I know this is probably late as everyone else has scribbled about it and I doubt I've anything particularly original or inspiring to add, but here's my bit on this year's Harrogate Festival. Or, to give it its full, official title: the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival Harrogate. Bit of a mouthful and hard to swallow, I know, but then some would say the beer's like that too. (Not me, I hasten to add. I like it.)

So yeah, there we have it for another year. I was there for the whole time and I loved it. The figures will tell you that this year was the biggest and best attended and that it's now Europe's premier crime fiction festival but it what they won't tell you is just how much fun it is. And this year is no exception. In the last couple of years there's been a bit of a backlash against the festival, usually from people who haven't been invited, trotting out false figures, reporting inaccuracies and, to be honest, making up lies about it. It's exclusive. It's snobbish. Only writers that the publishers pay for can attend. The writers ignore the readers.

What bollocks.

Anyone coming along this year will have seen a hugely representative selection of crime writers mingling in the bar with readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, festival staff . . . everyone together, basically. And no egos. Everyone all talking. And the publishers don't pay to get their writers on. So with that all out of the way, what was it like?

Well, this was - for me - one of the best years yet. The 2007 festival was always my favourite but this one certainly equalled it and may have even topped it. Again, this is just my opinion, remember. I didn't want to write a kind of 'and then there was this panel and it was really interesting and then that happened and it was funny' chronological kind of thing but I might have to, I suppose, just to get the whole thing down before I forget. So here it is.

I arrived there on the Thursday, leaving behind glorious weather at home, arriving during a huge downpour into Harrogate. Checked into the Crown Hotel, the festival hotel, and then hit the ground running. Big hellos to Sharon and Erica and the rest of their team who, as always, do a sterling job to get the festival going and keep it running. Why, it felt like only days since I'd last seem them. And it was. I was up the week before doing some educational work in Ripon. Anyway, I had a couple of hours before my agent's author dinner so instead of hitting the bar I went straight into the first event. Thursdays at the festival are 'Creative Thursdays' where aspiring writers can attend talks, seminars, masterclasses about any aspect of crime fiction with actual writers, editors and agents. I was just in time for Dragon's Pen, (geddit?) where aspirant writers were given two minutes to pitch their novel to a panel of agents and editors (including mine) with the prize being a readers report. I was surprised by how many pitches were successful and wondered just how I would have fared under that kind of pressure. Badly, probably. It also brought home just how subjective the whole publishing business is - David Shelley of Little, Brown saying he wouldn't consider a book set in the diplomatic service, Australia or, indeed, Warwickshire. Something to bear in mind.

Then off to my agent's dinner. This has become something of a tradition at the festival. We have it in the hotel restaurant now for expediency's sake so we can get to the Theakston's Award straight afterwards. And of course it was great just to sit and catch up. Also admire this year's programming chair, Laura Wilson's stunning new Grace Kelly dress, hear Mo Hayder's rather alarmist take on the eventual outcome of swine flu and just see if Dreda Say Mitchell and I could come up with anything interesting to say on the panel we were doing the next day.

So then there was the awards, well presented by Mark Lawson, won by Mark Billingham for 'Death Message' - congrats for that, and on to the post awards party. Well, it was a party, what can I say? Lot's of chatting and drinking, more chatting, more drinking. I remember at one point serenading the bar with Mark Billingham and Declan Hughes at some unholy hour and the night culminated with me threatening to tie Cathi Unsworth to a chair and force her to listen to Neil Young until she liked him. She declined, needless to say. Very vociferously.

But I had to get my head together because Friday was going to be busy. Panels, interviews, book groups, etc. I had to be in my game, as we say. Apparently I'd agreed to go running at eight o'clock this morning with Claire and Gemma from my agents. I'd been very sincere when I made that promise, at half two the previous morning, but somehow it never worked out. I woke up at quarter to eight, decided to have five more minutes then eventually emerged at about tennish to find that not only had I missed not only my run but breakfast too. And Claire wasn't happy. I avoided her all day.

