LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

The Power of Six

This is an exciting week for the Ladies Killing Circle. First, we are featured in the November issue of MORE Magazine, complete with a photo display of each of us in some nefarious disguise. It’s a wonderful article about what a group of women can accomplish when they band together. We had a great deal of fun doing this article – first being interviewed by journalist Cathy Dumphy in my little red and white house, and then spending a whole day in a photo shoot, having our hair and make-up done, getting into character for the shots (I was Sherlock Holmes), and being staged down to the exact placement of each finger for the photos. All this under the mother-hen watch of Viresh, the owner of the modeling studio where the photo-shoot was taking place. That’s him in the purple stilettos.

Secondly, we are the headliners at “An Evening of Mystery” being hosted by Glebe St. James United Church here in Ottawa, the crime-ridden city where we first got together and where many of us still live and plot. This event is a fundraiser for both the church and adult literacy, and we are delighted that we can contribute something to so worthy a cause. The more people available to read crime fiction, the better, I say. Oh all right, those Giller winners too, I guess.

The Ladies Killing Circle started off almost twenty years ago as a group of six women who wanted to break into the crime writing field but needed a helping hand, as well as a frequent whip, to get their skills in shape. Well, we have arrived! Between us, we have literally dozens of books published, both novels and short story anthologies, and we have walked away with numerous writing awards. But we haven’t stopped there. The Ladies Killing Circle anthologies have played a huge role in launching the writing careers of several prominent Canadian mystery writers by giving them just the right encouragement and exposure at that point in their careers when they were asking themselves that crucial question – “Am I any good at this, or should I go back to cleaning toilets?”

I should know. I’m one of them. So if you live in Ottawa, come on down and celebrate with us at Glebe St. James on Saturday night. Time is 7:30, tickets are $30, and it’s all in a good cause!


Barbara Fradkin is
a child psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. In addition to her darkly haunting short stories in the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, she writes the gritty, Ottawa-based Inspector Green novels which have won back to back Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Novel from Crime Writers of Canada.

The eighth in the series, Beautiful Lie the Dead, which explores love in all its complications, is in the final proofing stage and is due out shortly.