Event: Crime doesn't pay?

There’s plenty to keep the most ardent crime aficionados happy at the WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers festival next weekend, including novelists from Iceland, Scotland, and New Zealand, and some of the festival’s sharpest minds in a night of crime-based entertainment and celebration. From the festival programme:

THE GREAT NEW ZEALAND CRIME DEBATE
Join adept and articulate MC Joe Bennett as he chairs a raucous night of argument and repartee while a stellar line-up of debaters argues the moot, ‘Crime doesn't pay’.Trying to convince Joe of their intellectual superiority and verbal dexterity will be Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel, writer Steve Braunias, The Press reporter Martin van Beynen, lawyer Marcus Elliott, American novelist Meg Wolitzer and Ngaio Marsh Award finalist Paul Cleave. Presented by The Press

The debate will be followed by the presentation of the 2014 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel. Which of the country’s best crime novelists will triumph?

The finalists are:

Paul Cleave, Joe Victim
Liam McIlvanney, Where the Dead Men Go
Donna Malane, My Brother’s Keeper
Alan Duff, Frederick’s Coat


Saturday 30 August, 8pm, Rydges Latimer Square. Book here. 

DARK & CHILLING - SUNDAY 31 AUGUST, 1PM
Two top crime writers, Iceland’s Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Scottish New Zealander Liam McIlvanney, write dark and chilling fiction: The Silence of the Sea is Sigurdardottir’s latest novel featuring lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir; and McIlvanney’s Where the Dead Men Go, the second in a trilogy, follows hard-boiled Glaswegian reporter Gerry Conway. Neither writer has given up their day job – she is a civil engineer, he an academic who lectures on Tartan Noir. They talk about their books, and their other lives, with crime fiction enthusiast Craig Sisterson. Book tickets here.

BEYOND THE VEIL - SUNDAY 31 AUGUST, 4PM
For crime with a ghostly, historical twist, don’t miss this session featuring Rosetta Allan discussing her novel Purgatory, which has been described by Paula Morris as ‘vivid and engrossing’. The novel is narrated by the victims of the Otahuhu murders of 1865. She’s joined by Diane Setterfield (UK), Coral Atkinson (NZ) and the scintillating conversation is chaired by Liam McIlvanney. Book tickets here.
Presented by Academy Funeral Services