Abir Mukherjee is the bestselling author of historical and modern day crime thrillers. His books have won numerous awards including the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year, the Prix du Polar Européen and the British Book Awards Crime & Thriller Novel of the Year. He also co-hosts the Red Hot Chilli Writers’ Murder Junction podcast which takes a wry look at the world of books, writing, and true crimes.

A Venetian who can trace his ancestry back to 1351, Alberto comes from an ancient family of Murano glass makers. Writer, essayist and journalist, he has written a series of titles between history and legend that have created new ways of discovering Venice. His work includes treasure hunts, theatrical performances, works of art and a wide range of public appearances.

Nato a Milano nel 1960, è giornalista, autore televisivo e scrittore. Ha creato il personaggio di Carlo Monterossi, protagonista di una fortunata serie di romanzi pubblicati da Sellerio. Con uno stile ironico, civile e affilato, Robecchi racconta il lato oscuro della società italiana.

Andrea teaches Comparative Literature at the University of Padua. For his children's books he received the Andersen Career Award. With Not All Bastards Are from Vienna (Sellerio, 2010) he won the Campiello Prize.

Andrea Pennacchi (Padua, 1969) is an actor, playwright, theatre director and writer. With Marsilio Editori he published Se la rosa non avesse il suo nome (A Rose by Any Other Name) and Una foresta di scimmie (A Wilderness of Monkeys). He has several books to his credit, all published by People.

Pluripremiata scrittrice di romanzi storici, gotici e polizieschi. Il suo romanzo, “Il libro dei segreti”, ha vinto il CWA Gold Dagger come miglior romanzo poliziesco del 2025. È stata bestseller del Times e ha vinto il Fingerprint Award e l’Edgar Allan Poe Award.

Barbara is the author of two series of detective novels: the Cetin Ikmen series, set in Turkey, and the Hakim and Arnold series, set in East London. She won the CWA Silver Dagger award for the novel Deadly Web, belonging to the Ikmen series. She is a mother and grandmother, she is married and has a cat named Terry.

Catherine Fletcher is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK). The Guardian called her an expert on "Renaissance deceptions". Her book, The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires, is published by Princeton University Press. Her books have been translated into several languages, including Italian (by Garzanti).

Charles Cumming è nato in Scozia nel 1971. Poco dopo l’università, fu contattato per un reclutamento da parte del Servizio Segreto di Intelligence (MI6), un’esperienza che ispirò il suo primo romanzo, A Spy by Nature. Ha vinto il CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger come miglior thriller e il Bloody Scotland Crime Book of the Year. Ha lavorato per la serie The Day of the Jackal ed è stato lo sceneggiatore del film Plane con Gerard Butler.

Clare Mackintosh is a former police officer and a bestselling crime author. Her books have sold more than three million copies, been optioned for television and translated into 40 languages. She appears regularly at literary festivals and bookshop events across the UK and beyond.

Cristina Cassar Scalia, medico oftalmologo, vive e lavora ad Aci Castello. Ha esordito nel 2014 con “La seconda estate”, Premio Capalbio Opera Prima. Nel 2018 ha pubblicato “Sabbia nera”, primo romanzo della serie del vicequestore Vanina Guarrasi, ambientata a Catania. Dai suoi romanzi è tratta la serie tv “Vanina – Un vicequestore a Catania”, su Canale 5 dal 2024.

In his thirty-year career David Hewson has become known for a series compelling crime and mystery novels set against vividly realised European locations. His work has varied from the Copenhagen of The Killing, to the Rome of Nic Costa and now the Venice of Arnold Clover. He divides his time between Kent and Venice where he currently serves as international director of the Venice Noir book festival.

Davide Longo was born in Carmagnola in 1971 and lives in Turin. A writer, screenwriter and writing teacher at the Scuola Holden, he has published novels, short stories and books for young readers. With his noir series featuring Vincenzo Arcadipane and Corso Bramard, he has established himself as one of the most original voices in contemporary Italian noir fiction.

Denise is the best-selling author of the Garnethill trilogy, Paddy Meehan series and Alex Morrow series, as well as the historical novels Rizzio, Three Fires and The Second Murderer, a Philip Marlowe novel. She has won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award twice, the McIlvanney Prize twice, the Gordon Burn Prize and was inducted into the Crime Writers' Association's Hall of Fame in 2014. Denise lives and works in Glasgow.

