Tip OffsTheakstons Shortlist and Robert Galbraith streaming spaces

Broadcaster and Festival regular Mark Lawson hosts the Awards on the opening night of the 12th annual Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate on 17 July. 
The winner will receive a £3,000 cash prize, as well as a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by Theakstons Old Peculier.

Also on the night, Lynda La Plante will receive the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, joining past winners Ruth Rendell, PD James, Colin Dexter and Reginald Hill. 

The six shortlisted authors are as follows



Denise Mina - The Red Road,  featuring DI Alex Morrow investigating a network of power and corruption that reaches back to Glasgow on the night Princess Diana died.  

 Malcolm Mackay’s  The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, the first in a trilogy, MacKay has been praised for introducing a remarkable new voice in crime fiction with an original thriller that shines a light on Glasgow's criminal underworld.



 Peter May, is nominated for The Chessmen. Featuring ex-detective inspector, Fin MacLeod, the Isle of Lewis series has been praised for its visceral descriptions of the Hebrides. The Chessmen is the concluding novel in his accomplished trilogy.

Belinda Bauer, is also in the line-up. Bauer received glowing reviews for Rubbernecker featuring Patrick Fort, a medical student with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Elly Griffiths’ intriguing crime story, Dying Fall, is the fifth novel in her Ruth Galloway series starring the forensic archaeologist. It effortlessly brings together neo-Nazis, New Age hippies in Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the archaeology of early Britain.

Stav Sherez launched his new police procedural featuring DI Jack Carrigan and DS Geneva Miller with A Dark Redemption, which made the 2013 shortlist. He’s back on the 2014 shortlist with the second in the series, Eleven Days. Set eleven days before Christmas with eleven victims, it spans four decades and two continents in a race against time.

The public vote opens on 3 July and closes 15 July. Votes can be registered at www.theakstons.co.uk

Extra Tip Off - There are still some tickets left for the live streaming of Val McDermid's Interview with Robert Galbraith