body is discovered, but on the day of the reading I had a last minute change of mind. Instead, I went for a quiet, intense piece where a victim of abuse told Abby Finch, my amateur sleuth, what had happened to her many years earlier.
It was a long time since I’d appeared on the stage — if I tell you that I was playing Bertha, the teenage daughter, in Strindberg’s The Father you’ll get the idea! — but out of nowhere the voices came…
We were in a very busy pub, but you could have heard a pin drop.
Would I do Noir at the Bar again? I can’t wait!
~ ~ ~
The latest in Liz Fielding’s Maybridge Murder Mystery series – Murder in the Marquee — will be published later this year. 