2 - 4 May 2025

Gold! A sharp new comedy play with a big heart and loads of cracking pop hits from the 1980s from veteran performers Kate Stafford and Nicholas Collett. The play is based on the infamous Brinks-Mat robbery of 1983 when £26 million was stolen and never recovered. Julie and Dave are a normal suburban middle-aged couple living a quiet life but hiding a big secret: a huge stash of gold bars stolen from some very bad men four decades ago. Now their daughter wants an expensive instagram-worthy wedding, and the elderly gangsters are out of jail and looking for their gold. What are they going to do?  A fantastic start to the 2024 Cromarty Crime & Thrillers Weekend! Check out all the other events here. VICTORIA HALL. Tickets £12. Booking: info@cromartyartstrust.org.uk or call 01381 600354  Suitable for ages 12+ Generously supported by The Touring Network and brought to you jointly by the Cromarty Arts Trust and Resolis Community Arts.  

Guilty or innocent? You decide. Best-selling author Mark Bridgeman will be taking the part of judge, prosecution and defence when he presents the audience with a real-life murder trial - in which you become the jury. With evidence and exhibits from the case on show, a prize for the winner, and a Q&A with the author, this promises to be an event to remember. Silence in Court! Scottish based writer Mark Bridgeman released his first book, The River Runs Red, in 2019. The book became an instant success has been reprinted three times. Further bestselling titles, Blood Beneath Ben Nevis and The Dark Side of the Dales and The Lost Village of Lawers followed.

Native New Yorker Donna Freed was placed for adoption through the now-notorious Louise Wise Jewish adoption agency (featured in the film Three Identical Strangers), and after her adoptive mother passed away, she went searching for her origins. What she discovered was a jaw-dropping crime that landed her birth parents at the centre of one of the biggest police investigations of the 1960’s. Her memoir, Duplicity, My Mothers' Secrets was called “the most amazing and remarkable story” by The Today Show, and “a family scandal straight out of a Hollywood film noir” by The Spectator. Cromarty-based writer Nicola White has published numerous short stories and personal essays together with three acclaimed crime novels set in Dublin, for which she has variously won the Dundee International Book Prize, been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize and chosen as Crime Fiction of the Year by the Irish Times and the Daily Express. She is currently working on a memoir of her childhood in New York in the 1960s, for which she has received major support from Creative Scotland. 

JD Kirk is a best-selling Scottish crime fiction author from Fort William.  He has sold over 2 million copies of his DCI Logan series, based in the Highlands and Islands. He wanted to be a writer from the age of nine, when a kindly librarian wrote his name on the spine of a notebook in which he’d written a terrible short story and put it on the shelf. Since then, he has written over 140 books for children as Barry Hutchison, over 15 books for adults as Barry J. Hutchison, and is now thoroughly enjoying murdering people as JD Kirk. F.E. Birch is an ex-cop from the North-East of England. She won the first Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect competition in 2012 with the premise for ‘She’s Not There’ her debut novel of 2022. The sequel, ‘Last Train Through Pitlochry’ will be published soon. Her most recent work ‘Maman’ introduces DS Joanna Armstrong, a top child protection detective, becomes the accused. Can Joanna to clear her name when everything seems stacked against her? Maman is a gripping tale of family, of loyalty, and most of all, truth and justice.

Join two of the UK's best known authors for an afternoon of wide-ranging and relaxed conversation followed by Q&A and book signings. Anthony Horowitz is one of the most prolific and successful writers working in the UK – and is unique for working across so many media, juggling writing books, TV series, films, plays and journalism. His work includes the bestselling teen spy series Alex Rider, two new Sherlock Holmes novels and continuation novels for James Bond. He created and wrote some of the UK’s most beloved and successful television series including Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War. Close to Death, the fifth novel in Anthony’s Detective Hawthorne series (with a sidekick called Anthony Horowitz), will be published in Spring this year. Ian Rankin is a multimillion-copy worldwide bestseller of over thirty novels and creator of John Rebus. His books have been translated into thirty-six languages and have been adapted for radio, the stage and screen. Ian is the recipient of four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards, including the Diamond Dagger, the UK’s most prestigious award for crime fiction. £15: Book by downloading this form and returning to info@cromartyartstrust.org.uk             Anthony Hororwitz - photograph by Jack Lawson

