2014-Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Fiction
The Ned Kelly Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious prizes honouring our crime fiction and true crime writing. The winners were announced Saturday, 6 September at the Brisbane Writer's Festival. And the winners are:
Best Crime Novel
A Catholic cop tracks an IRA master bomber amidst the sectarian violence of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
The early 1980s. Belfast. Sean Duffy, a conflicted Catholic cop in the Protestant RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), is recruited by MI5 to hunt down Dermot McCann, an IRA master bomber who has made a daring escape from the notorious Maze Prison. In the course of his investigations Sean discovers a woman who may hold the key to Dermot’s whereabouts; she herself wants justice for her daughter who died in mysterious circumstances in a pub locked from the inside. Sean knows that if he can crack the "locked room mystery," the bigger mystery of Dermot’s whereabouts might be revealed to him as a reward. Meanwhile the clock is ticking down to the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton in 1984, where Mrs. Thatcher is due to give a keynote speech....
Best First Fiction
Hades by Candice Fox
A dark, compelling and original thriller that will have you spellbound from its atmospheric opening pages to its shocking climax. Hades is the debut of a stunning new talent in crime fiction.
Hades Archer surrounds himself with the things others leave behind. Their trash becomes the twisted sculptures that line his junkyard. The bodies they want disposed of become his problem – for a fee.
Then one night a man arrives on his doorstep, clutching a small bundle that he wants ‘lost'. And Hades makes a decision that will change everything...
Twenty years later, homicide detective Frank Bennett feels like the luckiest man on the force when he meets his new partner, the dark and beautiful Eden Archer. But there's something strange about Eden and her brother, Eric. Something he can't quite put his finger on.
At first, as they race to catch a very different kind of serial killer, his partner's sharp instincts come in handy. But soon Frank's wondering if she's as dangerous as the man they hunt.
Hades Archer surrounds himself with the things others leave behind. Their trash becomes the twisted sculptures that line his junkyard. The bodies they want disposed of become his problem – for a fee.
Then one night a man arrives on his doorstep, clutching a small bundle that he wants ‘lost'. And Hades makes a decision that will change everything...
Twenty years later, homicide detective Frank Bennett feels like the luckiest man on the force when he meets his new partner, the dark and beautiful Eden Archer. But there's something strange about Eden and her brother, Eric. Something he can't quite put his finger on.
At first, as they race to catch a very different kind of serial killer, his partner's sharp instincts come in handy. But soon Frank's wondering if she's as dangerous as the man they hunt.
Best True Crime Award
When filming his TV series Race Relations, John Safran spent an uneasy couple of days with one of Mississippi's most notorious white supremacists. A year later, he heard that the man had been murdered – and what was more, the killer was black.
At first the murder seemed a twist on the old Deep South race crimes. But then more news rolled in. Maybe it was a dispute over money, or most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly gay, with a thing for black men? Did Safran have the last footage of him alive? Could this be the story of a lifetime? Seizing his Truman Capote moment, he jumped on a plane to cover the trial.
Over six months, Safran got deeper and deeper into the South, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder – white separatists, black campaigners, lawyers, investigators, neighbours, even the killer himself. And the more he talked with them, the less simple the crime, and the world, seemed.
Murder in Mississippi is a brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Taking us places only he can, Safran paints an engrossing, revealing portrait of a dead man, his murderer, the place they lived and the process of trying to find out the truth about anything.
At first the murder seemed a twist on the old Deep South race crimes. But then more news rolled in. Maybe it was a dispute over money, or most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly gay, with a thing for black men? Did Safran have the last footage of him alive? Could this be the story of a lifetime? Seizing his Truman Capote moment, he jumped on a plane to cover the trial.
Over six months, Safran got deeper and deeper into the South, becoming entwined in the lives of those connected with the murder – white separatists, black campaigners, lawyers, investigators, neighbours, even the killer himself. And the more he talked with them, the less simple the crime, and the world, seemed.
Murder in Mississippi is a brilliantly innovative true-crime story. Taking us places only he can, Safran paints an engrossing, revealing portrait of a dead man, his murderer, the place they lived and the process of trying to find out the truth about anything.
Sandra Harvey Award
Web Design by Emma Viskic
Shortlists:
In the morning I'll be gone by Adrian McKinty,
Beams Falling by P.M. Newton
One boy missing by Stephen Orr
The dying beach by Angela Savage
Beams Falling by P.M. Newton
One boy missing by Stephen Orr
The dying beach by Angela Savage
2014 Best First Crime Novel
Dead cat bounce by Peter Cotton
2014 Best True Crime
Disgraced? The cop at the centre of the Melbourne gangland wars by Paul Dale
Forever nine:The untold story of Bondi's missing schoolgirl by John Kidman & Denise Hofman
No Mercy: True stories of disaster, survival and brutality by Eleanor Learmonth & Jenny Tabakoff
JFK: The smoking gun by Colin McLaren
Outlaw bikers in Australia :The real story by Duncan McNab
Murder in Mississippi by John Safran
Forever nine:The untold story of Bondi's missing schoolgirl by John Kidman & Denise Hofman
No Mercy: True stories of disaster, survival and brutality by Eleanor Learmonth & Jenny Tabakoff
JFK: The smoking gun by Colin McLaren
Outlaw bikers in Australia :The real story by Duncan McNab
Murder in Mississippi by John Safran
