Saluting the Best Australia Offers

Earlier this year, the Australian Crime Writers Association received 149 entries to its 2021 Ned Kelly Awards competition, “almost double the entries of the previous year,” according to a press release. It has now announced the winners, in four categories.

Best Crime Fiction: Consolation, by Garry Disher (Text)

Also nominated: Gathering Dark, by Candice Fox (Penguin Random House); A Testament of Character, by Sulari Gentill (Pantera Press); The Survivors, by Jane Harper (Pan Macmillan); The Good Turn, by Dervla McTiernan (HarperCollins); Tell Me Lies, by J.P. Pomare (Hachette); When She Was Good, by Michael Robotham (Hachette); and White Throat, by Sarah Thornton (Text)

Best Debut Crime Fiction: The Second Son, by Loraine Peck (Text)

Also nominated: The Good Mother, by Rae Cairns (Bandrui); The Bluffs, by Kyle Perry (Penguin Random House); and The Night Whistler, by Greg Woodland (Text)

Best True Crime: Stalking Claremont: Inside the Hunt for a Serial Killer, by Bret Christian (HarperCollins)

Also nominated: The Husband Poisoner, by Tanya Bretherton (Hachette); Public Enemies, by Mark Dapin (Allen & Unwin); Hazelwood, by Tom Doig (Penguin Random House); and Witness, by Louise Milligan (Hachette)

Best International Crime Fiction: We Begin at the End, by Chris Whitaker (Allen & Unwin)

Also nominated: The Guest List, by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins); The Secrets of Strangers, by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin); Take Me Apart, by Sara Sligar (Text); and Broken, by Don Winslow (HarperCollins)

I’ve only read a smattering of these works, including Whitaker’s wonderful We Begin at the End. But McTiernan’s The Good Turn (due out in the States on August 31) is tucked into my to-be-read pile, and I have my eye on a couple more titles. It’s sometimes the case that I don’t know I really need a book until it receives award nominations. (Yes, even I can be swayed by public acclaim.)

Congratulations to all of this year’s contenders!