The Mystery Bookshop

Mystery books can now be purchased through Fishpond – see link below.

http://www.fishpond.com.au/products_used.php?seller=The%20Mystery%20Bookshop

More titles will be added shortly.

8pm FRIDAY FEBRUARY 17: NEW YEAR CAN BE MURDER

Sisters in Crime national co-convenor Jacqui Horwood interrogates two of Australia’s top crime authors – Katherine Howell & Sulari Gentill – about their new books, both just out for the New Year.

Silent Fear (Pan Macmillan Australia) is the fifth book in the fast-paced and thrilling series starring Detective Ella Marconi by ex-ambulance officer Katherine Howell – the only author to ever win two Sisters in Crime’s Davitt (Adult Fiction) Awards. In Silent Fear, on a searing summer’s day in Sydney, paramedic Holly Garland rushes to an emergency to find a man collapsed with a bullet wound in the back of his head…

The third in Howell’s series, Cold Justice, was selected as a Big Book Club book of the month last year as well as winning the 2011 Davitt. Howell, now residing on the Gold Coast, draws on her fifteen years as a paramedic for her best-selling crime fiction. She is currently working on her PhD at the University of Queensland, studying female doctor investigators in crime fiction. www.katherinehowell.com

Miles off Course (Pantera Press) is the third novel by Sulari Gentill to feature gentleman sleuth, artist Rowland Sinclair. Early 1933 sees Rowland Sinclair and his bohemian companions abandon the superlative luxury of The Hydro Majestic to search the High Country for a missing Aboriginal stockman from Rowland’s family property. Stockmen, gangsters and a belligerent writer all gather to the fray, as the investigation becomes embroiled with a much darker conspiracy.

Sulari set out to study astrophysics, ended up graduating in law, and later abandoned her legal career to write books. She grows French black truffles on her farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains of NSW. Gentill’s debut novel, A Few Right-Thinking Men, was shortlisted for Best First Book in our region for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2011. Her fourth Rowland Sinclair mystery, Paving the Way, is due out in August. www.sularigentill.com

$5/$10 (non-members) Dinner upstairs from 6.30pm (no lift). No need to book for dinner or event. 10% discount from Benn’s Books stall.

8pm Friday April 20: The Famous Sisters in Crime Quiz Night Returns

Help defray the debts incurred at SheKilda 2011 Women Crime Writers’ Convention

Presented by Sandra Nicholson & Vikki Petraitis. Pit your wits – and knowledge of women’s crime on the page and screen – against Karen Chisholm’s, Vikki Patraitis’s & Carmel Shute’s. Great prizes and fabulous fun.

$20/$25 (non-members) Dinner upstairs from 6.30pm (no lift). Bookings essential. Book individually or in tables of up to 10 with Lindy Cameron (03) 5983 9429 or email lindycameron@own.net.au

8pm Friday May 18: Sisters in Crime@Law Week

All events: The Rising Sun Hotel, corner Raglan Street & Eastern Road, South Melbourne (no lift). Mel 57, H2.Try 1, 55, 112 or St Kilda Road trams. Free on-street parking after 6pm.

Men or ‘brothers-in-law’ welcome.

Info: Carmel Shute on 0412 569 356 or go to www.sistersincrime.org.au

It’s now just over 12 months since I took over the bookshop and I’m still enjoying it. Been busy getting in stock ready for the Christmas / Summer Holidays when the shop will be open everyday. Looking forward to all the exciting things happening over the next few months in Queenscliff, so make sure you come down for a visit.

CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY – ANNOUNCING SHEKILDA 2011 – AUSTRALIAN WOMEN CRIME WRITERS’ CONVENTION

OCTOBER 7–9, RYDGES ON SWANSTON, 701 SWANSTON STREET, CARLTON

Sisters in Crime Australia celebrates its 20th anniversary with a giant criminal
conspiracy – the Shekilda 2011 Australian Women Crime Writers’ Convention
–  from 7–9 October 2011 at Rydges on Swanston (701 Swanston Street),
Carlton.

Five hundred hard-core crime readers, viewers, writers, screen producers and forensic specialists are expected to plot together at SheKilda 2011.

Sisters in Crime National co-convenor, crime writer and founding member, Lindy Cameron, says SheKilda 2011 will examine how the crime genre is being extended and/or subverted.

“Women’s crime aficionados will kill for a good read,” she says.

“Together, we’ll be applying the magnifying glass to all varieties of the genre from the more traditional hardboiled novels, police procedurals, PI stories and cosies to psychological thrillers, comic capers together and more recent cross-overs such as speculative, romance and urban fantasy books.

“TV programs with crime themes will also be dissected.”

Cameron says SheKilda 2011 will lift intellectual debate about women’s crime writing of all persuasions.

