Fictional crime fans from around the world gather in Whitley Bay for a good old whodunit
Video report by Katie Cole
Whitley Bay is making the most of the appetite for crime as the town prepares to host its first crime fiction festival.
Bay Tales Live will see twenty of the UK's top-selling crime authors take to the stage at Whitley Bay's playhouse on Saturday.
Recent book sales suggest quite a few of us have a taste for a crime thriller as sales during lockdown show that it become the most popular literary genre.
Some of the top crime authors include:
Trevor Wood
Louise Candlish
Vaseem Khan
Olivia Kiernan
Amen Alonge
Tickets for Saturday's event have been sold worldwide and author Ann Cleeves who comes from Whitley Bay says that it is down to the "Vera effect."
Anne, whose popular book series Vera became an ITV award-winning series and is filmed in the North East, says: "I think partly it is the Vera effect because Vera has been sold to 200 territories around the world people want to come and see where Vera was filmed and loads of episodes have been filmed in Whitley Bay."
The event has been organised by Victoria Watson and Simon Bewick who were behind Virtual Noir at the Bar. During lockdown crime fiction readers and writers gathered online once a week to hear authors reading their work.
It is hoped that visitors with a thirst for crime will also have a thirst for a tipple and bring a much-needed boost to local businesses.
Staff at coffee shop Rustic Cup have created a special Vera Cocktail. The rhubarb drink is said to be sweet and sour, the perfect mix for any crime fan.