Tara Moss has much in common with the heroines of her internationally best-selling crime novels. The Canadian Australian former model is glamourous, tenacious, quick-witted, and committed to fighting for justice. She also relishes a challenge, has a Private Investigator license, and as we’ll hear, isn’t afraid of putting herself in the way of danger to learn what she needs to know.

Her latest series features Billie Walker, a Second World War correspondent turned private investigator based in Sydney, who evokes the charisma of Lee Miller in the film noir style of Raymond Chandler.

Following the publication of the second book in the series, we felt it was high time to get Ms Moss in for questioning.

Join Tara and Red as they discuss femme fatales, fact-checking, fast cars, and feminism.

Alis Hawkins is a Welsh crime novelist with a keen eye for historical detail.

Her latest series, The Oxford Mysteries, is set in the city of dreaming spires during the 1880s, at a time when the first women were being permitted to study there, albeit not on an equal footing. Her protagonist, Rhiannon Vaughan, is one of them, and is named after a fearless and put upon heroine from Welsh folklore.

In the latest story, The Skeleton Army, she needs all her wits about her when the Salvation Army arrives in town with its message of temperance sparking murder and mayhem in a city almost as famous for its breweries as its university!

Join Alis and Red as they reveal the untold history of The Skeleton Army, and the under-reported lives of a pair of pioneering female academics.

For many of us, the coming of a new year is the time when we resolve to try and quit our bad habits and make a clean start. For most, overindulgence in the things we crave is relatively benign, but for some it is an addiction that causes untold harm to themselves and those around them.

Sebastian Wocker is a journalist, musician and recovering addict. In his memoir The Joy of Addiction: Confessions of a Teenage Wastrel, he gives an unflinching account of his descent into the abyss of drug and alcohol dependency.

As the highly ironic title suggests, the book is a tragicomedy, offering both an insight into the mind-set of an addict and an invaluable message of recovery.

Join Sebastian and Red as they explore some of the causes and effects of drink and drug dependency, and how to find a road to recovery.