2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards - Recap
I realise this is ridiculously, embarrassingly late, but better late than never right. The longlists were announced ages ago, as were the winners so a summary:
This listing shows posts that went onto AustCrimeFiction.org in the last 14 days. Sorted into post type groups - Blogs (Updates), Books, Reviews.
Newsletter and Last Fortnight Listing
Along with the RSS Feeds, there is now a newsletter option on AustCrimeFiction - the link to subscribe is down the bottom of the site, there won't be a lot of newsletters, basically I'll send one when there's been a reasonable number of new posts gone live.
Also, in order to provide a regular update on activities, there's now a single page:
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/last-fortnight-on-austcrime
An extraordinary new novel set in the world of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway
It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only for a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumor in Whitehall—unconfirmed and a little scandalous—that George Smiley might almost be happy.
Every now and then, when the planets align in just the right way, a book comes along that changes everything. An author sweats and toils to birth a tome with such colossal cultural impact, it has the power to retune the entire world to a whole new frequency. This is absolutely not one of those books. Not even close. And actually, that all sounds a bit much really, doesn’t it?
Melbourne, 1868. When dazzling theatre star Marie St Denis dies in the arms of her best friend, fellow actress Lola Sanchez, everyone believes it was suicide by laudanum overdose. Everyone except Lola. On the brink of stardom herself, she risks everything by embarking on a quest to find Marie's killer.
Detective Constable Angus MacVicar has just landed his dream job – transferred out of uniform and assigned to Oldcastle’s biggest ongoing murder Operation Telegram, hunting the 'Fortnight Killer'.
Every two weeks another couple is targeted. One victim is left at the scene, their corpse used as a twisted message board. The second body is never seen again.
In September 1985, nineteen-year-old John Lindqvist moved into a dilapidated old building in Stockholm, planning to make his living as a magician. Something strange was going on in the locked shower room in the building’s basement—and the price of entry was just a little blood.
I Always Find You is a horror story—as bizarre and macabre as any of Lindqvist’s earlier novels—but it’s also a melancholy meditation on being young and lonely, on making friends and growing up. It’s about magic, and the intensity of human connection—and the evil we carry inside.
An engrossing and provocative exploration of privilege, hypocrisy and justice by the bestselling author of The Cane.
Leah has a good life. She lives on The Drove, an inner-city cul-de-sac, with her husband Moses and their two children. She and her neighbours - the drovers - look out for each other. Theirs is a safe, community-oriented enclave and that's the way it's going to stay.
In a busy street market, Abbie lets go of six-year-old Sarah’s hand. She isn’t a bad mother, just exhausted. When she turns around, her daughter isn’t there.
Six years later, Abbie is in love and getting married. But her fragile peace is constantly not knowing what happened to Sarah is like living with a curse.
Then she receives a phone call from an unknown number.
A man claims to know what happened to Sarah, but if Abbie tells anyone or fails to follow his instructions, she’ll never find out. How far will Abbie go to know the truth?
People go to the isolated Karpathy farm looking for a new life - and are never seen again. A chilling thriller from the award-winning and bestselling author of Australian noir, Shelley Burr.
Lane Holland's crime-solving career ended the day he went to prison. With his parole hearing approaching, he faces the grim reality that an ex-con can never work as a private eye. Yet one unsolved case continues to haunt the disappearance of Matilda Carver two decades ago.
Ten years ago, six teenagers hiked into the Blue Mountains wilderness - and only five came out alive.
The survivors have barely seen each other since the tragic bushwalk. Yet when an invitation arrives to attend a 10-year memorial of their friend's death, Hugh, Charlotte, Alex, Laura and Jack find themselves travelling back into the rugged landscape where it all began.
The weekend at an isolated homestead in the bush - no phone signal, no distractions - should be a chance to reflect and reconnect.
Live streaming now! Trapdoor - Five go in, none come out.
Eva Kavinsky wakes in a dark cellar, with no memory of how she got here. Imprisoned with her, seemingly at random, are four men. The only way out is the trapdoor in the ceiling – and it's locked.
The single clue about what brings them all here is a cryptic message sprayed onto one wall. Connect the dots. Repent. A camera fixed high above reach is live streaming this whole nightmare to the world. What confessions are they meant to make to their unseen audience?
In Ostia, a depressed coastal settlement twenty miles from the powerful and corrupt city of Rome, a mighty local crime family, the Mafia, corrupt politicians, and new rabid criminal elements battle each other for a billion-dollar payoff.
Suburra will be released as a Netflix original series in 2017.
