To kick off the festival, this year's Wiesbaden crime fiction scholarship recipient and award-winning author Sven Stricker will present his new crime novel "Sörensen geht aufs Haus" at the Literaturhaus Villa Clementine on Tuesday, March 3, and talk to journalist Gesa Ufer about his work as a writer, screenwriter, and radio director. Sven Stricker is best known to a wide audience as the creator of six novels featuring Inspector Sörensen, who investigates crimes in Katenbüll in North Frisia. 

The Literaturhaus will also welcome Andreas Izquierdo with his amusing crime novel "Über die Toten nur Gutes" (Speak Only Good of the Dead) on March 5 and Anna Schneider with her new crime novel from her Grenzfall series on March 10. Another highlight at the Literaturhaus will be a reading by Andreas Pflüger, three-time winner of the German Crime Fiction Award. He will present his latest book, "Kälter" (Colder), for which he recently received an award, on March 16, once again delving into the abysmal world of secret services. Things will get just as political as they are exciting when Munich author Susanne Kaiser presents her crime novel debut "Riot Girl" about a group of radical feminist activists on March 26.    

Several nationally renowned authors from the Rhine-Main area are also part of the program: On March 18, Jan Costin Wagner will be at the Monta cultural center with his latest novel, "Eden," which revolves around the themes of grief and guilt. Wiesbaden-based bestselling author Benjamin Cors will read from his thriller "Aschesommer" at the Westhessen Police Headquarters on March 4. Villa Schnitzler invites you to "R(h)einfällen" with Fenna Williams and Regina Schleheck on March 7. The program will conclude on March 31 with the authors' group Dostojewskis Erben (Dostoyevsky's Heirs) at the Literaturhaus Villa Clementine with short crime stories from the current anthology "Hoch gestapelt – tief gefallen" (Highly Stacked – Deeply Fallen), which follows in the footsteps of Thomas Mann's impostor character Felix Krull.   

Young crime fiction fans will also get their money's worth: on Wednesday, March 25, at the reading by Maja Nielsen from her youth thriller "Das falsche Leben" (The Wrong Life) at the Literaturhaus, and on Tuesday, March 31, at the "Junior Detectives" workshop at the Mauritius Media Library. The künstlerhaus43 is also contributing an improv crime thriller and a spooky crime thriller dinner to Crime March at the Theater im Palast.