2013 Ned Kelly Shortlists announced

http://austcrimewriters.com/content/2013-ned-kelly-awards

The following links are to the reviews created on Fair Dinkum Crime.

Best First Fiction

Steve Lewis & Chris Uhlmann ­ THE MARMALADE FILES
Zane Lovitt - THE MIDNIGHT PROMISE
Paul Anderson - THE ROBBERS
Sue Williams - MURDER WITH THE LOT
Andrew Grimes - THE RICHMOND CONSPIRACY

Best Fiction

Robert Gott - THE HOLIDAY MURDERS
Katherine Howell - WEB OF DECEIT
Geoffrey McGeachin - BLACKWATTLE CREEK
Adrian McKinty - I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET
Malla Nunn - SILENT VALLEY

The links below take you to various reviews

True Crime

Robin De Crespigny - THE PEOPLE SMUGGLER
Belinda Hawkins - EVERY PARENTS NIGHTMARE
Steve Lillebuen - THE DEVIL'S CINEMA
Derek Pedley - DEAD BY FRIDAY
Mark Tedeschi QC ­ EUGENIA

Review: BEREFT, Chris Womersley

• Published by Scribe 2010
• ISBN 978-1-921640-60-5
• 264 pages
• Source: my local library

Publisher's Blurb

It is 1919. The Great War has ended, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging through Australia. Schools are closed, state borders are guarded by armed men, and train travel is severely restricted. There are rumours it is the end of the world.

In the NSW town of Flint, Quinn Walker returns to the home he fled ten years earlier when he was accused of an unspeakable crime. Aware that his father and uncle would surely hang him, Quinn hides in the hills surrounding Flint. There, he meets a mysterious young girl called Sadie Fox, who encourages him to seek justice — and seems to know more about the crime than she should.

A searing gothic novel of love, longing, and revenge, BEREFT is about the suffering endured by those who go to war and those who are forever left behind.

My Take

Returning to his home town after the Great War Quinn Walker is determined to clear his name of the murder/rape of his younger sister 10 years before. He finds that the man he knows was guilty is now the local policeman, that his father has vowed to kill him if he returns, and his mother is dying from bubonic plague. In fact his mother believes that he is dead, having been killed in the war.

BEREFT draws a harsh landscape and I found it difficult reading. Despite the original murder and the fact that two more take place within the novel's time frame, I found it difficult to accept the novel as crime fiction, mainly because I think Womersley was trying to write something else. My reservations are shared by Bernadette but not by the glowing reviews that Womersley quotes on his site.

Womersley's style is carefully crafted, demanding the reader's full attention, and providing some arresting imagery.

On the day twelve-year-old Sarah Walker was murdered in 1909, a storm bullied its way across the western plains of New South Wales and unleashed itself on the fly-speck town of Flint. Sarah's murder became the warm, still heart of several days of of frantic activity in which almost every one of the town's two hundred or so residents had a tale of chaos or loss. Trees cowered and snapped in the winds; horses bolted ..... Dead cows, swollen tight, bobbled about in the floodwater for days. And old Mrs Mabel Crink lost her sight, which partly accounted for the name by which the maelstrom became known: the Blinder.

In the novel Womersley describes the impact that losing its men folk to the Great War had on the small town of Flint, as well as the impact of the war on those who returned. In many ways, although avenging his sister's death is what keeps Quinn going and cold blooded murder does happen, crime and justice take a back seat.

My rating: 4.4

Awards and listings:
Winner ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year
Winner of Indie Award for Best Novel
Shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year
Shortlisted for 2011 Miles Franklin Award
Shortlisted for ASL Gold Medal for Literature
Shortlisted for Ned Kelly Award for Fiction

Chris Womersley won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First novel in 2008 with THE LOW ROAD

Ned Kelly Awards 2010 Shortlist

A little bird told me..

Crime writers and readers converge for the 15th Ned Kelly Awards, honouring the past year’s best Australian crime writing. Host Jane Clifton will convene a panel on the topic ‘That one can do right in a world gone wrong’. In addition, a Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Peter Doyle by Shane Maloney.

The Awards will be presented from 7pm on September 3 at the Melbourne Writers' Festival.

