Sisters in Crime Australia - 2021 Davitt. Awards Longlists

 

Adult Crime

Kristen Alexander, Riptides (Bantam Australia, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) 

Belinda Alexandra, The Mystery Woman (HarperCollins Publishers Australia)

B M Allsopp, Death Beyond the Limit (Fiji Islands Mysteries #3) (Coconut Press) 

Rachel Amphlett, Her Final Hour (Detective Mark Turpin novel #2) (Saxon Publishing) 

Rachel Amphlett, None the Wiser (Detective Mark Turpin novel #1) (Saxon Publishing) 

Rachel Amphlett, Turn to Dust (Detective Kay Hunter Murder Mystery #9) (Saxon Publishing) 

Jennifer Bacia, Dark Side of the Harbour (Booktopia Editions) 

Amy Barker, Paradise Earth: A novel (Stormbird Press) Debut 

Sarah Barrie, Deadman’s Track (Calico Mountain #3) (HQ Fiction, an imprint of Harlequin Australia) 

Sonya Bates, Inheritance of Secrets (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) Debut 

Joanna Beresford, Every Year I Am Here (Atlas Productions) Debut 

Anne Buist, The Long Shadow (Text Publishing) 

Rae Cairns, The Good Mother (Bandrui Publishing) Debut 

B M Carroll, Who We Were (Serpents Tail, an imprint of Allen & Unwin) 

Lee Christine, Charlotte Pass (Allen & Unwin) Debut 

Phillipa Nefri Clark, Deadly Falls (Charlotte Dean Mysteries #2) (Phillipa Nefri Clark) 

Phillipa Nefri Clark, Deadly Secrets (Charlotte Dean Mysteries #3) (Phillipa Nefri Clark) 

Phillipa Nefri Clark, Last Known Contact (Phillipa Nefri Clark) 

Sherryl Clark, Dead and Gone (Judi Westerholme #2) (Verve Books) 

Sarah Clutton, The Daughter’s Promise (Bookouture, an imprint of Hachette UK) Debut 

Muriel Cooper, Lucid (Pegasus Publishers) Debut 

Tea Cooper, The Cartographer’s Daughter (HQ Fiction, an imprint of Harlequin Australia) 

Tea Cooper, The Girl in the Painting (HQ Fiction, an imprint of Harlequin Australia) 

Megan Daymond, Bones of Deception (Andy Knight #2) (Fracture Publishing) 

Kaye Dobbie, The Road to Ironbark (Mira, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Ceridwen Dovey, Life After Truth ((Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) Debut 

Anna Downes, The Safe Place (Affirm Press) Debut 

Chris Elliott, Sibanda and the Death’s Head Moth (DI Jabulani Sibanda #2) (Constable, an imprint of Hachette Australia) 

Kirsty Ferguson, Never Ever Tell (Boldwood Books) 

Katherine Firkin, Sticks and Stones (Bantam, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) Debut 

Candice Fox, Gathering Dark (Penguin Random House Australia) 

Darry Fraser, Elsa Goody, Bushranger (Mira, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Darry Fraser, The Last Truehart (Mira, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Rebecca Freeborn, The Girl She Was (Pantera Press) Debut 

Poppy Gee, Vanishing Falls: A novel (Booktopia Editions) 

Sulari Gentill, A Testament of Character (Rowland Sinclair #10) (Pantera Press) 

Brigid George, Tooting Moon (Dusty Kent Mystery #5) (Potoroo Publishing) 

Megan Goldin, The Night Swim (Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) 

Kerry Greenwood, Death in Daylesford (Phryne Fisher) (Allen & Unwin) 

Robin Gregory, Traffic (Sandi Kent Mystery #1) (Clan Destine Press) Debut 

Jane Harper, The Survivors (Pan Macmillan Australia) 

Sally Hepworth, The Good Sister (Pan Macmillan Australia) 

D K Hood, Her Broken Wings (Detectives Kane and Alton #8) (Bookouture, an imprint of Hachette UK) 

