Friday 12 June 2026, 8.15pm
Foakes Hall, Foakes House, 47 Stortford Road, Dunmow, CM6 1DG

Continuing our Criminally Good Night we have Traitors’ Faithful and best-selling author of Blood Orange, Harriet Tyce, discussing her page-turning extra-ordinary new novel, Witch Trial. Two teenage girls. One murdered classmate. And a modern-day witch trial that will divide the nation.  Harriet Tyce will be in-conversation with author and multi-award winning screenwriter, Samantha Lee Howe.

This event is sponsored by The Happy Ladder.

Tickets: £12 / £10 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
A Criminally Good Night Ticket Deal:  Both events (Nicci French and Harriet Tyce) for £20 / £17 concessions
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

Ticket Deal

Make a night of it with our Criminally Good Night Ticket Deal: Tickets £12 per event or both events for £20 (Concessions £10 per event or both events for £17).

Discount automatically applied at checkout when tickets for both events are booked:

6.30pm – Nicci French in conversation with Linda Stratmann, What Happened That Night
8.15pm – Harriet Tyce in conversation with Samantha Lee Howe, Witch Trial

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the night.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
☕ There will be refreshments available to buy from the bar.
🚗 The venue has limited free parking for approx 40 cars or there are several public car parks close-by. The nearest public car park is Chequers Lane Car Park (67 spaces), CM6 1EQ which is free after 6pm. Parking information will be emailed to ticket-holders a few days before the event.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event. If you do not wish to be photographed or filmed, please let a member of the Essex Book Festival team know when you arrive.

Harriet Tyce

Photo of Harriet Tyce © Charlotte Knee

Harriet Tyce grew up in Edinburgh and studied English at Oxford University before doing a law conversion course at City University. She practised as a criminal barrister in London for nearly a decade, and subsequently completed an MA in Creative Writing – Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia. She lives in north London.

Her first novel, Blood Orange, published in 2019 to huge critical acclaim and her second, third and fourth novels The Lies You Told, It Ends at Midnight and A Lesson in Cruelty have been Sunday Times bestsellers. Witch Trial is her fifth novel.

Witch Trial

The page-turning extra-ordinary new novel from Harriet Tyce, author of the bestselling Blood Orange.

Two teenage girls. One murdered classmate. And a modern-day witch trial that will divide the nation.

When 18-year-old Christian Shaw is found dead in an Edinburgh park, the city reels – and the shock only deepens when police charge her best friends, Eliza Lawson and Isobel Smyth, with her murder. As social media explodes and headlines scream for justice, rumours of bullying spiral into something darker: whispers of rituals, obsession, and a teenage pact gone wrong.

Matthew Phillips, a respected heart surgeon, is reluctantly called for jury duty on the case. But as the trial unfolds – and the girls reveal a chilling defence no one saw coming – he begins to question everything: the motives, the evidence, even his own judgement.

Who’s telling the truth? Who can be trusted? And what really happened to Christian Shaw?

Let the Witch Trial begin . . .

Praise for Witch Trial

‘Audacious, mind-bending, and brilliant. I couldn’t read it fast enough!’
– Lisa Jewell

‘Deliciously twisted…and what an ending! Genius!’
– Claire Douglas

‘Daring, different, clever and compulsive’
– Andrea Mara

‘Grips like a vice . . . An utter masterpiece’
– Sophie Hannah

‘Dark, wry and slippery underfoot, I adored it!’

– Sarah Pinborough

‘The best thing I’ve read this year. An absolute triumph of a book.’

– Abir Mukherjee

‘Brilliantly clever and utterly addictive, I loved it.’

– Clare Leslie Hall

‘This mind-melting page-turner is Tyce at her whip-smart best.’

– Ellery Lloyd

‘A swirling miasma of meaning and counter-meaning.’

– Chris Brookmyre

Harriet Tyce will be in-conversation with:

Samantha Lee Howe

Photo of Samantha Lee Howe © Anne-Marie Bickerton

Samantha Lee Howe began her professional writing career in 2007 and has been working as a freelance writer for small, medium and large publishers ever since. She is a multi-award winning screenwriter and a USA Today Bestselling author.

Samantha’s breakaway debut psychological thriller, The Stranger In Our Bed, was released in February 2020 with Harper Collins imprint, One More Chapter. The book rapidly became a USA Today bestseller, and has now been turned into a feature film for USA, Canada, China, the UK, and various countries in Europe. The Stranger in Our Bed won Best Thriller at the National Film Awards.

Samantha lives in South Yorkshire with her husband, Historian, Writer and publisher, David J Howe and their cat Skye. She is the proud mother of a lovely daughter called Linzi.

A Thorn in the Rose by Samantha Lee Howe

A twisty post-WWII crime mystery of class, secrets and second chances.

Secrets bloom where the roses die – and Mel Greenway is digging up the truth.