Port Brighton hates outsiders. The small coastal town has its own ways of dealing with the evil, the foolish, the misled, and it holds tightly to them. But the seams start to split after two deaths occur on the same tragic night: a baby abandoned at the foot of a lighthouse, and a drunken teenager drowned in the storming sea.
Livvy is an insider. She keeps a watchful eye on what's happening in town while looking out for her troubled older brother. What has broken inside him - and why?
In the autumn of 2016 a wave of suicides swept through Stockholm’s underworld…
Investigative journalist Tommy T’s star has faded since he was a fixture on Sweden’s talk-show circuit. His deep dive into the mysterious suicides—and the role of the elusive ‘X’ who seems to be behind everything—will be his ticket back to the top. And the trail is hot: it leads him first to a murdered friend and then to a huge batch of cocaine.
A heart-wrenching story about Sam, a 14-year-old girl from a struggling homeless family, who is already involved in petty crime. She must face her own fears and her sense of what is right, to defy a dangerous drug criminal, and rescue starving dogs and their pups from an inhumane backyard breeder.
Dish, Rhys Nicholson
Listened to this on audio and loved it. Rhys is one of my favourite comedians, love their honesty and openness, and willingness to talk about the things that make life complicated. Particularly appreciated the idea that somebody with an eating disorder would include recipes in a book like this. I mean I can't attempt any of the recipes personally, but they were there, and the instructions were perfect.
The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone, Gareth Ward & Louise Ward
“When we opened Sherlock Tomes people warned us that we’d made a terrible mistake. People warned us that e-readers were taking over. People warned us that we’d never compete with the evil Amazon. The one thing they didn’t warn us about was the murders…”
Introducing...the Bookshop Detectives!
Last One to Leave / Find Us, Benjamin Stevenson
Bit of explaining first - LAST ONE TO LEAVE and FIND US are available as stand-alone ebooks / novellas. They are also available together in printed form under the title FOOL ME TWICE. I read the two separate novellas, but will combine the review here.
Partners in Crime, Stuart MacBride
This is gathering together of two DI Steel short stories, one featuring DS Logan McRae (Stramash) and the other (DI Steel's Bad Heir Day) has her giving Constable Guthrie a day to remember.
Guilty By Definition
If everyone has a book hidden somewhere in them, it seems, these days, it's probably going to be a crime fiction book. It seems inevitable now that "celebrities" will show up at, touting their wares - some with considerably more success than others.
A Town Called Treachery, Mitch Jennings
There have been a number of Australian crime fiction books recently that are tackling the effects of poverty / deprivation / loss and family breakdown in small towns, on small boys in particular. A TOWN CALLED TREACHERY is following, successfully, in the footsteps of authors like Mark Brandi and Stephen Orr, all three of whom have delved deeply, and sympathetically into damage, and resilience.
The Mystery of the Crooked Man
This was one of those fortuitous pickups in the Audio section of the library's BorrowBox app. Probably based on the reference to Magpie Murders in the blurb, which was a TV series I thoroughly enjoyed. It might also be because of the description of the main protagonist:
What, John Cooper Clarke
I've said before that John Cooper Clarke is part of the soundtrack of my life, so any collection of his poetry, in particular, has to be read with his voice in my head. It works best when read by the author himself, but in the written form, it's easy to go back and back and back over the bits that just make you go, well well well.
WHAT is a new collection of work, a scathing, pointed and caustic grouping of subtle, and none-too-subtle commentaries on everything from celebrity, smooth operators (operetta's), necrophilia, anger, and yet more.
Cold Case Investigations, Dr Xanthe Mallett
Listened to the audio of this one, read by Casey Withoos, it's a rehash of a number of Australian cold cases, many of which will be instantly recognisable to local listeners / readers. Where this outing varies a little is in the way the author, Mallett, discusses the cases from a forensic anthropologist / criminologist viewpoint, which did provide some interesting insights.
We Are the Stars, Gina Chick
The subtitle of this book is "A misfit's story of love, connection and the glorious power of letting go" and if there was ever a statement that succinctly defines what's wrong with this world, it's that.
A Stroke of the Pen, Terry Pratchett
Far away and long ago, when dragons still existed and the only arcade game was ping-pong in black and white, a wizard cautiously entered a smoky tavern in the evil, ancient, foggy city of Morpork...
A truly unmissable, beautifully illustrated collection of unearthed stories from the pen of Sir Terry Pratchett: award-winning and bestselling author, and creator of the phenomenally successful Discworld series.