We can now confirm two more speakers for this year’s Bodies From The Library conference in June. We are delighted to welcome for the first time Jasmine Simeone, who will be well known to many through her long-standing roles in the Dorothy L. Sayers Society, and to welcome back past-speaker Ronaldo Fagarazzi.

Ronaldo has been an avid reader and collector of Golden Age crime fiction for over 30 years. As a professional in TV and film lighting he has specialised in discovering and cataloguing early adaptations of classic crime. He regularly blogs reviews, research and analysis at:

https://witnesstothecrime.wordpress.com/

Jasmine is the editor of the Dorothy L Sayers Society Bulletin to Members which is issued six times a year. She has held this position since 1995, having been a member of the Society since 1987. She has given talks on many aspects of Dorothy L Sayers’ writing, many of which have been published in the Proceedings and Sidelights of the Society. She was an English and Special Needs teacher for almost 45 years until her retirement.

Two further speakers have been confirmed for this year’s Bodies From The Library conference: regular speaker John Curran, expert on Agatha Christie, and the debut appearance of Brian Price, specialist on forensic science in crime fiction.

Brian Price is the author of the DC Mel Cotton detective thrillers. The sixth in the series, Fatal Shot, was published last November and a seventh is due this autumn. He also wrote A Pocketful of Poisons, a collection of short stories featuring toxic substances. A chemist and biologist by training, he regularly advises other writers on the scientific aspects of their work, including poisons, knockouts, weapons, body disposal and DNA. He is the author of Crime writing: How to write the science, which covers these topics and more.

Dr John Curran acted as consultant to the National Trust during the renovation of Agatha Christie’s former home, Greenway House. His Edgar-nominated Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks (2009) won the 2011 Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards and he published Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making, also nominated for the same awards, in September 2011. Tom Adams Uncovered: The Art of Agatha Christie, co-authored with the artist Tom Adams, appeared in 2015. In 2019 he published The Hooded Gunman, the official history of Collins Crime Club and last year The Murder Game: Play, Puzzles and the Golden Age.