Shafted: Women in Peril

Rising Sun Hotel, Raglan Street, South Melbourne.

Two women lie at the bottom of abandoned mine shafts in rural Victoria in the latest books by Kimberley Starr and Margaret Hickey (amazing but true). Vikki Petraitis explores a spate of sexual attacks on women in the small town of Deception Bay that meet with a wall of silence and inaction by the police.

The authors will examine why and how women are too often shafted with Moraig Kisler, Sisters in Crime’s review editor.

In Kimberley Starr’s The Map of Night (out July, with Pantera Press), astronomer Lucy Rutherford is celebrating the refurbishment of a 100-year-old telescope in the Yarra Valley. Her husband, Justin, is running for parliament, on a platform of responsibility and progress. But Lucy isn’t interested in being a politician’s wife – and plans to leave, once Justin has won the election. A week before polling day Lucy takes the family dog for a walk and doesn’t return. Justin is convinced Lucy has left him and is angry that she would abandon him so close to the election. Yet her eleven-year-old daughter Gabby is certain her mother is missing and in trouble. Why isn’t her father looking?

Kimberley Starr is a teacher whose previous three novels The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies, The Book of Whispers and Torched have won and been shortlisted for multiple literary awards, including the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and the Text Publishing YA Prize. She is currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing.

Margaret Hickey’s Stone Town (out July, with Penguin Random House) is the follow-up to her best-selling crime debut Cutters End. In Stone Town, Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti is back in his hometown looking at two seemingly different cases; one a missing female police officer making national headlines, the other a local man whose murder hardly comes as a surprise to the small community.

The women of Stone Town play an integral but understated role within the community, reflecting the matriarchal hierarchy of a true country town. Behind the scenes, these women keep their rural communities afloat while secretly manipulating the course of events.

Margaret Hickey is an award-winning author and playwright from North East Victoria. She has a PhD in Creative Writing and is deeply interested in rural lives and communities. She has spent the majority of her life living in regional towns and completed a PhD with a focus on depictions of landscape in Australian literature.

In Vikki Petraitis’s debut novel The Unbelieved (out August with Allen & Unwin), Senior Detective Antigone Pollard moves back to her hometown of Deception Bay in an attempt to recover from one of her cases gone catastrophically wrong. A month into her new life, she is targeted by a would-be rapist at the pub and realises why there have been no convictions following a spate of similar sexual attacks in the surrounding district. The male witnesses in the pub back her attacker and even her boss doesn’t believe her.

Vikki Petraitis is best known for her true crime books including the best-selling book The Frankston Murders about serial killer Paul Denyer, and her first book The Phillip Island Murder which has been featured in several TV shows and podcasts. In her true crime books, Vikki has covered everything from police dogs to Lawyer X, the Russell Street bombing, and sex crimes. Her two podcast series with Casefile Presents have been downloaded over three million times. Vikki’s PhD novel The Unbelieved won the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Award.

Moraig Kisler is a freelance writer, reviewer, and editor who champions Australian genre fiction, particularly crime fiction. Moraig holds a Diploma and an Associate Degree in Professional Writing and Editing from RMIT. Sometimes she writes in the vague hope of one day finishing her police procedural novel, The Salt Works.

$20 non-members; $15 concession; $12 Sisters in Crime and Writers Victoria members, $10 under 19.

Tickets not sold prior to the event will be available at the door for $22/$18/$15/$10. Dinner upstairs from 6.30-7.30 pm. Please indicate on the booking form if you intend to have dinner. Men or ‘brothers-in-law’ welcome.

Sun Bookshop stall: members receive a 10% discount