D K Hood, Her Shallow Grave (Detectives Kane and Alton #9) (Bookouture, an imprint of Hachette UK) 

D K Hood, Promises in the Dark (Detectives Kane and Alton #10) (Bookouture, an imprint of Hachette UK) 

Shona Husk, Close to the Truth (Escape Publishing, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) Debut 

Helen Iles, Dark Secrets (Linellen Press) Debut 

Nora James, A Shot at Amore (Escape Publishing, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Alexandra Joel, The Paris Model (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) Debut 

Mary Jones, Troubled Waters (Green Olive Press) Debut 

H R Kemp, Deadly Secrets: What unspeakable truths lurk beneath the lies? (Helmine Kemp) Debut 

Karina Kilmore, Where the Truth Lies (Simon & Schuster Australia) Debut 

Katherine Kovacic, The Shifting Landscape (Alex Clayton #3) (Echo Publishing, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK) 

L A Larkin, Prey (Olivia Wolfe #2) (Clan Destine Press) 

C A Larmer, And Then There Were 9 (The Agatha Christie Book Club #4) (Larmer Media) 

C A Larmer, Without a Word (Ghostwriter Mystery #7) (Larmer Media) 

Suzanne Leal, The Deceptions (Allen & Unwin) Debut 

Judith Lees, The Silent Syringe (Moonglow Publishing) Debut 

Carol Lefevre, Murmurations (Spinifex Press) Debut 

Leisl Leighton, Blazing Fear (CoalCliff Stud #2) (Escape Publishing, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Michele Lourie, Deceiving (Michele Lourie) 

Kirsty Manning, The Lost Jewels (Allen & Unwin) 

Annette Marner, A New Name for the Colour Blue (Wakefield Press) Debut

Nicola Marsh, My Sister’s Husband (Bookouture, an imprint of Hachette UK) Debut 

Donna Mazza, Fauna (Allen & Unwin) Debut 

Vanessa McCausland, The Valley of Lost Stories (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) 

Fleur McDonald, Red Dirt Country (Detective Dave Burrows) (Allen & Unwin) 

Kerry McGinnis, Croc Country (Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) 

Petronella McGovern, The Good Teacher (Allen & Unwin) 

Marie McMillan, The Lost Day: Under Newgrange (Europe Books UK) Debut 

Dervla McTiernan, The Good Turn (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) 

Kate Mildenhall, The Mother Fault (Simon & Schuster Australia) Debut 

Natasha Molt, Cutting the Cord (Impact Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Australia) Debut 

Alyssa J Montgomery, Five Dates with the Billionaire (Escape Publishing, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Kayte Nunn, The Silk House (Hachette Australia) 

Tania Park, Double Cross (Tania Park) 

Jan Pearson, Blue Dragon Spring (Celestial Symbols #4) (Proverse Hong Kong) 

J P Powell, The Brisbane Line (Brio Books) Debut 

Mirandi Riwoe, Stone Sky Gold Mountain (University of Queensland Press) 

Bronwyn Rodden, Orphan Rock (Ros Gordon Mystery #2) (Bronwyn Rodden) 

Elisabeth Rose, A Light in the Dark (Taylor’s Bend #3) (Escape Publishing, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Kimberley Starr, Torched (Pantera Press) 

Karen Lee Street, Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead (Poe and Dupin Mystery #3) (Point Blank, an imprint of Wildside Press) 

A M Stuart, Revenge in Rubies (Harriet Gordon Mystery #2) (Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House USA) 

Alison Stuart, The Goldminer’s Sister (Maiden’s Creek #2) (Mira, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Chris Stuart, For Reasons of Their Own (Original Sin Press) Debut 

Leah Swann, Sheerwater (4th Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Australia) Debut 

Sarah Thornton, White Throat (Text Publishing) 

Sandi Wallace, Black Cloud (Gumshoe, an imprint of Next Chapter) 

Anna Willett, Dear Neighbour: No boundary to murder (Cold Peak Media) 

