Morpeth Book Festival - Murder and Mayhem

Trevor Wood

Trevor Wood has lived in Newcastle for 25 years and considers himself an adopted Geordie, though he still can’t speak the language. He's a successful novelist and playwright who has also worked as a journalist and spin-doctor for the City Council. Prior to that he served in the Royal Navy for 16 years. Trevor holds an MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction) from UEA. His first novel The Man on the Street, which is set in his home city and features a homeless protagonist, was published in March 2020. It won the Crime Writers’ Association’s John Creasey New Blood Dagger for best debut and the Crimefest Specsavers Debut Novel of the Year. It was also shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. The sequel, One Way Street is out in e-book, audiobook and hardback with the paperback release due in November. The final book in the trilogy, Dead End Street will be published in January 2022. Trevor is one of the founder members of the Northern Crime Syndicate and is a volunteer at the People’s Kitchen in Newcastle, a charity that provides hot meals for more than a hundred people every day.

Fiona Erskine

Engineer by day, writer by night Fiona Erskine is a professional engineer and writer based in the North-East of England. She grew up in Edinburgh, studied Chemical Engineering at Cambridge University before travelling the world, working in fertiliser factories, oil terminals, international construction projects and power plants. Her first thriller, The Chemical Detective was published in 2019 by the Point Blank imprint of OneWorld , the second in the series The Chemical Reaction was published in 2020, and another two books in the series are in the pipeline (with The Chemical Cocktail coming out in 2022) A stand alone novel Phosphate Rocks: A Death in Ten Objects was published by Sandstone Press in 2021. Fiona is passionate about music and outdoor swimming, though not generally at the same time.

Robert Scragg

Robert Scragg had a random mix of jobs before taking the dive into crime writing; he's been a bookseller, pizza deliverer, karate instructor, football coach, and HR Manager. He lives on the North East Coast with his wife, children & overly-needy dog, and is a founding member of the Northern Crime Syndicate crime-writers group. What Falls Between The Cracks, the first in his Porter & Styles series, was a New Writing North pick as one of the 2019 Read Regional books of the year. Rob’s work has also seen him win the Lindisfarne Prize for Crime Fiction in 2021, and be shortlisted for the 2021 CWA Short Story Dagger.

Fiona Veitch Smith

Fiona Veitch Smith is the author of the Poppy Denby Investigates novels, Golden Age-style murder mysteries set in the 1920s (Lion Fiction). Poppy Denby, dubbed the 1920’s most stylish sleuth, is originally from Morpeth, but now works on a London tabloid. The first book, The Jazz Files, was shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, while subsequent books have been shortlisted for the Foreword Review Mystery Novel of the Year and the People’s Book Prize. Book 5, The Art Fiasco, is set in Newcastle, Morpeth and Ashington. Book 6, The Crystal Crypt, set in Oxford and London, is out now. Fiona was formerly a lecturer of creative writing at Northumbria University and of journalism at Newcastle University. She is now the Assistant Secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Deputy Editor of Red Herrings magazine. She lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. www.poppydenby.com https://twitter.com/FionaVeitchSmithttps://www.facebook.com/FionaVeitchSmithAuthor