Elly's books have sold over 6 million copies and appeared more than 50 times in the top ten of the Sunday Times. She won the Bookseller Association's Author of the Year 2024 award, the CWA Dagger in the Library, the Edgar Award and the Fingerprint Award, and received the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award. She has 2 children and lives near Brighton with her husband, an archeologist, and their cat, Pip.

Emily Gowers is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College. Her most recent books are Rome’s Patron: The Lives and Afterlives of Maecenas (Princeton University Press, 2024) and The Small Stuff of Roman Antiquity (University of California Press, 2025). She has often reviewed books for The Times Literary Supplement.

Erin Kelly is the Sunday Times Bestselling author of eleven literary thrillers. Her latest novel, The Night Stairs, is about an epidemic of vertigo in a girls' convent school and, naturally, features a ghostly nun. She is currently writing a novel set in the evocative world of Venetian perfumery.

Former Professor of American Literature at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Gregory is part of the steering committee for the new Byron Museum in Ravenna. He has translated widely from Italian. In addition to academic works he has written a handful of thrillers, both contemporary and historical. He is currently trying to become a podcaster on some favourite topics (Venice, Byron, Casanova, poetry readings...).

Hallie Rubenhold is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling and Baillie Gifford prize-winning author of The Five, the Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper. A renowned social historian whose expertise lies in revealing stories of previously unknown women and episodes in history, she is the author of The Covent Garden Ladies which was the inspiration behind BBC TV's Harlots. Her most recent work of non-fiction, Story of a Murder, the Wives, the Mistress and Dr Crippen, has been optioned for TV. She lives in London with her husband.

Sir Ian Rankin is the author of over 30 novels, which have been international bestsellers. He has received four Dagger Awards from the Crime Writers' Association, including the Diamond Dagger. In the US, he won the Edgar Award. In 2025, he won the inaugural Venice Noir Award.

Ilaria Tuti is an Italian author best known for her crime and thriller novels. She made her literary debut in 2018 with *Flowers Over the Inferno*, the first novel featuring Commissioner Teresa Battaglia, which has been translated into numerous languages and adapted for television. Her books combine suspense, psychological depth, and a strong connection to the landscapes and culture of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region.

Historian and author, Ioanna vividly revives the secret world of Renaissance Venice. Venice's Secret Service: Organising Intelligence in the Renaissance (OUP, 2019) reveals how Venetian officials built one of the first intelligence organisations in the world. Associate Professor at the University of Oxford Brookes, she holds honorary research positions at the University of Warwick and the Global and National Security Institute.

Born in Milan in 1968, Jacopo now lives in Venice, where he works as an editor at Marsilio Editori. He was a translator, anthology editor, editorial consultant and professor of narratology at NABA in Milan. La stazione (The Station) (2022) was his first novel published with Giunti, which was followed by La montagna nel lago (The Mountain in the Lake) (2024).

Josephine Quinn holds the Chair in Ancient History at Cambridge University. She holds a doctorate in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology from the University of California at Berkeley and she has been a Fellow at the British School at Rome, the Getty Villa, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. How the World Made the West (2024) was long-listed for the Cundill History Prize and has been translated into more than twenty languages.

John Bleasdale is a journalist, podcaster, novelist and screenwriter. His work has appeared in Variety, The Times and Sight and Sound among many others. He has two novels to his name as well as a biography of Terrence Malick and a book about Jonathan Glazer.

Livia Sambrotta opera da anni nel settore cinematografico, affiancando alla scrittura una solida esperienza nel mondo del cinema. Per Sem ha pubblicato il thriller “Non salvarmi” (2021), vincitore del Premio Selezione Bancarella, “Cristallo” (2024), vincitore del Premio Giorgione, di cui Palomar Production ha opzionato i diritti cinematografici, e “Fuoco” (2026).

Historian Lucy Worsley OBE is the author of the Sunday-Times-No. 1-bestselling Agatha Christie, A Very Elusive Woman, published in Italian by Salani Editore. She has also written the acclaimed Jane Austen At Home, recently reissued in a special edition for the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s birth, and Queen Victoria. She lives on the banks of the Thames in London.