In post-war Britain, Avonby estate is a crumbling relic hiding deadly secrets. Lady Melinda ‘Mel’ Greenway, a former army mechanic and the family’s poor relation, seeks solace in its overgrown gardens – until she unearths a body beneath the roses.

The discovery drags Mel into a tangled web of lies, resentments, and buried truths, forcing her to clash with Inspector Derrin Bradley, her wartime lover turned investigator. As Derrin digs into the dark web of secrets entangling Avonby’s privileged residents and its resentful staff, Mel is determined to solve the mystery herself. As sparks fly and old wounds resurface, Mel’s relentless pursuit of the truth puts her at odds with both her family and Derrin, while making her a target for a killer desperate to keep the past buried.

A tale of resilience, forbidden romance, and suspense, A Thorn in the Rose is a richly atmospheric mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

The post A Criminally Good Night – Witch Trial appeared first on Essex Book Festival.

Friday 12 June 2026, 6.30pm
Foakes Hall, Foakes House, 47 Stortford Road, Dunmow, CM6 1DG

We are delighted to be launching the Great Dunmow BookFest with a Criminally Good Night commencing with best-selling crime-writing duo Nicci French, who will be discussing their 27th novel, a new psychological thriller, What Happened That Night, with fellow crime-writer Linda Stratmann.

‘No one does it better than Nicci French’
– Lee Child

Tickets: £12 / £10 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
A Criminally Good Night Ticket Deal:
Both events (Nicci French and Harriet Tyce) for £20 / £17 concessions
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 01206 573948

This event is sponsored by The Happy Ladder.

Ticket Deal

Make a night of it with our Criminally Good Night ticket deal.
Tickets £12 per event or both events for £20 (Concessions £10 per event or both events for £17).
Discount automatically applied at checkout when tickets for both events are booked:

6.30pm – Nicci French in conversation with Linda Stratmann, What Happened That Night
8.15pm – Harriet Tyce in conversation with Samantha Lee Howe, Witch Trial

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the night.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
☕ There will be refreshments available to buy from the bar.
🚗 The venue has limited free parking for approx 40 cars or there are several public car parks close-by. The nearest public car park is Chequers Lane Car Park (67 spaces), CM6 1EQ which is free after 6pm.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.
📸 We will be filming and taking photos at this event. If you do not wish to be photographed or filmed, please let a member of the Essex Book Festival team know when you arrive.

Nicci French

Nicci French is the pseudonym for the writing partnership of journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. The couple are married and live in London. There are 27 novels by Nicci French, including the bestselling Frieda Klein series, published in thirty-one languages. Their 25th novel Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? was shortlisted for British Book Awards Book of the Year 2024 – Crime & Thriller. They have sold in excess of 15 million copies of their novels worldwide. Find them on Twitter/X at @FrenchNicci.

What Happened That Night

The 27th novel from the legendary crime writing duo.
International #1 Bestselling Author.

‘French always excels at depicting an ordinary life swept away by horror’
– Observer

The new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? and the Freida Klein series.

After nearly thirty years in prison for the murder of his university friend Leo Bauer, Tyler Green is finally free. Meeting up with the group of friends who were there the night that Leo died, Tyler is looking to reconnect – but he’s also looking for answers. When another friend is found dead that night, his new found freedom is put in jeopardy. Detective Maud O’Connor is called to investigate – but can she discover the truth, or is Tyler Green never going to be free?

Order a copy of the book from bookshop.org.

Linda Stratmann

Nicci French will be in-conversation with Linda Stratmann.

Photo of Linda Stratmann © Gary Stratmann

Linda Stratmann is the author of three crime fiction series with Victorian settings. Frances Doughty and Mina Scarletti are her clever and determined lady sleuths, and in the Early Casebook of Sherlock Holmes a youthful Holmes is studying to achieve his ambition of becoming a consulting detective.

Linda’s fourteen non-fiction books include The Secret Poisoner which chronicles the efforts of science and the law to tackle poison murder in the nineteenth century, and an acclaimed biography, The Marquess of Queensberry: Wilde’s Nemesis. She has edited a volume in the iconic Notable British Trials Series, The Trial of the Mannings.

Praise for Nicci French:

‘I try not to repeat myself too much when it comes to the authors I pick for this column. But there is one name I always make an exception for: Nicci French, because this husband and wife duo just keep going from strength to strength . . . This is the pair’s 26th novel, and they are still keeping me
up far too late, rushing through the pages in a panicky, obsessive fashion as I race to the conclusion’
– The Observer on The Last Days of Kira Mullan

‘Classic Nicci French: an unputdownable missing-persons thriller that’s also a searing examination of family, memory and grief. A big-skied, full-blooded, broken-hearted book’
– Erin Kelly on Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?

‘I defy anyone to see the ending coming’
– Cara Hunter, on The Unheard

‘From the very first page, Nicci French remains one step ahead of us. Expertly paced, psychologically sharp, thoroughly enjoyable’
– Louise Candlish on The Lying Room

The post A Criminally Good Night – What Happened That Night appeared first on Essex Book Festival.