31 January 2012
Stuart MacBride offers murder tour of Aberdeen
Best-selling author Stuart MacBride is offering a murder tour of his hometown of Aberdeen to one lucky winner of the latest competition offered by the University of Dundee's 'Million For A Morgue' campaign.
Stuart, currently riding high in the charts with his latest novel `Birthdays For The Dead', is one of ten leading crime writers supporting the campaign to build a new morgue at the University's Centre of Anatomy and Human Identification.
He is the campaign's Author of the Month for February. Everyone making a donation and logging a vote for their favourite writer at www.millionforamorgue.com over the next month will be entered into a prize draw. The winner will get a murder tour of Aberdeen in the great company of Stuart MacBride, with travel to the city from anywhere in the UK and accommodation included.
'For a writer, there's nothing quite like a good excuse to get out of the house, and this one's perfect,' said Stuart. 'Not only do we all get to raise money for a really important cause, we get to go out and tour Aberdeen, poke our noses into its seedy fictional underbelly, then nip off to the nearest pub for a bit of fortification before moving on to the next scene.
'Think of it as a semi-educational stag-night, only without the general rowdiness, stripper, and inevitable kebab. What's not to love?'
For a chance of winning, all you have to do is vote for who you want the new morgue to be named after at www.millionforamorgue.com or by text - you'll get one competition entry for each £1 donated to the campaign, so the more votes, the more likely you are to win. The winner will be picked from the hat on 29 February.
Stuart MacBride will be at the University of Dundee this Saturday, February 4th, to deliver the latest in the 2012 series of Saturday Evening Lectures. He will be discussing his work with Professor Sue Black and his involvement with the Million For A Morgue campaign. The lecture is free and open to all, and takes place at 6 pm in the University's Dalhousie Building.
Anyone who wants to donate and vote in the Million For a Morgue campaign can do so by visiting the website at www.millionforamorgue.com , or by texting to the relevant author's number as listed below.
The authors are:
- Val McDermid (text: VALM10)
- Peter James (text: PETJ10)
- Tess Gerritsen (text: TESG10)
- Kathy Reichs (text: KATR10)
- Harlan Coben (text: HARC10)
- Lee Child (text: LEEC10)
- Jeffery Deaver (text: JEFD10)
- Mark Billingham (text: MARB10)
- Jeff Lindsay (text: JEFL10)
- Stuart MacBride (text: STUM10)
For text voting, all codes should be sent to 70070 along with the amount in pounds. So, to donate £10 for Stuart MacBride, type: STUM10 £10 and send it to 70070.
There is a generic code for anyone who wants to donate but not vote for a specific author, which is MFAM50.
Only people based in the UK will be able to vote by text but online votes and donations can be taken from around the world.
The 'Million For A Morgue' campaign will allow Professor Black and colleagues in the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) to adopt the revolutionary Thiel method of embalming.
The University has already committed £1 million to the project but another £1million needs to be raised.
Professor Black and other members of the CAHID team featured in the major BBC2 series `History Cold Case'. The CAHID team have developed groundbreaking techniques in areas such as hand identification, which has directly led to the successful prosecution of a number of paedophiles identified from images of their hands found in obscene photographs and films.
The Centre also runs a major training programme in Disaster Victim Identification, which has trained police offers in practical techniques in human identification, enabling them to be deployed to help identify victims of mass fatalities anywhere in the world.
The link-up between the morgue project and the crime writers came about through the long friendship between Val McDermid and Professor Black.
The new morgue will allow Professor Black and her team to adopt the Thiel method of embalming. This gives surgeons, dentists, students and medical researchers a more realistic method of testing techniques, practising procedures and developing new equipment and approaches.
Dundee is the first University in the UK to adopt the Thiel method.
'We will be the first University in the UK to exclusively use Thiel embalming and it is an area where, working together with other colleagues in the University, we can make real breakthroughs and change the face of scientific, medical and dental research and training,' said Professor Black.
For more on the Million For A Morgue campaign see: www.millionforamorgue.com.
For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07800 581902 |
