ORGANISERS of an annual crime writing festival are promising plenty of murder and mystery.

Programming chairman Val McDermid said the event, between July 21 and 24 and part of Harrogate International Festival, was going from strength to strength.

She said: "We have an international programme that delivers the very best of contemporary crime writing."

All events are being held at The Cedar Court Hotel, overlooking Oatlands Stray.

The town already has strong links with crime writing because it was at the Old Swan Hotel that Agatha Christie famously reappeared after vanishing from her home in Berkshire, in 1926.

Harrogate's links with Mrs Christie have been strengthened by murder and mystery weekends as well as the film Agatha, when locations in Harrogate were used to recapture the story.

The festival will break new ground with the launch of Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year.

It offers a £3,000 prize and is said to be the only British crime fiction prize voted on by the public. The prize is for books published in the UK last year.

The result will be announced on July 21 at the festival's opening night party when members of the public can meet authors.

Guest of honour during the festival is Ruth Rendell, whose latest book Thirteen Steps Down is published this month.

For more details, contact the box office on (01423) 537230.