Authors Rachael Brown, Kate Wild and Maryrose Cuskelly talk to Vikki Petraitis about how persistence and perspicacity pay off when it comes to investigating crime.

Last year, journalist Rachael Brown made headlines with her cold-case investigation into the murder of single mother Maria James at her Thornbury bookshop in 1980. Using this material, she created the ABC’s first true-crime podcast, Trace, which has since been published in book format by Scribe Publications.

In her exhaustive and exhausting 16-month investigation, Rachael reviewed initial suspects, found one of her own, and uncovered devastating revelations about a forensic bungle and possible conspiracies that led to calls for the coroner to hold a new inquest.

Rachael has won numerous awards as an Australian broadcast journalist. Rachael has won numerous awards as an Australian broadcast journalist. Trace has won Walkley and Quill awards.

Waiting for Elijah (Scribe Publications) by Kate Wild is the culmination of her six-year investigation into the 2009 police shooting in Armidale of Elijah Holcombe, a mentally ill young man – an investigation that not only seeks to answer questions, but also to pose some vitally important ones of its own.

Kate is an investigative journalist whose work with distinguished teams at the ABC has been recognised with three Walkley Awards and a Logie. Her reports from Darwin, where she lived from 2010 to 2016, laid the groundwork for a Four Corners story on juvenile detention that prompted the calling of a Royal Commission. Waiting for Elijah is her first book.

Maryrose Cuskelly also tackles small-town murder in her book, Wedderburn (Allen & Unwin). The triple murder in the Central Victorian town was especially bloody yet there were locals who, while they did not exactly rejoice, quietly thought that the murderer had done them all a favour. Wedderburn begins with an outwardly simple murder, but expands to probe the dark secrets that fester within small towns, asking: is murder something that lives next door to us all?

Maryrose is a freelance writer and editor. She has written Original Skin: An exploration of the remarkable human hide (Scribe Publications) and co-written with Nic Frances The End of Charity: Time for social enterprise (Allen & Unwin), which won the 2006 Iremonger Award. Last year she won the Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing (Non-fiction) for her essay ‘Well Before Dark’.

Vikki Petraitis is the author of 15 true crime books and has contributed stories to four true crime anthologies. Her new book, Inside the Law: 25 years of true crime writing (Clan Destine Press), is due out in September.

Annual General Meeting • 9.45 pm

The brief AGM is open to all financial members. Nomination forms for positions of national convenors will be accepted on the night of 19 October 2018. National convenors are located in Melbourne and environs. It is up to other chapters to organise their own convenors.

Tickets:
$20 / $15 concession / $12 Sisters in Crime and Writers Victoria members
Tickets not sold prior to the event will be available at the door for $22 / $18 / $15
Dinner upstairs from 6.30 pm (bookings not necessary)
Men or ‘brothers-in-law’ welcome

Bookings:
Eventbrite

Sun Bookshop stall:
Members receive a 10% discounts

Additional information:
Carmel Shute 0412 569 356
admin@sistersincrime.org.au