Meet Julian Leatherdale @ Five Dock Library

In the murky world of Kings Cross in 1932, aspiring crime writer Joan Linderman and her friend and flatmate Bernice Becker live a wild bohemian life.

One Saturday night, Joan is horrified to find her neighbour, Ellie, dead. To prove her worth as a crime writer and bring Ellie's killer to justice, Joan secretly investigates the case. But as Joan digs deeper, the list of suspects grows longer, involving the dangerous underbelly of the Cross.

Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club is a riveting noir crime thriller with more surprises than even novelist Joan bargained for: blackmail, kidnapping, drug-peddling, a pagan sex cult, undercover cops, and a shocking confession.

From the shadows of bohemian and underworld Kings Cross, who will emerge to tell the real story?

Julian Leatherdale's first love was theatre. On graduation, he wrote lyrics for four satirical cabarets and a two-act musical. He discovered a passion for popular history as a staff writer, researcher and photo editor for Time-Life's Australians At War series. He later researched and co-wrote two Film Australia-ABC documentaries Return to Sandakan and The Forgotten Force and was an image researcher at the State Library of New South Wales. He was the public relations manager for a hotel school in the Blue Mountains, where he lives with his wife and two children.

His first novel, Palace of Tears, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2015 and HarperCollins Germany in 2016. His essay on the Hydro Majestic and Mark Foy was published on the Dictionary of Sydney website for the 2015 Blue Mountains Icons project. His second novel, The Opal Dragonfly, was published in 2018. His debut YA novel, The Phantasmic Detective Agency, will be published by Eagle Books in 2020. Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club is his third adult novel.