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Today's session Plotting the Perfect Crime at the Melbourne Writers Festival with international best-selling author Tess Gerritsen and one of Australia's best crime fiction authors Michael Robotham - went swimmingly.

A large crowd packed into Federation Square's BMW Edge auditorium to listen to us discuss crime writing, fiction and fact.   

I mentioned that American crime fiction writer James Ellroy admits "I don't anybody in the underworld. I make this stuff up; I don't know any real criminals". I came to the conclusion that "crime fiction writing is fraudulent" - or at least you have to be a crim to write about one. Both Tess and Michael's talks rebutted this idea. Tess claimed writing crime fiction often mirrors the real world and usually women readers prefer the victims to be female because they can vicariously live through that character.  An interesting thought. Michael stated that "a perfect crime was one that remained unsolved - so how did you know that it had occurred?" A lively session!

Today's talk was recorded for ABC TV's Big Ideas program. It'll be broadcast in the coming weeks on ABC1 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 11am and on ABC News 24 on Saturdays and Sundays at 1pm.  You can suss out their website to find out exactly when the session will be broadcast on www.abc.net.au/bigideas

Buenos dias!

Are crime fiction authors potential crooks? Find out at Plotting the Perfect Crime, at this year's Melbourne Writers Festival. I'll be chairing the discussion and interrogating several of the best. The sessions will include international bestseller Tess Gerritsen, author of Rizzoli and Isles novels and Ned Kelly winner Michael Robotham, author of Lost. They'll be placed under the pump and quizzed about how are they able to devise such intricate plots without being crims themselves?

Join us at 11.30am, Saturday 27 August, 2011 at BMW Edge, Federation Square, (Event 1302). Book at mwf.com.au