A Walk Into The Noir with Simon Maltman

Well, life certainly has been busy here at Farset HQ over the last month. Firstly, after what seems such a long time, I was able to send off the final draft of book two in the Terror series, "The Terror Within" to Excalibur Press for final proofing. This was closely followed by conversations about cover design and press promo ahead of the launch on 13th April 2019 (stay tuned for a cover reveal and more details of the launch over the next few weeks).

Then of course there was the finalisation of the Programme for the Northern Ireland Festival of Writing. This festival is going to be HUGE!! We're so excited by the events that will be taking place throughout April in venues across Belfast and possibly beyond.

The Programme will be announced soon #Excited but obviously having me as one of the Festival Directors means that there will definitely be a bit of Noir in there somewhere. In fact, I'm delighted to say that I will be joined for my first ever panel event, by amongst others (all will be revealed soon, I promise), Conlig Crimewriter, Simon Maltman.

I first met Simon, our guest blogger, in the Summer of last year, when having heard about his Noir related Walking Tours of Belfast, I booked tickets for my wife, Heather and I. We were lucky to be the only people on the tour that day and what an excellent and informative tour it was too. Since then, Simon and I have become firm friends (though I still haven't convinced him to include any of the locations used in my books on the tour).

In addition to taking part in the Northern Ireland Festival of Writing in April,

Simon is scheduled to host a special series of walking tours for Crime Fiction Fans and aficionados as part of the upcoming Noireland International Crime Fiction Festival during the weekend of 8-10th March 2019. The festival is a must for Crime Fiction Fans, with an excellent programme that attracts a veritable who's who of local and international talent in the genre, but if attending, please make sure you set some time aside for a walk with Simon. You won't regret it, but to tell you more, I'll stop waffling now and let you hear from the man himself.

Thanks for inviting me along to your blog! We've been running our 'Belfast Noir' tours for about a year now. It had struck me that there wasn't any local tour covering much about literature and certainly not crime fiction. There are also plenty of Game of Thrones tours for instance, but again I noticed that there wasn't a tour covering other film and TV. I developed an idea around visiting locations of locally set books, TV and film, focusing on crime. I approached Belfast Hidden Tours and they had thought about starting a similar project to add to their portfolio themselves too. They liked that mine would be a bespoke tour, a lot to do with writing while being delivered by a local writer. So we teamed up together. We worked on it, drafting and then trying it out, then took it from there. We've been really pleased with all of the interest and feedback received last season. It was great craic making features for UTV Life and Good Morning Ulster. 

The main TV/ film that we cover is Line of Duty, The Fall and Odd Man Out. The main literature we cover is the overall 'Ulster Noir' scene, from the likes of Colin Bateman to the recent big hitters such as Steve Cavanagh and Stuart Neville. 

We often take on private bookings or work with other organisations. We're delighted to have been invited to take part in this year's Noireland Festival. The last one was a super weekend of all things Noir, and we hope that partnering with our tour will be a really good fit. The line up for the festival again looks to be brilliant. We're going to be doing a special hour tour every day of the festival, starting and ending at The Europa. You receive two of my novellas on ebook with the tickets. They've been selling really well, but there are a few tickets still available to buy online. (£10 per person) 

I think Lee Child said it best: "Belfast is the most Noir place on Earth." 

Good luck, and thanks for having me.