I managed to be up and around by lunchtime and met up with Laura Lippman and David Simon for lunch in one of Harrogate's many quaint little cafes. I know Laura but this was the first time I'd met her husband, the creator and exec producer of The Wire. And a smashing bloke. Did you know Ray Winstone was first choice for McNulty? Me neither. Great actor and all that, but how wrong would that have been?

I made my first panel at two in the afternoon. The influence of Edgar Allan Poe. Barry Forshaw was chairing, Laura L was on it, alongside Peter James, Andrew Taylor and Martin Wilson. I thought I should be there since I was going to be interviewed about Poe later than afternoon. I should have been making notes. Then off for my Front Row interview. Robyn Read, the producer, had already told me it was going to be Poe, Chandler and a couple of other things. Her and Mark Lawson were taking the opportunity at the festival to stockpile as many interviews as possible. I was there alongside Laura and Peter James and we talked about all manner of stuff for the best part of an hour. I've done some Front Row stuff before but it's only up close that you realise just how good Mark L actually is. Totally in the moment as an interviewer, picking up on anything you say. He flatters you, really. And Robyn's great - her dad was in attendance and a great crime fiction fan and it was his birthday so she was getting everyone who did an interview to sign a book for him. He spoke to me the night after. Having a great time.

Straight after the interview I was off for my panel, Music To Murder By, all about the importance of music in crime fiction. Me, Cathi U, Dreda Say Mitchell and John Harvey being corralled by Andrew Male. I'd met Andrew a few years before in Gerry's club in Soho. He was squiring his mother around as she was an afficienado of Old Soho. She's bought one of my novels, The White Room, and asked me to sign it. She then told me what a thrill it was for her to meet a real writer. Her son Andrew, the deputy editor of Mojo, looked suitably aggrieved.

So on to the panel. To be honest, I have no idea what I said. It was my turn to be in the moment, responding to questions, chatting with the others, raising or contributing to points that I thought I had something to contribute to. But no idea what I actually said. We all had to choose pieces of music too. Mine was 'Good Love' by Isaac Hayes. Because it ticks all the boxes for good music and good writing - witty, literate, intelligent and emotional. The panel went down well, I think. Certainly, judging by the response. And it was good to see that Cathi was speaking to me again. Apparently she'd gone to bed and had nightmares of being tied to a chair and forced to listen to Neil Young. I apologised. And said I still had my iPod with me if she was interested.

Then after the signing on to my next event. The Raymond Chandler Mixer. Supposed to be in the bar it was quickly moved to one of the empty function rooms when that proved unworkable. It was basically an extension of the Chandler library events I did in June and I think it went OK. Very grateful for the attendance of John Harvey too. There was also a woman sitting next to me who seemed to know as much, if not more, about Chandler than I did. She introduced herself afterwards. She was from the Chandler estate. Oh shit. Luckily she thought I did a good job. There was also a guy there who used to live in Chandler's house in Waterford, Ireland. It's incredible (or it is to me, anyway) that you think of someone like Chandler who was huge influence on me, as being somehow separate or untouchable. And the I meet people like that and he's suddenly as real as I am. He was just another writer, after all. Like all of us. Touched with genius, yes, but just another writer.

The big interview on the Friday evening was John Banville and Reginald Hill in conversation with Mark Lawson. I didn't get to see it as I was having dinner but there's been plenty written about it. Obviously controversy - and publicity - is good, and ultimately I think I agree with John Banville: there are only two kinds of books - good ones and bad ones. And it doesn't matter whether they're labeled crime, literary or what. Good or bad. That's it.

Secrets and Lies was the late night event. Mark B hosting, six others on stage telling secrets about ourselves, some of which were lies. I was crap. The audience spotted all my lies and I was nowhere near spotting anyone else's. Still it was fun. If over long and very, very hot on that stage. I was stuck to the chair at the end, my shirt soaked through.

It was midnight when that finished and I worked out I'd been going for over ten hours doing festival stuff. I was exhausted. I should have just gone to bed. But no. Instead I changed my shirt and hit the bar again. And god knows what time I went to bed.

End of part one.