“The convention will challenge the view, endemic in some quarters, that crime writing is suspect as mere ‘genre’ writing and intrinsically inferior to capital L ‘Literature’. We aim to show how crime fiction offers penetrating ways of viewing society that are often lacking in other literary forms.

“Our modus operandi is fun – we’re a literary clan where a good crime is had by all.”

Men – or ‘brothers in law’ – are warmly invited to join the conspiracy and numbers are already members of Sisters in Crime.

Over the weekend, SheKilda 2011 will feature the talents of over 50 Australian
women crime writers, three international authors Margie Orford (South Africa),
Shamini Flint (Singapore) and Vanda Symon (New Zealand) as well as scholars,
practitioners from the criminal justice system, screen producers, and publishers.

Speakers include adult fiction writers Tara Moss, Kerry Greenwood, Kathryn Fox, Angela Savage, Katherine Howell, Marianne Delacourt, P D Martin, Leigh Redhead, Jaye Ford, Honey Brown and Malla Nunn, young adult fiction writers, Catherine Jinks and Nansi Kunze, and true crime authors Liz Porter, Colleen Egan and Rochelle Jackson. A new addition to the crime writing ranks, Brisbane indigenous author, Nicole Watson, is joining the action. Others, like Lindy Cameron, Robin Bowles and Vikki Petraitis straddle both fiction and fact in their writing.

Also speaking are screen producers and writers Kris Wyld, Deb Cox, Karin Altmann, Deb Parsons and Kerry Lefever, former Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Sandra Nicholson and forensic specialists Mel Archer and Shelley Robertson.

SheKilda 2011 kicks off with a cocktail party on the pool deck (weather permitting) at 6.30pm on Friday 7 October. Afterwards, convention participants will adjourn inside for welcomes by senior Wurundjeri elder Joy Murphy Wandin and a Councillor from the City of Melbourne plus a speech by Mary Delahunty, CEO of Writing Australia. South Africa’s Margie Orford will present a keynote address on how crime writing brings a uniquely critical eye to contemporary issues.

More than 30 sessions on women’s crime writing will be held over Saturday 8 October and Sunday 9 October.

Scarlet Stiletto: The Second Cut is the latest volume of award winning stories from the Scarlet Stiletto short story competition will be launched by model-turned-crime writer Tara Moss on Saturday 8 October.

Tara Moss got her first big break in crime writing when she won the Scarlet Stiletto Youth Award in 1998 and was awarded second prize the following year. She is now the author of the international bestselling crime novels featuring model turned forensic psychologist and PI Mak Vanderwall. Tellingly, her first few books feature the ‘Stiletto killer’.

SheKilda 2011 will include book signings, launches, stalls selling conference merchandise and books by writers in attendance, and a lounge for conversation and the screening of television programs including Tara Moss’s 13th STREET programs on crime.

Singapore’s Shamini Flint will present the 11th Davitt Awards for the best crime books by Australian women at a gala dinner on Saturday evening at the Celtic Club, after an ‘in conversation’ with Professor Sue Turnbull, Sydney Morning Herald crime columnist and Sisters in Crime national co-convenor.

About Sisters in Crime

Sisters in Crime celebrated its 10th birthday with the 2001 SheKilda Women’s Crime Convention, the first convention of this type in the world, held at St Kilda Town Hall (hence the title). Sisters in Crime was inspired by the organisation of the same name set up by US crime writer Sara Paretsky at the Bouchercon crime convention in 1986.

For the past 20 years, Sisters in Crime Australia has unceasingly promoted women crime authors and their writing, offered forums for critical discussion, helped get authors published and screened and – most of all – celebrated creativity. Each year in Melbourne, where most of its 500+ members live, Sisters in Crime organises a busy calendar of well-attended events including interview panels, book launches, quiz nights and tours. It also presents events at different writers’ festivals and in partnership with other organisations. The organisation also has chapters in Perth and Brisbane (just re-formed) and an association with Partners in Crime in Sydney.

Sisters in Crime has showcased almost all Australian women crime writers together with a bevy of international crime writers.

Media comment: Lindy Cameron (03) 5983-9429; 0422 608 369 lindycameron@own.net.au

For interviews with authors and other speakers, pics and other info, contact Carmel Shute on 03 9527 7126; 0412 569 356 cshute@internode.on.net

Program and bookings: www.SheKilda.com.au Ticketing enquiries: 0401 435 480

More info on Sisters in Crime: www.sistersincrime.org.au

Now winter is here, it’s wonderful weather for curling up in front of the fire with a great read! We have many to choose from, so come in and select from our range of crime novels, mysteries and suspense thrillers.

Welcome, to the Mystery Bookshop in Queenscliff!

Joan Canty has taken up residence behind the counter in late 2010 & is already feeling like a local.

Drop in to browse and make her feel welcome.

Joan Canty, Mystery Bookshop Manager