Criminal leanings

I love a good bit of crime fiction. The endings are always way more tidy and therefore satisfying than real life. The festival welcomes some of the world’s best crime writers and these sessions will be at the top of my list.

Is Crime the Key? features the very funny and depressingly young Lisa Lutz, creator of the Spellman family of private detectives. Lisa Lutz is a sassy new addition to the humourous, character driven crime sub-genre, (is there an actual name for it? I don’t know) inhabited for many years now by Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich. Lisa converses with local crime author Garry Disher (his novels are set on the Mornington peninsula) and Indigenous novelist Philip McLaren and the talk will be of settings and how they shape crimes, criminals and novels about such things.

Briton Tom Rob Smith‘s sessions will also be fascinating. Speaking of the evocative nature of setting, his first novel Child 44 was set in the USSR, and reading it I literally felt chilly with all the descriptions of snow-covered landscapes. Luckily it had a gripping plot to keep my heart racing.

Who knew crime was this sassy? I hear you ask. Kerry Greenwood and PD Martin tell Lisa Lutz all about it. And these are just the sessions on the first day of the festival!

Check out Crimes within Crimes, Spotlight on Teresa Solana, and the Ned Kelly Awards. What could be nicer than to celebrate crime fiction?

In other news, our screening of Coraline at Cinema Nova on Tuesday was great fun, a full house, a chance to be scared (the kids in the audience certainly were) and an opportunity to listen to one of our favourites, Shaun Tan. Thank you to everyone who came along. The money raised goes towards the MWF Schools’ Program.

Nina
Development Manager

PS I vow not to stalk Lisa Lutz while she’s in town.