Born in Bologna, Marilù is a writer, essayist and literature teacher. She has published bestsellers such as The Odyssey told by Penelope, Circe, Calypso and Others ((2020), Snow White in the Twentieth Century (2021) and The Aeneid of Dido (2022). With Atlante goloso del mito (Rizzoli 2024), she won the Bancarella Cucina 2025 Prize.

Mark Billingham's series of novels featuring DI Tom Thorne has twice won him the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. His debut novel, Sleepyhead, was chosen by the Sunday Times as one of the 100 books that had shaped the decade and Rabbit Hole, his 2020 novel, was named as Crime Book of the Year by The Times.

Matteo was born in Padua in 1973. He has a degree in Law, a PhD in European Law and is a former member of the Historical Novel Society. Winner of the Bancarella Prize, he has sold more than two million copies worldwide. His works are being published in 40 countries and have been optioned for the cinema.

Michelle Lovric has published eleven novels set in Venice. She’s known for the gothic darkness of her humour and her unflinching explorations of medical curiosities like Holy Anorexia and anthropodermic bibliopegy. Her adult novels include The Book of Human Skin and The Remedy (longlisted for the Women’s Prize). She co-authored the bestselling My Sister Milly and a play about the 2017 London Bridge terror attack.

Paolo Puppa is an Italian playwright, writer, and essayist. An Olympic Academician, former Professor of Theatre History at Ca' Foscari University of Venice and Director of the Department of History of the Arts, he has studied Pirandello, Fo, Ibsen, and Goldoni. In 1996, he won the Pirandello Prize with the play "La collina di Euridice." In 2005, he wrote "La città del sole" (The City of the Sun) for Toni Servillo. His latest novel, "La ricercatrice," was published in 2025 by Chárōn.

Peter Stothard writes about ancient Rome and modern politics. His latest book is Horace, Poet on a Volcano, showing the sexual and political noir in his life as well as the light of carpe diem. His other books include Thirty Days, an eyewitness account of Tony Blair in the Iraq War, Crassus, The First Tycoon, and The Last Assassin, the Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar. He is a former Editor of The Times of London and the Times Literary Supplement.

Philip Gwynne Jones is the author of the Venice-set Nathan Sutherland series. He was born in South Wales and settled in Scotland in the 1990s with his wife Caroline. He spent twenty years in the IT industry before realising he was congenitally unsuited to it. And so it was that – following a conversation with a man in a pub – Philip and Caroline left their jobs, sold their flat and moved to Venice in search of a better, simpler future. They were wrong about the ‘simpler’ bit...

Piergiorgio Pulixi is among the most authoritative voices of European crime fiction. His novels are translated in twenty-three countries. He has won numerous national and international awards, including the Scerbanenco Prize (2019) and the Prix Babelio (2025). He was twice a finalist at the prestigious Grand Prix de littérature policière.

Rosa Teruzzi (1965) vive e lavora a Milano. Giornalista specializzata in cronaca nera e scrittrice, oltre ai libri della serie I delitti del casello, editi da Sonzogno, ha pubblicato diversi racconti e tre romanzi. Per scrivere si ritira sul lago di Como, in un vecchio casello ferroviario dove colleziona libri gialli.

She was born in Rome in 1975. She graduated in Law from the Sapienza University of Rome, specializing in the History of Italian Law. Alongside her legal career, she is also the organizer of the Neroma Noir Festival. She published *La cospirazione dei Cenci* and *La marchesa dei veleni*, both released by Newton Compton.

Dame Suzy Lishman is a consultant pathologist and medical examiner in Peterborough and a former president of the Royal College of Pathologists. Outside of work her passions include Venice, Renaissance art history and the history of medicine. Suzy has contributed to numerous television documentaries and radio programmes and has provided pathology input for several novels. Her most popular public event is the "Living Autopsy", during which she demonstrates what a post-mortem examination involves with the help of a live model and set of autopsy instruments. The event has been seen by thousands in person and over 3.5 million online.

Literary scholar, critic and interviewer, Tim has a particular interest in gothic, detective and contemporary fiction. His academic work explores how modern fiction compares to cultural anxieties and social precariousness. He combines academic depth with accessible criticism in both his public and academic interventions.