Anna Willett, Savage Bay Nightmare (Lucy Hush #3) (Cold Peak Media)

Belinda Williams, Don’t Let me Forget (Escape Publishing, an imprint of Harlequin Enterprises Australia) 

Young Adult Crime Novels

Davina Bell, The End of the World Is Bigger than Love (Text Publishing) Debut 

Sarah Epstein, Deep Water (Allen & Unwin Children’s) 

Fiona Hardy, How to Write the Soundtrack to Your Life (Affirm Press)

Hayley Lawrence, Ruby Tuesday (Penguin Random House Australia) Debut 

Ellie Marney, None Shall Sleep (Allen & Unwin Children’s) 

Fin J Ross, Billings Better Bookstore and Brasserie (Clan Destine Press) 

Lisa Walker, The Girl with the Gold Bikini (Wakefield Press) Debut 

Lili Wilkinson, The Erasure Initiative (Allen & Unwin Children’s) 

Children's Crime Novels

Sandra Bennett, Fossil Frenzy (Adamson Adventures #3) (Rosella Ridge Books) Debut 

Jackie French, The Ghost of Howlers Beach (Butter O’Bryan Mysteries #1) (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) Debut 

Jacqueline Harvey, Alice-Miranda in the Outback (Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) 

Jacqueline Harvey, Freefall (Kensy and Max #5) (Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) 

Petra James, Henrie’s Hero Hunt (Walker Books Australia) Debut 

Rebecca McRitchie, Havoc!: The untold magic of Cora Bell (Jinxed #2) (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) 

Amelia Mellor, The Grandest Bookshop in the World (Affirm Press) Debut 

Julianne Negri, The Secret Library of Hummingbird House (Affirm Press) 

Christie Nieman, Where We Begin (Pan Macmillan Australia) Debut 

Pamela Rushby, The Mummy Smugglers of Crumblin Castle (Walker Books Australia) 

Laura Sieveking, Musical Mystery (Ella at Eden #3) (Scholastic Press) Debut 

R A Spratt, Near Extinction (The Peski Kids #4) (Puffin, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) 

A L Tait, The Fire Star (Maven & Reeve Mystery #1) (Penguin Random House Australia) Debut 

Lian Tanner, A Clue for Clara (Allen & Unwin Children’s) Debut 

Renee Treml, Sherlock Bones and the Sea-creature Feature (Allen & Unwin Children’s) 

Sue Whiting, The Book of Chance (Walker Books Australia) 

Non Fiction Booksellers

Tanya Bretherton, The Killing Streets: Uncovering Australia’s first serial murderer (Hachette Australia)

Stella Budrikis, The Edward Street Baby Farm: The murder trial that gripped a city (Fremantle Press) Debut 

Stephanie Convery, After the Count: The death of Davey Browne (Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia) Debut 

Melissa Davey, The Case of George Pell: Reckoning with child sexual abuse (Scribe Publications) Debut

Heidi Lemon, The First Time He Hit Her: The Shocking True Story of the Murder of Tara Costigan, The Woman Next Door (Hachette Australia) Debut 

Xanthé Mallett, Reasonable Doubt (Pan Macmillan Australia) 

Louise Milligan, Witness: An investigation into the brutal cost of seeking justice (Hachette Australia) 

Caroline Overington, Missing William Tyrrell (HarperCollins Publishers Australia) 

Monique Patterson, United in Grief: The tragic story of Stephanie Scott’s murder and the effect it had on the small town of Leeton NSW (Genius Book Company) Debut 

Suzanne Smith, The Altar Boys (ABC Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Australia) Debut 

Angela Williams, Snakes and Ladders: A memoir (Affirm Press) Debut 

Books to Look Forward to from Profile Books (Incl Serpent's Tail, & Viper Books)

October 2020

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley a new edition of this seminal novel is being published. 'I need to find somebody and I might need a little help looking...' It's the summer of '48 in the city of Angels and there's heat on the streets when Daphne Monet hits the sidewalk. Heat when she disappears with a trunkload of somebody else's cash. Easy Rawlins is a war veteran just fired from his job. Drinking in a friend's bar, he wonders how to meet his mortgage when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will locate Miss Monet, a blonde with a reputation. It's a simple decision, but for one thing. Nobody warned him - better the devil you know... In the sleazy, fearful city, Easy must rely on his instincts, not just to solve the case, but to save his own life.

