Internationally celebrated Australian crime writer Jane Harper headlines the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, the world's longest-running and most prestigious celebration of crime fiction, taking place in Harrogate from 23–26 July.
Harper appears as a Special Guest at the festival's 23rd edition, showcasing her much-anticipated new novel Last One Out, which will be published in the UK on 23 April. The programme is curated by 2026 Festival Chair Lisa Jewell, who described the line-up as "a brilliant mix of new faces, perennial favourites and a surprise or two."
Harper is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author whose books have been published in more than 36 territories worldwide. Her debut, The Dry (2017), won the CWA Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel and the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, and was adapted into a major film starring Eric Bana. Her subsequent novels — Force of Nature, The Lost Man, The Survivors and Exiles — have all been bestsellers and award winners. A former print journalist who worked in both Australia and the UK, Harper lives in Melbourne.
Last One Out is set in Carralon Ridge, a dying New South Wales town hollowed out by a coal mine operating at its borders. In a place now almost abandoned, Ro Crowley waits for her son on the evening of his twenty-first birthday. Sam never comes home. His footprints in the dust of three abandoned houses offer the only clue to his final movements. One set in. One set out. Five years later, Ro returns for the annual memorial of Sam's disappearance. Only a few people remain. If the truth is to be found in that town, does it lie among them?
"Utterly brilliant … I could not put it down." — Marian Keyes
"A book to get lost in." — Ann Cleeves
"Jane Harper delivers unbearable tension." — Val McDermid
Harper joins fellow headliners including Ann Cleeves and Brenda Blethyn, Anthony Horowitz, Holly Jackson, Chris Brookmyre, Chris Whitaker, David Baldacci, Alice Feeney, Gillian McAllister, Steve Cavanagh, Nadine Matheson and LJ Ross.
Weekend Break Packages are on sale now. Rover tickets and individual event tickets go on sale in spring 2026.