Taman Shud

In 1948 a man was found dead on an Adelaide beach. Well-dressed and unmarked, he had a half-smoked cigarette by his side, but no identity documents. Six decades on we don’t know who he was, how he got there or how he died. Somerton Man remains one of Australia’s most mysterious cold cases. Yet it is the bizarre details of this case that make it the stuff of a spy novel. The missing labels from all his clothing. The tiny piece of paper with the words ‘Tamam Shud’ found sewn into the lining of the dead man’s coat. A mysterious code found etched inside the very book of Persian poetry from which this note was torn. Brimming with facts that are stranger than fiction, the case has intrigued novelist Kerry Greenwood for almost her whole life. She goes on a journey into her own past to try to solve this crime, uncovering a new way of writing about true crime and herself as she goes.

Author Biography

Kerry Greenwood is one of Australia’s most popular crime fiction writers, best known for her on-going detective series of Phryne Fisher books (pronounced Fry-knee, to rhyme with briny), which was made into an ABC television series in 2012. She has also written several plays, including The Troubadours with Stephen D’Arcy, is an award-winning children’s writer and has edited and contributed to several anthologies. In 1996 she published a book of essays on female murderers called Things She Loves: Why women kill. Kerry has worked as a folk singer, factory hand, director, producer, translator, costume-maker, cook and is currently a solicitor. When she is not writing, she works as a locum solicitor for the Victorian Legal Aid.