January 2021

Dear Reader, Enclosed are documents relating to the events surrounding the Fairway Players' staging of All My Sons, and the tragic death of one of its members. Another member is currently in prison for the crime. We have reason to suspect that they are innocent, and that there were far darker secrets that have yet to be revealed. We believe that the killer has given themselves away. It's there in writing, hidden in the emails, texts, and letters. In the events surrounding the charity appeal for little Poppy Reswick, and the question of whether that money was truly being used to fund her life-saving cancer treatment. Will you accept the challenge? Can you uncover the truth? Do you dare? The Appeal is by Janice Hallett.

The Rosary Garden is by Nicola White. It was Ali who found the body of a murdered newborn baby, hidden in the garden of her convent school. In an Ireland riven by battles of religion and reproduction, the case becomes a media sensation, even as the church tries to suppress it. But this is not the first dead baby Ali has found. For Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine, the pressure to discover the identity of the dead child is little help against a community with secrets to protect. Gina knows all too well how many of Ireland's girls are forced to make difficult decisions in terrible circumstances, silenced by shame. Is Ali one of those girls? Because what evidence there is, points to Ali herself...

February 2021

This mother's day you will call her mummy. Glamorous, beautiful Mummy has everything a woman could want... except for a daughter of her very own. So when she sees Kim - heavily pregnant, glued to her phone and ignoring her eldest child in a busy shop - she does what anyone would do. She takes her. But little foul-mouthed Tonya is not the daughter that Mummy was hoping for. Meanwhile Kim is demonised by the media as a 'scummy mummy', who deserved to lose Tonya and ought to have her other children taken too. Haunted by memories of her own childhood and refusing to play by the media's rules, she begins to spiral, turning on those who love her. Though they are worlds apart, Mummy and Kim have more in common than they could possibly imagine. But it is five-year-old Tonya who is caught in the middle... Call me mummy it'll be better if you do. Call Me Mummy is by Tina Baker.

March 2021

The Last House on Needless Street is by Catriona Ward. This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street. All these things are true. And yet they are all lies... You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong. In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it's not what you think...

April 2021

The Plague Letters is by V L Valentine. What is one more corpse, when all around you are dying... London, 1665. Hidden within a growing pile of corpses, one victim of the pestilence stands out: a young woman with a shorn head and pieces of twine delicately tied around each ankle. Symon Patrick, rector of St. Paul's Covent Garden, cannot say exactly why this corpse amongst the many in his churchyard should give him pause. Longing to do good, he joins a group of medical men who have gathered to find a cure for the plague, each man more peculiar and splenetic than the next. But there is another - unknown to The Society for the Prevention and Cure of Plague - who is performing his own terrible experiments upon unwilling plague-ridden subjects. It is Penelope - Symon's unwanted yet unremovable addition to his household - who may yet shed light on the matter. Far more than what she appears, she is already on the hunt. But the dark presence that enters the houses of the sick will not stop, and has no mercy... This hugely atmospheric and entertaining historical thriller will transport readers to the palaces and alleyways of seventeenth-century London.

May 2021

It’s the summer solstice weekend, and 150,000 people descend on a farm in the northeast of England for an open-air music festival. At first, a spot of rain seems to be the only thing dampening the fun – until a mystery bug appears. Before long, the illness is spreading at an electrifying speed and seems resistant to all antibiotics. Can journalist Zoe Meadows track the outbreak to its source, and will a cure be found before the disease becomes a pandemic? A heart-racing thriller, Resistance imagines a nightmare pandemic that seems only too credible in the wake of Covid-19. Resistance is a graphic novel by Val McDermid and Illustrated by Kathryn Briggs. 

