FRINTON Literary Festival kicks off tonight with its popular Crime and Wine evening, with authors David Thorne and Clare Mackintosh.

David Thorne started out in advertising and then moved to writing comedy sketches, gags and scripts for the BBC and Channel Four.

In 2010 he moved to Essex and was immediately inspired to write East of Innocence – the first of his books featuring gritty lawyer Daniel Connell.

Clare Mackintosh spent 12 years in the police, including time on CID. She left in 2011 to work as a freelance journalist and now writes full time.

Debut novel I Let You Go, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller for 12 weeks. The psychological thriller was the fastest selling title by a new crime writer in 2015, winning the Theakston’s crime novel of the year award. Second book I See You was published in July.

Clacton and Frinton Gazette:

Rosie Thomas is special guest at Saturday’s Philomena Dwyer Literary Lunch

The event is at Frinton Tennis Club at 7.30pm. Tickets are £15, including wine and nibbles.

Tomorrow night book fans can enjoy an evening with Antiques Roadshow expert Judith Miller at the tennis club.

She will be valuing the audience’s antiques and signing copies of Art Deco: The Glamour of the Jazz Age from 8Ferstivalpm. Tickets are £10.

Saturday’s Philomena Dwyer Literary Lunch at the tennis club features Rosie Thomas, who has written 22 novels and a travel book, drawing widely on her travel experiences.

She has climbed in the Alps and Himalayas, driven halfway around the world in a car rally, worked on a tiny research station in Antarctica and explored in Kashmir and Central Asia.

Her latest novel Daughter of the House is about the suffragette struggle for the right to control their own destinies. Tickets are £28.00, including a two-course lunch.

The festival concludes at Frinton’s McGrigor Hall on Sunday at 3pm with Afternoon Tea with Julie Summers – author of 11 non-fiction books, including the best-selling Jambusters which inspired ITV drama series Home Fires.

Since then she has been exploring the impact of the Second World War on people’s lives and women on the Home Front. Tickets are £15, including afternoon tea.

All tickets are available from Caxton Books or by telephoning 01255 851505.