True Crime

Peter Doyle – CROOKS LIKE US,  Publisher: Historic Houses Trust
Kathy Marks – PITCAIRN: PARADISE LOST, Publisher: Harper Collins
Robert  M.Kaplan: MEDICAL MURDER,: Publisher Allen & Unwin

Best First Fiction

Andrew Croome – DOCUMENT  Z,   Allen & Unwin
Mark Dapin – KING OF THE CROSS,   Macmillan
Robin Adair – DEATH AND THE RUNNING PATTERER,  Penguin

Best Fiction

Lenny Bartulin – THE BLACK RUSSIAN,   Scribe Publications
Michael Robotham -  BLEED FOR ME,  Hatchette
Gary Disher – WYATT, Text

SD Harvey Short Story

Lucy Sussex  THE FOUNTAIN OF JUSTICE
Zane Lovitt  LEAVING THE FOUNTAINHEAD
Robert Goodman THE TRAVERTINE FOUNTAIN 

Lifetime Achievement Award

Peter Doyle

See the Longlist here

Review: THE BUILD UP, Phillip Gwynne

Pan Macmillan Australia, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4050-3849-2, 339 pages.

It is late September, and the Wet is coming to Darwin. Or rather the Build Up is happening. The temperatures and the humidity are rising, every day just a little more. 33 year old Detective Dusty Buchanon of the NT Police Force is originally from Adelaide. Until recently she had a boyfrined. Now she doesn't.

Dusty has been working on the McVeigh case for nearly two years. Now a body has been found in the desert and it is almost certainly the abducted woman. But Dusty's new boss has decided to take her off the case. Even before the body had been found, a case had been brought against a suspect, but he walked free.

But the Top End is never long without crime. Two weeks later there are rumours of a female body in a billabong. The location is very near a Vietnam Veterans bush camp, but when Dusty and her partner investigate there is nothing to see. Still the rumours persist, and when Dusty eventually locates a body buried near the billabong it is male not female.

There is a lot to like about THE BUILD UP. If you've ever been to Darwin you'll recognise the names of streets and cafes, and somehow Gwynne has captured the essence of the place. I felt as if culturally I had been dropped right in it. And there are some wonderfully drawn characters including Dusty herself, newcomer Flick Roberts-Thomson, ex-footballer Trigger Tregenza, the Dutch policeman Tomasz, Viet veteran Barry O'Loughlin, and Trace born as the cyclone raged. Dusty seems to move effortlessly through a number of communities: the itinerant aborigines who camp in the parklands around Darwin; conversing in Indonesian with waiters in restaurants.

It is not just the interesting characters he draws though. Gwynne writes in a language that feels at once local and authentic. I couldn't help wondering whether the book will have much appeal outside Australia. Are there too many idioms that will puzzle? There are references to cases like Azaria Chamberlain, places like the Emerald City - I wonder what a non-Australian reader will make of that? Perhaps it won't matter.

If you read Australian crime fiction, then this is certainly a book to look for.
My rating: 4.7

THE BUILD UP has been shortlisted for the 2009 Ned Kelly Awards.
SBS have announced that they will be making a 13 part television series set in the Top End, in and around Darwin. Titled Dusty, the show will follow the trials of the crime-fighting police detective working in the self-styled 'capital of the second chance'.

Other Reviews:

• Books and Musings from DownUnder
• Suite101
• Boomerang Books
• Reactions to Reading
  

2009 Ned Kelly Award Shortlist announced

The Crime Writers Association of Australia announces
Nominations: Ned Kelly Awards 2009

Best first fiction
GHOSTLINES, Nick Gadd**
CROOKED, Camilla Nelson
THE BUILD UP, Phillip Gwynne*

Best Fiction
BRIGHT AIR, Barry Maitland
DEEP WATER, Peter Corris
SMOKE & MIRRORS, Kel Robertson

Best True crime
THE KILLING OF CAROLINE BYRNE, Robert Wainwrights
THE TALL MAN, Chloe Hooper
A QUESTION OF POWER, Michelle Schwarz

The SD Harvey Short Story
Fidget's Farewell, Scott McDermott
Farewell My Lovelies, Chris Womersley
Fern's Farwell, Bronwyn Mehan
Farewell to the shade, Cheryl Rogers

And I have so far read only one of them, although I have one* marked down to read and another** on my shelves somewhere.

At the moment I must say I'm pretty underwhelmed by the list, particularly when I think of some of the books that could have been listed such as THE IRON HEART, Marshall Browne; THE WHITE TIGER, Aravind Atiga; MURDER ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT, Kerry Greenwood; DISCO FOR THE DEPARTED, Colin Cotterill; FAN MAIL, PD Martin; THE DARKEST HOUR, Katherine Howell; HARUM SCARUM, Felicity Young; and VOODOO DOLL, Leah Giarratano.