Murder Takes a Holiday is edited by Cecily Gayford. For most of us, a summer holiday is an

opportunity to escape from it all: to lounge on warm sands or sip a cool drink in the shade of a city square. But, as the characters in this murderously good collection of classic crime stories discover to their cost ... trouble has a nasty habit of finding you out. From a body found on a beach without a single footprint, to a lemonade stand whose wares appear to have been poisoned and a Wimbledon final ruined by the mysterious disappearance of the championship player, these tales of murder and malice will take you on the trip of a lifetime. So pour that glass of Pimms, grab your sunhat and indulge your dark side: these stories will chill you to your very core, even in a heatwave …

Would you save the man who destroyed your life. When paramedic Megan Lowe is called to the scene of an attempted murder, all she can do is try to save the victim. But as the man is lifted onto a stretcher, she realises she knows this man. She hates him. Why should she save his life when he did everything in his power to ruin hers? Jess Foster is on her way home when she receives a text from Megan. Someone else must hate him as much as we do. The two women haven't spoken in years, not since the night when they were just the teenage girls who no-one believed. And yet this man will bring them together once again. But what terrible secrets are they hiding, and who is telling the truth? You Had It Coming is by B M Carroll.

School Reunions: Love Them or Hate Them by B M Carroll

Our high-school years are such an intense, formative period in our lives. Some people thrive at school while others are utterly miserable. Some are sad to leave while others can’t wait for those final exams … and freedom. I’ve always been fascinated with school reunions which – like school itself – elicit extreme reactions. Excitement. Nostalgia. Competitiveness. Curiosity. Bitterness. Distress. 

Disappointingly, I have never been to a reunion myself. I left Cork, my hometown, at age 23, and kept in touch with a few close friends but lost contact with the vast majority. I now live in Sydney’s northern beaches, a beautiful part of the world where people tend to stay put and raise families of their own. Many of my northern beaches’ friends know each other from high school. My ears have perked up at mentions of their twenty-year and thirty-year reunions. Some stories have found their way back to me. A grown man who sought out a friend’s husband at twenty-year get-together. ‘I want to thank you,’ he said, offering his hand to shake. ‘I was planning to kill myself when I got home. If you hadn’t said “leave him alone”, I wouldn’t be here today.’ The man had been relentlessly bullied at school. My friend’s husband had been unaware of the profound impact of his actions … he couldn’t even remember saying ‘leave him alone’. He’d saved a life … and didn’t find out until twenty years after the fact. Then there was the sophisticated perfectly nice woman who smiled an apology to another friend of mine. ‘Sorry I was such a bitch to you at school ... I have no idea why I was so horrible.’ It seems that school reunions are as much an opportunity to apologise as to reconnect.

Transformation is another prominent theme, with certain individuals keen to show off how much they’ve changed, seeking approval they didn’t attain at school. In my new novel, Who We Were, Katy transforms from a non-descript student into a confident woman and passionate science teacher. She is full of good advice for her graduating students. She wants them to know that as soon as they walk out the school doors into the world, everything can change.  They can reinvent themselves, just like she did. They can leave behind the fact that they were the quiet one, or the socially awkward one, or the silly one. 

But while transformation and being seen in a new light is motivation for some, others want to prove the opposite: that they’ve remained the same. Their high-school group of friends is the same tight circle of people today: no new admissions, thank you very much. Their loyalties and biases are exactly the same, as is their hard-fought place in the pecking order. In their eyes, there is no such thing as transformation. 

Of course, complex romantic feelings are also at play. Our high school years can coincide with the rush of first love, and first heart-break too. At the time, feelings can be blithely dismissed as crushes or puppy love or something temporary and inconsequential. The truth is some people never love as intensely and trustingly again. This is certainly the case for Melissa, in Who We Were.

