saturDAY SCHEDULE, NOV 7
The Alida Lobby
Sat 8:20am - noon
festival check-in + registration
Check-in continues for Hamptons Whodunit guests arriving Saturday.
Sign up here for a time slot for today’s 9am Mock Crime Scene.
true crime / coffee & crime with joe giacalone
Coastal 15, Hotel Orielle
Open to the public
Sat 8:30-9:30am
Get in the room with former NYPD Bronx Cold Case Commanding Officer Joe Giacalone for a no-holds-barred Q&A about the cases making headlines right now. Bring your questions and join the conversation — open to all, with coffee & breakfast available for purchase.
Could you solve a crime? Sign up for a time slot at our festival check-in for this all-day interactive challenge. Inspect a reproduction of a real crime scene created by CSI Sheryl McCollum to test your sleuthing skills. Examine the evidence as if you were an actual crime scene investigator.
MOCK CRIME SCENE FORENSIC CHALLENGe
Location TBD
Requires signup, no ticket required, open to the public
Sat 9am-4pm
FICTION / Burying the Past: The Land Remembers
Sat 9-9:50am
Franklin Room, The Alida
Featuring Emily Carpenter, Heather Graham, Henry Wise and Wanda Morris. Cities, small towns, and rural landscapes can carry the past long after people try to bury it. These authors explore how old power, generational debts, and hidden histories continue to shape the present.
Gilbert Room, The Alida
Sat 9-9:50am
TRUE CRIME / wanted, watched and worshipped: the luigi Mangione case
Featuring Sheryl McCollum, Joe Giacalone and Joseph Scott Morgan. A CEO is gunned down on a Manhattan street. A nationwide manhunt follows. Then the arrest of Luigi Mangione transforms a murder case into a cultural phenomenon. When the public turns a defendant into an icon, what happens to the pursuit of justice?
FICTION / GUEST OF HONOR GREGG HURWITZ, in conversation
Sat 10-10:50am
Franklin Room, The Alida
Gregg Hurwitz, the New York Times #1 internationally bestselling author of the Orphan X series, talks about Evan Smoak, writing for film and comics, and what comes next.
TRUE CRIME workshop / forensic ART: Facial approximation from skeletal remains
Williamson Room, The Alida
Tickets $25
Sat 10-11am
What does a skull tell you? Join forensic artist Joe Mullins and learn hands-on how the skull reveals vital clues about age, ancestry, sex, facial structure, and people’s unique anatomical features. Through a blend of science and art, the session demonstrates the methods used in forensic facial approximation to assist investigators to identify unknown individuals.
Franklin Room, The Alida
Sat 11-11:50am
FICTION / The Rules of Reinvention
Featuring Carinn Jade, Tara Goedjen and Hallie Shepherd. A retreat, a castle, an off-grid home: places where nobody knows who you used to be. When your history doesn't follow you, how much of yourself can you leave behind—and what might you allow yourself to become?
TRUE CRIME / INSIDE DAILY MAIL’S CRIME DESK: REPORTING THE CASES AMERICA CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUTE
Sat 11-11:50am
Gilbert Room, The Alida
Join reporters from Daily Mail’s The Crime Desk for a behind-the-scenes look at two stories that have captivated millions: the Chris Watts murders and the Lindsay Clancy trial.
TRUE CRIME workshop / from first impression to confession
Williamson Room, The Alida
Tickets $25
Sat 11am-12pm
Brad Beeler is a retired Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service, where he served for 25 years in both protective and investigative roles. A 17-year veteran polygraph examiner, Brad conducted more criminal polygraphs than anyone in Secret Service history. A look inside the interview room — building trust, reading behavior, and the real techniques used in criminal interviews and interrogations.
