Simmering secrets, fatal fascinations and poisonous passions make for the darkest of deeds. Meet four writers who reach into the roots of our psyche to create creepily compulsive tales.

Sarah Hilary’s breath-taking Black Thorn feeds on the dark shadows of human nature, asking what we really know about our neighbours. Dorothy Koomson’s My Other Husband is a whip-smart, gripping thriller about the fears underpinning a complex web of lies. Mark Edwards has a gift for irresistible thrillers putting ordinary people in extraordinary situations; the pulsating Keep Her Secret is his latest. Alex North has a devilish ability to play on our innermost fears and he unleashes them fully in the spinetingling The Half Burnt House. Erin Kelly, author of The Skeleton Key, will chair.

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• Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival