1979
As part of BAD September International, BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival presents Sue Turnbull in conversation with best-selling and much-loved Queen of Crime Val McDermid about the first book in a brand new series.
In a tabloid male-dominated newsroom in late 1970s Scotland, young reporter Allie Burns is chasing her first big scoop. How much danger does she have to face to be taken seriously?
Cigarette smoke, clattering typewriters, sexism, racism, and homophobia are just part of the background in the tabloid newsroom in late 1970s Glasgow where Allie Burns is taking on the men at their own game. After she and fellow reporter Danny Sullivan unveil a tax fraud scandal involving big Scottish businessmen, her next scoop brings her close to a group with a home-grown terrorist threat. Will her attempt to infiltrate the group make her name or end her life?
VAL MCDERMID
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have sold over seventeen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011.
Sue Turnbull
Sue Turnbull is Senior Professor of Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong. She has been reviewing crime fiction for The Sydney Morning Herald and the Age for over twenty years. She has been interviewed crime writers over many years, as well as being a crime fiction judge for the Ned Kelly Awards, the Davitt Awards and is an Ambassador for Sisters in Crime Australia. Her academic publications include The TV Crime Drama (Edinburgh University Press 2014) and Media Audiences (Palgrave Macmillan 2020). She is the Chair of the Board of BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival.