For the October Murder, Monday Sisters in Crime’s Jacq Ellem spoke to award-winning Sydney author, Natalie Conyer.
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Natalie was born and grew up in Cape Town, but has lived in Sydney for many years.
She is a crime fiction tragic, so much so that she did a doctorate in it. Her first novel, Present Tense, won the 2020 Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Fiction. It was shortlisted for the Davitt Awards in both debut and general sections, and voted one of the books of the year by The Australian. It’s set in South Africa and starts with retired police chief Piet Pieterse who has been ‘necklaced’ in an apartheid-style execution. Veteran cop Schalk Lourens is trying to forget the past but Pieterse was his old boss, and Schalk finds the past has a way of infecting the present.
Its sequel, Shadow City, was released in September by Echo and is mostly set in Sydney.
Natalie’s short stories have won many prizes in the annual Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Competition. They have featured in anthologies, and a collection of her short stories will be published in 2024.
More info here.
Murder Monday interviews are available on Sisters in Crime’s YouTube channel at 6 pm once a month on a Monday.