We are delighted to welcome two first time speakers to this year’s Bodies From The Library Conference: Victoria Dowd and Carla Valentine.
Victoria Dowd is the award-winning author of the Smart Woman’s Mystery series and has been shortlisted for the CWA Dagger. Her novel, The Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder, won The People’s Book Prize for fiction and was In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel’s Book of the Year. Her novel Murder Most Cold won the Grand Puzzly award. Victoria was also awarded the Gothic Fiction prize for her short fiction. Her historical crime novel, Death in the Aviary, will be published in September 2025, and is the first book in her new series, The Blood Chronicles. Victoria is head of the London Crime Writers’ Association and was a criminal defence barrister for many years on the London circuit appearing at the Old Bailey.
You can buy your copy of Victoria’s Smart Woman’s Guide to Murder here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087C12B9L?geniuslink=true
Carla Valentine is a Senior Anatomical Pathology Technician and curator of Barts Pathology Museum in London. She is also the author of The Chick and the Dead: Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors and her newest book Past Mortems: Life and Death Behind Mortuary Doors topped the Amazon best-sellers list.
Her book ‘Murder Isn’t Easy: The Forensics of Agatha Christie’ was nominated for the HRF Keating Award for non-fiction in 2021, and was a Barnes & Noble ‘Monthly Pick’ in the USA (as The Science of Murder). Her podcast Mortem is currently on BBC sounds, and her forthcoming books include Planted Evidence: Gardens and Graves in Golden Era Detective Fiction.
You can get your copy of Carla’s Murder Isn’t Easy here:
The Bodies From The Library 