When we pick up a crime novel, we have expectations. Perhaps we anticipate that it will have a serious crime, or a memorable, possibly larger-than-life central character … or two or three. We may want high stakes, something surprising yet credible, or a story packed with rising conflict, making it powerful and urgent. But what …
Tea Cooper, the award-winning author of historical fiction, spoke from regional NSW to Sisters in Crime’s Vice-President, Robyn Walton, about her latest novel, The Cartographer’s Secret (HQ Fiction). Welcome to Sisters in Crime, Tea. Your historical novels have a big fan base. I thought keen consumers of mystery and crime who haven’t yet read you …
Not had enough of the beach over the holidays? Catch up with Sisters in Crime’s first event for 2021 with authors Belinda Alexandra, Sarah Thornton and Lisa Walker as they explore the appeal of salt-laced mysteries with Tara Mitchell. Click below to view the event on YouTube: Belinda Alexandra’s latest book, The Mystery Woman (HarperCollins Publishing), is set in …
Melbourne author A. M. Stuart spoke to Robyn Walton, Sisters in Crime Australia’s Vice-President, about her Harriet Gordon mystery series and the sources of her inspiration. Hi, A. M., and congratulations on your new historical crime series, published by Berkley Prime Crime, an imprint of Penguin Random House in New York. Some readers will already …
Fictional detectives find bodies in weird places: in trains, on cliffs, at bus stops, on altars, in kitchens, libraries, washed up on beaches, even in the guts of predators. The murder’s wider setting often surprises readers too. When detectives hunt criminals in exotic locations, the landscape can even become the star of the story. Just …
What a year it has been and what a solace (and diversion) reading – especially reading crime books – has proven. Now, oh joy, we can throw off our masks in most places and enjoy a holiday (or at least a small break) and, of course, more reading. Sisters in Crime asked convenors, author members, …
In a new series in The Conversation, writers pay tribute to fictional detectives on the page and on screen. Here Sisters in Crime’s Ambassador, Sue Turnbull, pays homage to Vera. Vera stands on a windswept headland contemplating the disgruntled North Sea. She’s clad in her usual garb; the battered hat, the annoying scarf and the tent-like …
A dramatic moment in modern history, crimes small and large, and an unusual narrative structure. Kirsten McKenzie talks about her latset book The Forger and the Thief.
This week’s Murder Mondays interview by Sisters in Crime’s national co-convenor, Karina Kilmore is with Astrid Scholte, the winner of the 2020 Davitt (Best Young Adult Crime Novel) for her debut novel, Four Dead Queens, (Allen & Unwin). (Click on the image below to go to the YouTube recording.) …
A few years ago I met Chris Cleave at a writers’ forum in Auckland. He had just published Everyone Brave is Forgiven and had opened the forum with a beautiful speech about the power of fiction in the age of hate. Sitting in the auditorium beside novelists Catherine Robertson and Vanda Symon, I felt like …