Carmel Shute 
For the May Crime Stack, Pantera Press has kindly offered 20 copies of After the Smoke Clears by Brisbane-based Kylie Kaden, the best-selling author of One of Us and The Day the Lies Began. A family. A small town. A lifetime of secrets. Would you tell your partner the worst thing you’ve ever done? To be in the running you need to be a member of Sisters in Crime. Why not join now?
Being a child Holocaust survivor from Poland where 63 of her relatives were murdered, Diane Armstrong is fascinated by the behaviour of ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances where their courage and resilience are tested to the limit. War brings out the worst but also the best in human nature. What qualities ensure that some people survive?
What’s the difference between a mystery book and a crime book? Is it that, unlike crime novels, mystery novels concern themselves less with a struggle between good and evil and more with the question of who committed a particular crime? Do crime writers often reveal their villain early in the story while mystery writers devote most of their real estate to cracking unsolved cases?
April’s guest is Vikki Petraitis, true crime queen turned international podcast sensation and award-winning crime fiction author. Vikki has a long association with crime, starting with The Phillip Island Murder in 1994. Since then, she has written another 17 true crime books, but last year, she crossed a genre line with her PhD novel, The Unbelieved, which won the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Award and was published in August to much acclaim.
Regional NSW author, Sarah Barrie, spoke to Maggie Baron for the April Author Spotlight, about what motivated her to write about child abuse and how she copes mentally and emotionally with such confronting material. The idea for Lexi came about while she was struggling with an admission from a very close friend of mine that she had been abused as a child.
Taking on the crime genre is intimidating. Not only do you get tangled in details, but how do you lay out the clues, red herrings and plot twists to make a satisfying story? I started plotting a whodunnit but lost interest halfway through. I’m not a plotter by nature. I decided to approach this the way I tackle any manuscript – by letting the tale unfold one page at a time.
Sisters in Crime Australia is again proud to join forces with the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre, Victoria University, to present its 17th Law Week event.
An expert panel, Elena Campbell, Ahona Guha, and Sherele Moody, chaired by Bronwyn Naylor will debate how to combat toxic masculinity and the violence perpetrated against women.
For the latest Murder Monday, Jacq Ellem spoke to author Tansy Rayner Roberts who crimes crime under her pen name Livia Day – they’re cozy, witty, and wickedly funny, Tasmanian murder mysteries. Her five crime novels include A Trifle Dead, Drowned Vanilla, Keep Calm and Kill the Chef, Dyed & Buried, and her most recent title, Drop Dead in Red which features scones, murder, and baby goats.
For the April Crime Stack, UQP has kindly offered 20 copies of Crows Nest, the debut novel of Toowoomba-based author, Nikki Mottram. The sleuth is a social worker working in child protection. To be in the running you need to be a member of Sisters in Crime. Why not join now?
The competition is open to books by all women, whether cisgender, transgender or intersex, who are citizens/residents of Australia. Self-published books are eligible. Please note that books co-written or co-edited with men or including chapters by men are not eligible.
Publishers have until Friday 7 April to enter. This year, for the first time in 23 years, the Davitts will cost publishers $25 a title to enter.