Val Down Under: Tartan Noir Queen Val McDermid tells all to Angela Savage

Submitted by Carmel on 6 September 2014 – 5:46pm

Val McDermid SINC tshirt Davitts 2010

Tartan Noir Queen Val McDermid will be in wild and wonderful conversation with Australian crime author, Angela Savage, about her latest psychological thriller, The Skeleton Road, at  Melbourne’s Comedy Club, 6 for 6.30 pm Wednesday 24 September.

In The Skeleton Road, McDermid, the creator of ITV’s Wire in the Blood, turns her hand to a cold case involving detective Karen Pirie who has the task of identifying decades – old bones discovered hidden at the top of a Victorian Gothic building in Edinburgh scheduled for renovation.

“I’m thrilled to be in conversation with the Scottish Queen of Crime when she visits promote her new standalone novel, The Skeleton Road,” Savage said.

“I’d be terrified if it weren’t for the fact I met Val briefly on a previous visit to Australia and know her to be a warm and witty person, and a strong supporter of Sisters in Crime and women crime writers.”

“As well as interrogating her about her new novel, The Skeleton Road, I’ll be asking Val about violence in crime fiction, being a granny pirate, and whether or not she agrees with our Prime Minister on the issue of Scottish Independence.”

Sisters in Crime Australia has joined forces with the Athenaeum Library to present Val Down Under.

McDermid is the author of 26 bestselling novels, which have been translated into more than 30 languages, and have sold over 11 million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and theLA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009 and was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger for 2010. In 2011 she received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award. She has a son and a dog, and lives with her wife in the north of England.

This will be McDermid’s sixth event with Sisters in Crime.

Angela Savage is a Melbourne writer, who has lived and travelled extensively in Asia. Her first novel, Behind the Night Bazaar, won the 2004 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. All three of her Jayne Keeney PI novels were shortlisted for Ned Kelly Awards, with The Dying Beach also shortlisted for a Davitt Award. She won the 2011 Scarlett Stiletto Award.

Comedy Club, 2nd Floor, 188 Collins Street, Melbourne (has lift). 10% discount for members from the Sun Bookshop bookstall.

$15/$10 (members of Sisters in Crime Australia, Writers Victoria & the Athenaeum Library/concession). Bookingshttp://www.trybooking.com/FAVG

Tickets may also be available at the door (check websites).

Booking info: Athenaeum Library 03 9650 3100; www.melbourneathenaeum.org.au;

Author interviews: Jaki Arthur, Campaign Manager – Hachette Australia, 02-8248 0864:

Jaki.Arthur@hachette.com.au

Carmel Shute, National Co-convenor, Sisters in Crime Australia: 0412 569 356 cshute@internode.on.net