Hand in hand with those suppressed romantic feelings, are age-old jealousies and betrayals. Annabel is a mother of three with a thousand things on her mind, but that doesn’t stop her irrational jealousy every time she so much as thinks about Melissa Andrews. It was never an ordinary jealousy; it was obsessive, powerful, insanely out of proportion.

And what about the sad cases? Lives that have been lost to car accidents and illnesses. Students who failed to launch into self-functioning adulthood, who never managed to get off their feet in terms of their career or personal lives. The people who are ‘missing’ and can’t be tracked down, not even by their families. Have they deliberately cut ties? Does the idea of a school reunion fill them with bad memories, lingering grudges, horror?

In Who We Were, some of the characters who were self-absorbed and cruel have evolved into devoted parents, responsible citizens, and kinder human beings. Other characters present with all their old prejudices intact; it’s evident that they’re just as nasty or annoying as before. Watch out for the quiet ones, who blossomed away from the herd environment and found their backbone. The ‘popular’ kids, the nerds, the bullies and the downtrodden are back in contact. What could possibly go wrong?

School reunions: love them or hate them? As an author, I’ve got to love them. 

Who We Were by Ber Carroll (Viper Books) Out now

If you looked the other way, should you be punished?  Twenty years after they went their separate ways, friends and enemies are coming together for their school reunion. Katy, who is desperate to show that she's no longer the shy wallflower. Annabel, who ruled the school until a spectacular fall from grace. Zach, popular and cruel, but who says he's a changed man. And Robbie, always the victim, who never stood a chance.  As the reunion nears, a terrible event that binds the group together will resurface. Because someone is still holding a grudge, and will stop at nothing to reveal their darkest secrets...

Forthcoming Books from Profile Books (Incl Serpent's Tail and Viper)

February 2020

A Famished Heart is by Nicola White.  Her head was bowed, and the hands braced on the chair arms were not like hands at all, but the dry dark claws of a bird... The Macnamara sisters hadn't been seen for months before anyone noticed. It was Father Timoney who finally broke down the door, who saw what had become of them. Berenice was sitting in her armchair, surrounded by religious tracts. Rosaleen had crawled under her own bed, her face frozen in terror. Both had starved themselves to death. Francesca Macnamara returns to Dublin after decades in the US, to find her family in ruins. Meanwhile, Detectives Vincent Swan and Gina Considine are convinced that there is more to the deaths than suicide. Because what little evidence there is, shows that someone was watching the sisters die...

March 2020

The Broken Ones is by Ren Richards.  When her child was taken what did she really see? A bestselling true crime writer, Nell Way tells other people's stories. But there is one story Nell won't tell. Ten years ago and with a different name, she was a teenage mother with a four-year-old she found desperately hard to love. Then the little girl disappeared, and Nell has never shaken off the shadow of suspicion. As she begins to interview the subject of her next book - a woman convicted of murdering her twin sister - it becomes clear that someone has uncovered her true identity. And they know that Nell didn't tell the truth about the day her daughter disappeared...

April 2020

Bitter Wash Road is by Garry Disher.  Hirsch is a whistle-blower. Formerly a promising metropolitan detective, now hated and despised, he's been exiled to a one-cop station in South Australia's wheatbelt. Threats. Pistol cartridge in the mailbox. So when he heads up Bitter Wash Road to investigate gunfire and finds himself cut off without backup, there are two possibilities. Either he's found the fugitive killers thought to be in the area. Or his 'backup' is about to put a bullet in him. He's wrong on both counts. But Tiverton when the next call-out takes him to the body of a sixteen-year-old girl, his investigation has disturbing echoes of the past he's trying to leave behind...

May 2020

It's been twenty years but all is not forgiven. Katy is not the shy schoolgirl she once was, and she's looking forward to showing her classmates who she's become. Annabel was the queen bee. But her fall from grace changed her life forever. Zach was cruel, but he thinks he's changed. Robbie was a target. And he never stood a chance. The reunion will bring together friends and enemies, many for the first time in decades. But someone is still holding a grudge... Who We Were is by B M Carroll.