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.