Canadian Guest of Honour: Louise Penny

Louise Penny didn’t begin her writing career until her mid-forties, when she set to work on her first crime novel, Still Life. Set in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, the series features Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the head of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec. Most of the books take place in the fictional village of Three Pines.

Since Still Life was published in 2005, the books have been translated into 27 languages and have hit the major bestseller lists, including the New York Times, the London Times and the Globe and Mail.

Her novels have won most of the major international awards, including the British Dagger, the Canadian Arthur Ellis, and the American Anthony, Barry, Dilys, Nero, and Macavity Awards. She’s won the coveted Agatha Award in the US five times. Her ninth Gamache book, How The Light Gets In, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list. Louise lives with her husband Michael and their golden retriever in the Eastern Townships, just south of Montreal.

American Guest of Honour: Megan Abbott

Megan Abbott is the Edgar Award-winning author of seven novels, including Dare Me, The End of Everything and The Fever (June 2014). Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, Best Mysteries of the Year, USA Noir and Los Angeles Times Magazine. She is also the author of TheStreet Was Mine, a study of hard-boiled fiction and film noir, and A Hell of a Woman, a female crime fiction anthology. She has been nominated for many awards, including the CWA Steel Dagger, the Macavity, Anthony, and Barry Awards, the Hammett Prize, and the LA Times Book Award. She lives in Queens, NY.

Christopher Brookmyre was born in Glasgow in 1968 and educated at the University of Glasgow, where he earned an MA (Hons) in English and Theatre. He worked as a sub-editor in London and Edinburgh prior to the publication of his first novel, Quite Ugly One Morning, which won the First Blood Award in 1996 for the best first crime novel of the year.

His Jack Parlabane series saw him become the first writer to win two Sherlock awards, and his 2006 novel All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye won him the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing.

In 2005 he was named the University of Glasgow’s Young Alumnus of the Year and in 2007 he won the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for writing. As well as his Jack Parlabane series, he has enjoyed considerable acclaim for his Angelique de Xavia novels and, more recently, his Jasmine Sharp trilogy.