Penmanship

Kate Kyriacou is an author and chief crime reporter at The Courier-Mail. By coincidence, I met with Kate at News Queensland’s offices in Bowen Hills on August 3, the day that her first book was published. It’s called The Sting: The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe's Killer, and it’s a true-crime narrative about a case well-known to every Queenslander, and most Australians, I’d wager, given the high-profile nature of the disappearance of 13 year-old Daniel Morcombe in December 2003. Besides writing and publishing The Sting, Kate is chief crime reporter at Queensland newspaper The Courier-Mail, where she has worked since 2012, following earlier stints reporting in Mildura, Melbourne and Adelaide. Crime reporting is a tough beat: day in, day out, these reporters are dealing with some of the nastiest aspects of human nature. Being immersed in this world can take an emotional toll, which is something that Kate and I discuss in this episode. We also explore the tension of writing a whole book about