The Queen of Crime, Val McDermid, handpicks four hot new talents.

Gytha Lodge is a multi-award winning playwright who studied creative writing at UEA. Her debut, She Lies in Wait, is dubbed as the biggest debut of 2019. Contending that title is investigative journalist, Holly Watt, her first novel To the Lions received acclaim as a ‘breathholding rollercoaster of a read’.

From Down Under, Scrublands is the powerful compulsive thriller from journalist and foreign correspondent, Chris Hammer. And freelance writer and editor, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut, My Sister the Serial Killer, mixes crime, sisterly love and murder, hailed by the New York Times as ‘pulpy, peppery and sinister.’

Witness the riveting rising stars of the genre in the most anticipated panel of the Festival.