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.

Manda Scott is a novelist, podcaster and shamanist practitioner. After building a reputation as one of Britain’s leading crime writers, she achieved international recognition with her highly acclaimed series of historical novels about the warrior Queen Boudica, and a quartet of spy thrillers set in ancient Rome.

More recently she had been devoting her time to her podcast Accidental Gods and believed that she had done with writing novels.

But then she realised that it was providing her with the material she needed to weave a tale that modelled her hopes for a better future. The result is Any Human Power, a thriller that Manda describes as a Thrutopia, and which blends mythology, technology and compassion to offer a pathway for positive social change.

Join Manda and Red as they explore shamanism, sustainability, and an author’s duty to address global crises.

Catherine Bush is a Canadian novelist who has spoken internationally about the importance of addressing the climate crisis through fiction.

Her latest novel, Blaze Island, is an ecological retelling of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, set on a fictional island off Newfoundland.

Cut off from the rest of the world after a Category 5 hurricane devastates the East Coast of North America, the younger survivors are left battling a storm of emotions about their compromised future, while their elders wrangle over how best to prosper from the sins of the past.

Join Catherine and Red as they discuss adapting Shakespeare, geoengineering, and living at the sharp edge of climate change.

Join writer, broadcaster and blind adventurer Red Széll for the latest episode of AMI-audio’s My Life in Books.

Each fortnight Red invites you to join him in conversation with a renowned author about their work and the books that inspired them to write.

David Tatel is a recently retired US Federal Appeals Court judge who has spent a lifetime championing equal justice for all.

During nearly 30 years’ service on America’s second most powerful court, he ruled on many landmark cases and earned a reputation for his clear-sighted legal opinions.

Diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa aged 15, he has been legally blind for his entire adult life. Now in his 80s he has published his autobiography, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, in which he not only looks back over his career but also reflects on the years he spent denying and working around his sight loss, before finally embracing it as an essential part of his identity.

Bestselling novelist Helen Simonson revels in setting strength of character against small-minded social convention.

While her debut, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, was a contemporary romantic satire, her latest book, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club, transports the reader back to the summer of 1919, and an English seaside town emerging from the trauma of World War One and the Spanish Flu pandemic.

But for the women who did their bit to aid the war effort, and the men disabled by the conflict, the battle for respect and equality is far from over. With Helen’s trademark blend of wit and poignancy, and her sharp eye for historical detail, the novel joyfully skewers pomposity, celebrates those who defy convention, and extols the timeless beauty of the Sussex landscape.

Join Helen and Red as they discuss biplanes, committees, prejudice and the little-known story of a submarine stranded on a Sussex beach…

Alissa York is a Canadian author whose novels and short stories have won her international acclaim.

Her latest book, Far Cry, immerses the reader in the harsh conditions of a salmon cannery on the remote north west coast of British Columbia in 1922.

It’s a haunting tale of survival, forbidden love, addiction, and jealousy, with a mystery at its heart and the Canadian wilderness all around.

Join Alissa and Red as they explore the history of Canada’s working class, and man’s often jagged interaction with nature.