Davitt Awards 2026
Entries are now open for the 26th Annual Davitt Awards for the best Australian women’s crime and mystery books of 2025.
32nd Scarlet Stiletto Awards: Go wild in scarlet!
Sydney-based award-winning author Dinuka McKenzie will present Sisters in Crime’s 32nd Scarlet Stiletto Awards for best short stories, after first discussing her life in crime with award-winning author, Amanda Hampson.
How I ‘provoked good men’ with one question: Georgia Harper
What would women do if there were no men for a day? Georgia Harper once almost painted the question on her front fence. Then, she had a better idea and decided to write a thriller and had the protagonist, Dove, paint that question on the front wall of her permaculture farm on a tourist route . . .
The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron
When I read true crime, I often have to remind myself that this is a real person’s life. They lived and breathed, loved and were loved. This was not a problem in The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron. Vikki Petraitis never loses sight of the women. They are why she is writing and why she has doggedly pursued this case for decades. I’m grateful for the work that she has done and the grace with which she has done it.
Smother
Whilst on the surface, Smother is a legal thriller, it is way more than that. The book looks at relationships that come in all shapes and sizes and how we need to nurture these at all stages of life. This is a must-read – an enjoyable and thought-provoking story.
Like, Follow, Die
Like, Follow, Die was hard to put down. A thrilling exercise of dot connecting to work out who was responsible, and for what. I was mesmerised from the first page, but the climax was so intense, I couldn’t read quickly enough. I flew through the pages, my heart pounding, cooking dinner totally forgotten. I thoroughly recommend you read Like, Follow, Die, not just for an incredible crime story, but also as a reminder. Beware.
BOOKED OUT! 20th Law Week event. A is for Arsenic, D Is for Death Cap
Exploring the many dimensions of poison as the ‘women’s weapon’ will be Chloe Hooper, co-author
of The Mushroom Tapes; Linda Glowacki, toxicologist from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine & Angela Savage on Agatha Christie and poisons, and host Vikki Petraitis.
Peeling back the veneer of domestic contentment: Abby Corson
What do you do if you discover your beloved father is a serial killer? This is what
Georgie Baron-Ross explores with Melbourne author Abby Corson for this month’s Author Spotlight. Abby’s latest novel, Happy Woman. It features Gwynne Hogg — a ‘normal’ woman — whose life unravels as her father’s decades-old secrets surface and the media closes in.
A story of courage and hope from 1757: Christine Balint
Christine Balint began working on this novel in 2018 after finding a summary of the story in a book by American historian, Joanne Ferraro. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had just taken place. She could not believe that in 1757, a child had had the courage to speak out and she had been believed and her abuser convicted.
Win a copy of The Graduate
Simon & Schuster is generously donating twenty copies of The Graduate by Rebecca Lim for the Crime Stack for May. It’s Rebecca’s first adult crime novel, a razor-sharp revenge thriller that blows the whistle on the cutthroat world of corporate law. This is a special offer to Sisters in Crime members. Join now and be in the running for a complimentary paperback copy of The Graduate.
Melbourne Rare Book Week: Digging for Dirt – Criminal inspiration from the archives
Sisters in Crime and the Prahran Mechanics Institute are partnering to present a special Melbourne Rare Book Week event , Digging for Dirt – Criminal inspiration from the archives. Tara Oldfield and Lucy Sussex will be discussing the critical role that archival research plays in creating historical crime writing, both fiction and non-fiction.