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Crime Story

February – April 2020, Alphabetti Theatre, Newcastle 

 

The innovative Crime Story programme returns with a series of events at Alphabetti Theatre.

As lovers of crime writing, we’re fascinated by the facts behind the fiction. Pairing brilliant crime writers with experts from criminology to technology, Crime Story draws out the specifics of criminal activity and the detailed work that goes on behind the scenes to tackle it.  

This season, we’re turning the magnifying glass on some of crime’s most contemporary issues, from the dark web to dead girl tropes.  

The Detective: AA Dhand, Mike Rowe and Mick Paterson

 

Saturday 29 February, 2pm-3pm 

Alphabetti Theatre 

Tickets: £8/£6 concessions or £20/£15 for all three events

AA Dhand’s DCI Harry Virdee remains the only British Asian detective in an established crime fiction series. In Dhand’s fourth novel, One Way Out, the detective tries to prevent an impending terrorist attack, set against a backdrop of rising nationalism in his home-town of Bradford and racial and religious tensions both at work and on the streets.  

DS Mick Paterson has been a detective in Northumbria Police for 30 years, where he heads up the Complex Case Unit. 

Professor Mike Rowe, Northumbria University, has an international reputation for research and publications in the field of policing, paying particular attention to policing culture and reforms, race and racism, and the policing of domestic violence.  

Together they will consider fictional and real-life crime, to look at the role of a detective in an investigation and the culture within which they operate. 

 

Chaired by Professor Katy Shaw, Northumbria University 

 

BOOK NOW VIA ALPHABETTI THEATRE

Meet the speakers

AA Dhand

Mike Rowe

DS Mick Paterson

Katy Shaw

The Crime Scene: Oliver Harris, Judith O’Reilly, Professor Lars Holmquist

Saturday 28 March, 2pm-3pm 

Alphabetti Theatre 

Tickets: £8/£6 concessions or £20/£15 for all three events

 

Increasingly, technology provides both the materials and the setting for criminal activity.  

In A Shadow Intelligence Oliver Harris brings the spy novel into ultra-contemporary territory, where psychological warfare is conducted by social media and the use of deep-fakes, and state intelligence vies with powerful external agencies like Cambridge Analytica, making it impossible to tell who is manipulating whom.  

In Judith O’Reilly’s latest thriller, Curse the Day, a scientist is on the brink of an astonishing breakthrough in artificial intelligence, as his creation appears to have achieved consciousness – when the AI device witnesses his murder. 

Professor Lars Erik Holmquist, Northumbria University, is an internationally leading researcher in human computer interaction, interaction design and ubiquitous computing.   

Together, they will discuss the opportunities for digital technology as the setting for a very modern crime scene.  

 

Chaired by Professor Katy Shaw, Northumbria University 

 

BOOK NOW VIA ALPHABETTI THEATRE

Meet the speakers

Oliver Harris

Lars Holmquist

Judith O'Reilly

Dead Girls: Jessica Moor, Mim Skinner and Nicci MacLeod

Saturday 25 April, 2pm-3pm 

Alphabetti Theatre 

Tickets: £8/£6 concessions or £20/£15 for all three events

 

Jessica Moor’s debut novel Keeper follows a women’s refuge after one of the support workers is found drowned. Having worked with female victims of violence, Jessica Moor confronts the pressing issue of coercive control in a thriller that is as shocking as it is commonplace. 

Mim Skinner worked in a women’s prison for three years. Her book Jailbirds is a heartbreakingly poignant and stark account of the UK’s attitude towards women on the fringes of society. 

Nicci MacLeod is a forensic linguist at Northumbria University, who has published research on the language of police interviews and female victims in the legal system. 

Together they will discuss one of crime fiction’s most ubiquitous tropes: the beautiful female victim, and how accurately this reflects the real issues facing women, across all parts of the criminal justice system. 

 

Chaired by Professor Katy Shaw, Northumbria University 

BOOK NOW VIA ALPHABETTI THEATRE

Meet the speakers

Nicci MacLeod

Jessica Moor

Mim Skinner

Presented by New Writing North and the Institute of Humanities, Northumbria University, with support from BBC Newcastle

Partners

Northumbria University

BBC Newcastle

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