I'm puzzled too about why a "long list" was not issued as has been done in previous years.
The winners will be announced at Melbourne Writers' Festival at the end of this month, on Friday 28 August.

Ned Kelly Shortlist - how well did we do?

The Ned Kelly Shortlist was announced today.
Nearly 2 weeks ago, we tipped

Best Non-Fiction

KILLING JODIE, Janet Fife-Yeomans
but missed

• Red Centre, Dark Heart, Evan McHugh
• Underbelly: The Gangland War, John Silvester & Andrew Rule
  

Best First Fiction

THE LOW ROAD, Chris Womersley
but missed

• A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Toltz
• Golden Serpent, Mark Abernethy
  

Best Fiction

SHATTER, Michael Robotham
SUCKED IN, Shane Maloney
but missed

• Amongst The Dead, Robert Gott
• El Dorado, Dorothy Porter

The Ned Kelly Award winners will be announced at Melbourne Writers Festival on the night of Friday 29 August.

My money's on Michael Robotham!
Steve Toltz, A FRACTION OF THE WHOLE, has also been longlisted for the Man Booker prize.

Set in Thailand

It occurred to me, when I was reading Timothy Hallinan's A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, that I have read other books which relate to Thailand and even to similar themes.

So here they are. The third is an Australian author. You might like to suggest others

BLINDFOLD GAME by Dana Stabenow
Quite an exciting read. Two men involved in setting up a terrorist bomb in a tourist area in Thailand in late 2004 decide to explode a dirty bomb over Anchorage, Alaska. The US Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth protects the US waters in the Bering Strait and seems to be busier than usual. Sarah Lange, estranged wife of CIA Agent Hugh Rincon, is the Executive Officer of the the cutter. When Hugh hears rumours of the dirty bomb, he realises that Sara's boat is in the area which the bombers are targeting.
My rating 4.5

FATAL REMEDIES by Donna Leon
University lecturer Paola, Commissario Brunetti's wife, is a person of strong convictions. When she throws a rock through the front window of a Venetian travel agency in the middle of the night, not once but twice, because it arranges sex tours to Thailand, she gets not only herself into trouble but Brunetti as well. The owner of the travel agency's premises, who is also the owner of a pharmaceutical company, seems inordinately interested in having the matter hushed up, at the same time as making Paola pay damages. Brunetti's boss Vice-Questore Patta sends Brunetti home on "administrative leave" until the matters are resolved. And then the owner, Mitri, is discovered murdered, garrotted, and Brunetti is summoned back to work. Once again Leon has chosen, in this #8 in her 17 Brunetti titles, to not only provide the reader with a series of puzzles, but to highlight an issue of international concern, placing Venice on an international stage. Brunetti and Paola are wonderful characters as is Signora Elettra, Patta's secretary and computer sleuth.
My rating 4.6

BEHIND THE NIGHT BAZAAR by Angela Savage
Jayne Keeney, fluent in Thai language, is an Australian private investigator living in Bangkok. Her last investigation into a marital infidelity resulted in her being severely wounded and two weeks later, stitches out, she has arranged to visit her friend Didier de Montpasse living in Chiang Mai. Didier is gay and works on an HIV/AIDS awareness program. He and Jayne get on very well, drawn together by a love of crime fiction. Jayne and Didier go to meet someone in a gay bar behind the Night Bazaar in Chiang Mai. There Didier has an argument with his Thai lover who has a gambling problem. Later that night Nou, Didier’s lover, is discovered dead, in the bar, butchered and mutilated. Soon Didier is also dead, shot at home by the police who say he was attempting to escape arrest. Jayne is determined to prove Didier’s innocence and to find out who really killed Nou. The content of story seems to stem from Savage’s own experience in South East Asia when she worked for the Australian Red Cross in setting up an HIV/AIDS program in Bangkok. In some senses it presents a stereo-typed view of Thailand, particularly of Bangkok and Chang Mai, where the under-age sex industry seems to flourish, with Australians amongst those who feed it. On the other hand, there is an unmistakeable tone of authenticity, raising issues that we need to think about.
A Victorian Premier’s Literary Award Winner in 2004, shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Best First Crime Fiction in 2007
My rating 4.5