The inaugural Crime & Justice festival, presented by Reader's Feast Bookshop, was held at Melbourne's Abbotsford Convent over the weekend.

The festival, which combines the two themes of crime fiction and social justice, hosted international and local writers, barristers, and practitioners in the fields of social justice and the law. It opened with a keynote address by Brendan Kilty SC who drew particular attention to the on-going question of a Bill of Rights for Australia.
Mary Dalmau, creator and director of the festival, told WBN her team was ‘delighted at the success of this inaugural festival'.

‘Whilst the final attendance numbers are to be collated, we were totally satisfied that those who came along found the festival to be informative, interesting, and entertaining,' she said. ‘Particularly gratifying was the audience reaction to the underpinning idea of the festival--they were vocal in their congratulations that this event was enjoyable and well run and, importantly, that it was relevant and has the potential to genuinely make a difference.'

Festival bestsellers included The Tall Man, (Chloe Hooper, Hamish Hamilton); The Wrong Kind of Blood, (Declan Hughes, John Murray); The Night Ferry (Michael Robotham, Little, Brown); A Deadly Business (Lenny Bartulin, Scribe); and Amongst the Dead, (Robert Gott, Scribe).

Dalmau said the convent venue was ‘the perfect literary festival locale' and that the Crime & Justice festival would join and Reader's Feast's ‘Writers at the Convent' festival as a regular event. ‘We intend to be at the Convent for both festivals for many years to come,' she said.

http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/07/08952/
This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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