Pool Deck, The Alida
Free, open to the public
Sat 12-1pm
FICTION + TRUE CRIME book signing
lunch break
Sat 1-2pm
sourcebooks Sweet southern tea & book signing
Pool Deck, The Alida
Included in Weekend Pass
Sat 1-1:50pm
Join us on the pool deck of The Alida Hotel for a relaxed Southern afternoon celebrating great books, intriguing stories, and the art of a good gathering. Sip sweet tea while enjoying a spread of classic Southern tea-time favorites, including pimento cheese, egg salad, and smoked salmon & cucumber tea sandwiches. Meet Sourcebooks authors Emma C. Wells and Melissa Anderson Sweazy, hear the stories behind the books, and have your copy signed under the Savannah sun.
FICTION / guest of honor jessica knoll, IN CONVERSATION
Sat 2-2:50pm
Franklin Room, The Alida
Jessica Knoll, the New York Times bestselling author of LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE, BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN and HELPLESS talks with Hamptons Whodunit CEO, Carrie Doyle, about real crimes, fictional women, and adapting her own work for the screen.
TRUE CRIME workshop / witness for the prosecution
Williamson Room, The Alida
Tickets $25
Sat 2-3pm
Featuring Scott Duffey, Joe Giacalone and Joseph Scott Morgan. Participants watch a short video, then test their own eyewitness memory against the case — a hands-on look at memory, forensic interviewing, and composite sketches.
Franklin Room, The Alida
Sat 3-3:50pm
FICTION / under the lens: writing when readers are already listening
Featuring Shanora Williams, Melissa Anderson Sweazy and Carinn Jade. These authors built direct relationships with audiences through social media, podcasts, and reader communities. What changes when you write knowing your audience is already listening?
true crime / THE death investigator with barbara butcher
Sat 3-3:50pm
Gilbert Room, The Alida
Former New York City death investigator, Barbara Butcher, in conversation with Hamptons Whodunit CEO Carrie Doyle. A candid look inside the world of death investigation and the real life cases that have shaped her career, her television appearances and her writing.
TRUE CRIME workshop / x-ray identity portrait booth
Williamson Room, The Alida
Tickets $25
Sat 3-5pm
Forensic artist Joe Mullins will demonstrate how a side-profile photo becomes a personalized forensic facial approximation. Each participant keeps their skull portrait as a keepsake.
FICTION / no one is coming
Franklin Room, The Alida
Sat 4-4:50pm
Featuring Guest of Honor Gregg Hurwitz, Brendan Slocumb and Emma C. Wells. When help isn’t coming, ordinary people step outside the rules and become their own last resort. Three authors on reluctant heroes and characters who stop waiting to be rescued.
Gilbert Room, The Alida
Sat 4-4:50pm
true crime / zenith man
Defense attorney McCracken Poston Jr. tells the story behind his book Zenith Man: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom: the mysterious death of Virginia Ridley, the murder trial of her husband Alvin, and the case Poston never stopped trying to understand.
Wind down with our true crime experts over the hoppiest offerings from Savannah’s own Service Brewing Co., and catch a LIVE taping of the Brews and Obituaries podcast. Go on a deep dive into two of the South’s most infamous stories: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and the Murdaugh murders. Murder, money, mystery, and Spanish moss—what could possibly go wrong when you pair it with a local brew from Service Brewing Co.?
true crime / HAPPY HOUR + LIVE taping of brews and obituaries podcast
Franklin Room & Pool Deck,
The Alida, no ticket required Discounted food and drinks available for purchase
Sat 5pm
Fiction / PEEPERS PRESENTS trivia night: don’t miss the clues
Trade Room, The Alida
Ticket $125 includes dinner & drinks
Sat 7-9pm
Join us and bestselling author Brendan Slocumb for a pub-style quiz game presented by Peepers. Play along with featured authors for bragging rights and a Peepers Gift Card as you test your knowledge of all things crime and thriller. Sip our festival cocktail: "Murder on the Rocks" sponsored by Tito's Handcrafted Vodka over dinner offerings including Hushpuppies with Chipotle Honey Butter, The Alida Salsa Sampler, Lost Square Chicken Wings & Street Tacos. Finish it off with their famous Cinnamon Cardamom Beignets. Full bar available for purchase.