Law & Disorder

Lawyers have a rich tradition of dominating crime and legal fiction, heavily shaping the genre’s tropes and real-world understanding. Drawing on the tradition pioneered by Scott Turow, John Grisham, and Sujata Massey, are three Australian authors – Rebecca Lim, Joanna Jenkins, and Eve Thomson – whose investigations traverse top male-dominated law firms, an Art Deco apartment complex, and an elite school’s girls’ football team. They’ll be admitting all to host, Melbourne author, Lyn Yeowart.

The Graduate (Affirm Press), Rebecca Lim’s 2026 legal thriller, is promoted as “The Firm meets Girl with a Dragon Tattoo”. It centres on a new graduate at the prestigious EW+L Law Firm who doesn’t fit. She is softly spoken, covered in makeup, and Asian. What her colleagues don’t know is that Fei Fei Chou has got much bigger things on her mind than winning a job. She is there for revenge. On her hunt, she will wade into dark and shameful secrets that haunt not only her new employers but the whole of Australia. In her search for justice, Fei may have to risk her life.

Rebecca is a Melbourne writer, editor, and lawyer, and the author of over twenty books, including Tiger Daughter (a Kirkus, Amazon, and Booklist Best Book, CBCA Book of the Year, and Victorian Premier’s Literary Award-winner), Two Sparrowhawks in a Lonely Sky (NSW History Award-winner), and the bestselling Mercy. The Graduate is her first adult novel. More info here.

Brisbane-based Joanna Jenkins is the author of three novels with a legal twist – How to Kill a Client (2023), The Bluff (2025), and, in August, Bad Neighbours, all featuring lawyer Ruth Dawson. In Bad Neighbours (Allen & Unwin), Ruth has found her ideal living space in an Art Deco building in Potts Point, The Lumen. A twenty-minute walk from her law office in the city, the apartment boasts parquetry flooring, a wall of books, and Harbour Bridge views from the sofa. It’s perfect until Ben, the homeless guy, dies under the corrugated iron lean-to in the garden where he lived. Her fellow residents are not happy when Ruth brings in a detective. But she’s certain Ben was poisoned, and one of her neighbours knows it too.

After graduating from the University of Queensland with degrees in English Literature and Law, Joanna practised as a solicitor, including many years as a partner of an international law firm. She now writes full-time. More info here.

Eve Thomson’s Smother (Echo Publishing) is a legal thriller that combines Thomson’s courtroom expertise with the world of children’s competitive sports. It features lawyer Romola Cross, the protagonist from her debut novel, She Too (2023). The novel is set in a leafy Melbourne suburb’s private school, Bruce College, where a girls’ football program known for producing stars faces a crisis when a player sustains a catastrophic brain injury. 

Eve is a partner at a leading Australian law firm, where she’s a litigator, working on everything from class actions and media law to consumer protection. Eve lives at the beach in South Australia with her family. More info here.

Host Melbourne consulting writer and editor, Lyn Yeowart, is the author of two crime novels. Her debut, The Silent Listener (Penguin Books), won the 2022 Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction, was a finalist in the UK People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for three other national awards in Australia. The Hollow Girl, centred on a home for unmarried mothers deep in the Victorian countryside, came out last year.

Men or ‘brothers-in-law’ welcome.

Sun Bookshop stall: Sisters in Crime members receive a 10% discount

$55 – $65 Entry and dinner combined charge: $65 non-members, $60 concession, $57 Sisters in Crime and Writers Victoria members, $55 under 19. Tickets not sold prior to the event will be available at the door for $67/$62/$59/$57. Dinner orders need to be placed by 7:00 pm
Note: the panel starts at 8:00 pm

Additional information: Carmel Shute, Programming Coordinator, 0412 569 356; admin@sistersincrime.org.au