Saturday night is Crime Quiz Night in the Fishertown Inn. This will be a crime and thrillers-based quiz including a round of questions from the weekends authors, a great raffle and ‘Stick ‘em Up’ or ‘Cover Your A**s’, aka Heads & Tails! Quiz starts at 9pm, book directly with Fishertown Inn on 01381 600988 if you want dinner first.  

Marsali Taylor is a successful writer of puzzle-style mysteries set in contemporary Shetland. The stars of these books are a sailing, live-aboard sleuth called Cass Lynch and her love interest, DI Gavin Macrae. The plots are lively, page-turning and always have a surprise who-dun-it twist. Marsali’s writing beautifully showcases the local life, land and seascapes of Shetland. A retired teacher, still living next door to her former school, Marsali loves sailing around the voe in her boat. Death at a Shetland Festival is the latest in the Cass Lynch series and will be published in April. Sarah Smith is a writer from Glasgow whose debut novel, Hear No Evil, was published in 2022 and is inspired by the landmark case of Jean Campbell, the first deaf person to be tried in the High Court. 1817, Glasgow: Jean Campbell – a young deaf woman – is witnessed throwing a child into the river Clyde. If found guilty, she faces one of two fates: death by hanging or incarceration in an asylum. But Jean’s deafness leaves her isolated and unable to defend herself, until the authorities call in Robert Kinniburgh, a talented teacher from the Deaf & Dumb Institution. As Jean grows to trust Robert, she reveals what really happened on that bridge over the river Clyde. And Robert, now embroiled in this dark case, must act quickly to ensure justice is served, before it is too late. Hear No Evil was shortlisted for the Bloody Scotland Debut Crime Novel 2022, the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown 2022, and the CWA Historical Dagger 2023. It was Waterstone’s Scottish Book of the Month in February 2023. Marsali Taylor - photograph by Joan Baxter

Pasha Liffey was the last Black man – and the only Black African – to be executed in Scotland, hung for a murder in Larkhall (Lanarkshire) in 1905. He was only 24 and died despite the jury’s unanimous recommendation for mercy. Born in Lesotho in Southern Africa, Liffey had travelled to Britain three times. He was a stable boy, a performer around the UK in the exploitative 'Savage South Africa' show, a ‘runner’ for British troops during the Anglo-Boer War, a circus hand, groom, milkman, barman and boxer. He was guilty of a brutal murder but his life – with his descent into poverty and alcohol abuse – illustrates what it was to be young, poor, Black and isolated in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. David Alston has lived in Cromarty for over 35 years and was the founding curator of Cromarty Courthouse Museum. In 2022 his Slaves and Highlanders: Silenced Histories of Scotland and the Caribbean was named the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year. He has also published a number of articles in academic journals, mainly on Scotland and slavery, and he is the author of My Little Town of Cromarty, a social and economic history.

GC Fisher is the pen name for Gina Fegan, a lover of stories and award-winning film and theatre producer. She was born and raised in Ireland when curiosity, impatience and a need to earn a living led her to travel the world and have many careers. From waitressing, teaching English, running festivals to working on a building site as an engineer, she has had plenty of opportunities to meet the characters who now inspire her novels. Gina’s two Canterbury based books, written in lockdown, feature Maeve McPhillips, a reluctant psychic detective who discovers at the age of 40 that she can talk to the dead. Life with two teenage daughters, her eccentric mother and an unexpected house guest was hard enough during lockdown. Then a dead body turns up and her relationship with her boyfriend Det Inspector Maguire hits the rocks, Maeve has to come to terms with her growing powers. She must travel to Cromarty in Scotland to discover herself, but will she get there in time to stop the next murder?