In the month that thousands of fiction fans head to Yorkshire for the Harrogate Crime Festival, this new short story series, Short Cuts, from BBC Radio 4 celebrates the very particular atmosphere of such festivals. It’s often said that there is something different about crime writers – they flock together, they enjoy each other’s company and freely interact with their fans. Over the next four Sunday evenings, festival stalwarts Ann Cleeves, Sarah Hilary, Val McDermid and David Mark, will take us to events real and imagined in four original stories that will charm and intrigue.

In this first story, broadcast Sunday 10 July and available on Listen Again, Ann Cleeves (bestselling author of the Vera and Shetland crime novel series) takes us to Malice Domestic in Bethesda, Maryland – an annual crime convention for lovers of the traditional mystery novel. Her character, Stella Monkhouse, known to her fans as the Queen of Mystery, is an award-winning crime writer who is struggling to come to terms with the fact that her literary star is beginning to wane…

Listen Again: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07jwt67?ns_mchannel=email&ns_source=inxmail_newsletter&ns_campaign=bookclub_radio__&ns_linkname=na&ns_fee=0

Harrogate: http://harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crime-writing-festival/

Simon Richardson, BBC Books Team
@sighrichardson