Bloody Winners

We won!

I know it's not about winning. It's about participating in the creative process and trying on the shoes of the murder mystery writer, blah blah blah. But we had crafted a really good story with intrigue, subplots, sabotage and double-crosses. We tied it up with a biblical bow and Amanda, our group's author, presented it flawlessly.

And our story won!

Team Amanda at work.

About 60 of us - plus seven authors - gathered in the Rosebank Gautrain Station last night for a Murder on the Gautrain. The mastermind behind Bloody Book Week and the mistress of ceremonies for the evening was Jenny Crwys-Williams, the radio talk show host whose weekly Book Show (Wednesdays on Talk Radio 702) is a forum for author interviews and reviews of the latest releases in the book world.

We were separated into groups of about eight and teamed up with one of the celebrity authors with whom we would travel on the train. Our team was assigned Amanda Coetzee. Amanda was the perfect leader for our little group's part reality show / part master class. When she isn’t writing crime thrillers, she works as a deputy headmistress. She grew up in Bedford, England, and now lives in Rustenburg with her husband and son. Her novels include Flaming June, Bad Blood, Redemption Song and her latest, One Shot.

Furnished with two typed copies of a description of a murder scene full of clues - and red herrings - we were instructed to pick up where the story ended so far and solve the murder. Present day Joburg. The apparent murder of an already terminally ill Russian nurse and former hit woman. A gang of five. A hand-picked investigator named Hitch. A cat.

Amanda in the zone

We huddled in the train car as it hurtled towards Pretoria and ironed out the basics of our plot. The why, the how, and the who, all whilst trying to be extra careful not to let another group overhear our ideas. We had the skeleton of an outline concocted even before the train entered the final station.

Once we arrived at the exclusive Blue Lounge, Amanda was handed a laptop and she quickly got into the writers' zone. She wrote the first attention-grabbing line which she read to us for approval and then she was off.

But she needed details. Who was on the other end of that phone call? What did Hitch see that turned his blood cold? What kind of alcohol would Hitch drink? What was the code name of the 5th man? The code name for the gang of 5? Where was the secret place where the gang would reconvene? How would justice be served? What did the riddle mean?

What is a nickname for Svetlana?

We got out our smart phones and our iPads in order to look up facts. What are the symptoms of digoxin poisoning? How do you say, "the truth is revealed" in Russian?

Jenny introduces Penny Lorimer

After about an hour, some wine and some really delicious snacks, we all reconvened back in the Blue Lounge and one by one, each group's author was called to the high hot seat to read their team's chapter. Next to them on the couch sat the judge and author, Alex Eliseev, who would ultimately decide whose ending he would use to finish his story and be published on the Bloody Book Week website

Peter James

Some stories were really funny. A little bloody 50 Shades of Grey anyone? Some ideas came straight from the front page headlines. The scandals of Pistorius and Malema and Zuma. They were all really good and surprisingly very, very different.

Amanda and Alex

But as Amanda read, you could see that she had the audience on the edge of their seats. You could hear a pin drop in the room as she made her way through the twists and turns of the action. Alex was listening intently too.

Team Amanda with Jenny

After the readings, Jenny and Alex deliberated behind closed doors. The guests were served more wine and hors d'oeuvres. Back in came the judges and the verdict was announced.

Amanda Coetzee's team were the winners. Bloody brilliant!