At a fantastic night out and ceremony last night the Sisters in Crime 2009 Davitt Award winners were announced, wined, dined, feted and photographed.
The nights festivities were highlighted by a chat between Sue Turnbull and Justice Elizabeth King of the Supreme Court of Victoria, some fabulous food and 130+ Sisters in Crime and Brothers in Law turning out on a cold Melbourne night to celebrate some absolutely fantastic authors and books.
But without further ado - the winners of the categories in the order they were announced:
TRUE CRIME
Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man (Penguin Books Australia)
YOUNG ADULT
Catherine Jinks, Genius Squad (Allen & Unwin)
ADULT FICTION
Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die (PanMacmillan)
READERS CHOICE
Katherine Howell, The Darkest Hour (PanMacmillan)
Malla wasn't in Australia but luckily the organisers were able to get hold of her on the telephone and by a minor miracle the holding of a microphone up to a mobile telephone meant we were able to hear from Malla and to be utterly frank - her acceptance could bring a tear to the eye of even the most hearted hearted crime fiction fan. (But the photograph of the lovely head of publicity at Malla's publisher holding the trophy aloft, with the Mobile phone for the author photograph will be a priceless one).
Fabulous night, fabulous books and as a topper - we won one of the raffle prizes so that was a copy of all the prizewinning books!
The full list of nominees in case anybody wants to do what I've been doing - and ensuring you catch up with all the nominated books:
ADULT NOVELS
- Diane Armstrong, Nocturne ( HarperCollins)
- Sydney Bauer, Alibi (PanMacmillan)
- Robin Bowles, The Mystery of the Missing Masterpiece (The Five Mile Press)
- Helen Denkha, Many Happy Returns (Zeus Publications)
- Leah Giarratano, Voodoo Doll (Random House)
- Kerry Greenwood, Murder on a Midsummer Night (Allen & Unwin)
- Marion Halligan, Murder on the Apricot Coast (Allen & Unwin)
- Katherine Howell, The Darkest Hour (PanMacmillan)
- Catherine Jinks, The Dark Mountain (Allen & Unwin)
- Vivienne Kelly, Cooee (Scribe Publications)
- T J Joyce, Hotel of Secrets (Exisle Publishing)
- P D Martin, Fan Mail (PanMacmillan)
- Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden (Allen & Unwin)
- Camilla Noli, Still Waters (Hachette Livre)
- Malla Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die (PanMacmillan)
- Alex Palmer, The Tattooed Man (HarperCollins)
- Bronwyn Parry, As Darkness Falls (Hachette Livre)
- Caroline Petit, Deep Night Soho Press, New York)
- Maria Simms, The Dead House (Gibbes Street)
- Felicity Young, Harum Scarum (Fremantle Arts Press)
YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
- Catherine Jinks, Genius Squad (Allen & Unwin)
- Sophie Masson, The Case of the Diamond Shadow (ABC Books (Harper Collins)
- Maureen McCarthy, Somebody’s Crying (Allen & Unwin)
- Isabelle Merlin, Three Wishes (Random House)
- Beth Montgomery, Murderer’s Thumb (Text)
- Felicity Pulman, Willows for Weeping (Random House)
- Moya Symons, The Walk Right In Detective Agency: High Crime in Milk Bay (Walker Books)
TRUE CRIME
- Carol Baxter, Breaking the Bank: An Extraordinary Colonial Robbery (Allen & Unwin)
- Lindy Cameron, ed., Outside the Law 2 (The Five Mile Press)
- Lindy Cameron & Fin J Ross, Killer in the Family: Over Twenty Chilling Accounts of Domestic Tragedy (The Five Mile Press)
- Lisa Clifford, Death in the Mountains: The True Story of a Tuscan Murder (PanMacmillan)
- Kay Danes, Families Behind Bars (New Holland Publishers)
- Judith Fordham, Life, Law and Not Enough (New Holland Publishers)
- Chloe Hooper, The Tall Man (Penguin Books Australia)
- Rochelle Jackson, Inside Their Minds: Australian Criminals (Allen & Unwin)
- Anne Lovell, Connie's Secret: The True Story of a Shocking Murder and a Family Mystery at a Time When Appearances Were Everything (Allen & Unwin)
- Camilla Nelson, Crooked (Random House)
- Vicki Petraitis, Crime Scene Investigations: More Stories from the Australian Police Files (The Five Mile Press)
This is the story of Palm Island, the tropical paradise where one morning Cameron Doomadgee swore at a policeman and forty minutes later lay dead in a watch-house cell.
When Captain Willem Pretorius, an Afrikaner police officer, is brutually murdered in the tiny backwater of Jacob's Rest, Detective Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate.
The local Afrikaners and the dead man's prominent family view Cooper, an 'English', South African, with suspicion. Soon, the powerful police Security Branch take over the investigation.
Paramedic Lauren Yates stumbles into a world of trouble the night she discovers a killer and his victim in an inner Sydney alley. When the killer threatens to make her life hell if she tells the police what she’s seen, she believes him – he’s Miles Werner, her sister’s violent ex, father to Lauren’s niece, and not a man to cross.
But when another victim of a stabbing reveals to Lauren with his dying breath that Werner attacked him, too, she finds herself with blood on her hands and Detective Ella Marconi on her back. Ella is keen to cement her temporary placement in the homicide squad and views Lauren as the perfect witness for this latest murder because she can testify to the victim’s last words.
Ella soon realises Lauren is hiding something, however, and while her colleagues label her suspicion an obsession, she begins her own investigation. But the harder Ella pushes, the more Lauren resists, and the worse the threat from Werner becomes, putting them both in increasingly serious jeopardy.