Bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith will visit Dogwood Books & Gifts in Greenwich on Sept. 18 for a talk led by a real-life detective.

Detective First Grade Christy Girard of the Greenwich Police Department will interview McCall Smith at the East Putnam Avenue bookshop, housed inside Christ Church. Girard is a 27-year GPD veteran and FBI violent crimes task force investigator. McCall Smith created the fictional detective Mma Precious Ramotswe, whose No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series has been translated into 46 languages.

The Eventbrite listing shows the event runs from 6 to 8 p.m. at 254 East Putnam Ave. Tickets are $40 plus fees and include a copy of McCall Smith's newest novel, "The Big Cats Dance Party," along with wine and charcuterie.

"The Big Cats Dance Party" is the latest installment in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which has sold more than 20 million copies in English, according to the author's website. McCall Smith holds a CBE for services to literature.

Girard brings her own resume to the stage. She has served 21 years as a detective specializing in sexual assault investigations, homicides and cold cases. In 2021, the Greenwich Police Department named her Officer of the Year after she solved a 35-year-old homicide, the 1986 death of a newborn, that led to an arrest. She picked up that case in 2016 and traveled across the country and to Canada interviewing witnesses and past detectives before obtaining a confession and DNA confirmation, Patch reported at the time.

"My passion for my job is sometimes difficult to corral," Girard said at the John Clarke Award ceremony in April 2022, where she received the Officer of the Year honor, according to Greenwich Time.

Girard currently works on an FBI violent crimes task force, assisting with cold cases nationwide using DNA and investigative genetic genealogy. In 2023, she earned a master's certificate in that field and received the Arnold Markle Symposium Law Enforcement Award at the University of New Haven, according to the Greenwich Police Department's Instagram account. She also founded the Triumph Fund, a nonprofit that helps local girls participate in volleyball.

The event organizers describe the evening as a meeting of "two very different investigative minds: one who has spent decades imagining mysteries and the other who has spent decades solving them."

Tickets are available through Eventbrite. Dogwood Books & Gifts is at 254 East Putnam Ave. inside Christ Church Greenwich.