Karen from AustCrime's Blog (430)

2008 Ned Kelly Awards Shortlist

There's a rumour going around (and I haven't been able to confirm this list via the Ned Kelly's own website, but the short list may have arrived!) ** means I've read it!

Best First Fiction:

Golden Serpent, Mark Abernethy **

A Fraction Of The Whole, Steve Toltz

The Low Road, Chris Womersley **

Best Fiction:

Sucked In, Shane Maloney **

Amongst The Dead, Robert Gott **

El Dorado, Dorothy Porter **

Shatter, Michael Robotham **

Best… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 30, 2008 at 10:30am — 3 Comments

Win a copy of Blood Sunset by Jarad Henry - finishes this week

Just a quick reminder - if you like police procedurals and you'd like to try this second book (doesn't matter if you haven't read the first) from new local author Jarad Henry - then the competition will be drawn tomorrow, my time. Make sure you've got your entry in (no geographical restrictions again):

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4705

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 24, 2008 at 9:13am — No Comments

Slightly OT - Valentine's Day on ABC TV

Valentine's Day screened on Sunday night and we happily sat down and watched it.

Quite an achievement for a TV show as normally anything that even mentions "footy" will drive me into a coma in a nanosecond, but the show was really engaging and luckily talked about a lot more than the dreaded "footy". In fact Sunnie reminded me in an email last night that many of the issues raised were very very similar to those in The Broken Shore - not identical obviously, but similar.

If… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 8, 2008 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

Rank the Ned Kelly Long List

For a sheer bit of fun - have a go at ranking the Ned Kelly Longlist. Once the CWA release the short list we'll have another go at picking the winners like we did last year (when we had a 100% success rate I might add!)

Best First Fiction

Best Fiction

Best True Crime

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 5, 2008 at 5:45pm — 5 Comments

Read in June

Recently a few of us have been working on catching up with reading all the books on the longlist of nominees for the 2008 Ned Kelly's. So I managed to catch up with a couple of them this month, but I also managed a few other good books. (The Neds are marked with **)

Dreamland, Tom Gilling

My Rating: Fascinating concept

Full Review at: http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4634

First crime novel from a local author - When Nick Carmody agrees to take the fall… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 3, 2008 at 8:25pm — No Comments

Win a copy of Blood Sunset by Jarad Henry

We're going with another book competition - this time it's the 2nd in a new police procedural series by Jarad Henry (the book stands alone so don't stress if you haven't read the first). Open again to all geographical locations, we're drawing this one on the 25th of July.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4705

Added by Karen from AustCrime on July 2, 2008 at 11:27am — No Comments

Genre Flash 2 is out

Melbourne Sisters in Crime have just released Genre Flash 2 - an updated list of current releases and books from local Sisters (and Brothers in Law) authors.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4696

Will point you to the list. There's some great new books listed in this Genre Flash so make sure you check out what's happening here.

Added by Karen from AustCrime on June 30, 2008 at 1:44pm — No Comments

Winner - win a copy of Redback by Lindy Cameron

Firstly, thank you to everybody who took the time to enter our competition. The response was fantastic and we've really been encouraged to go again, so another great local book will be offered in July - stand by for an announcement on that.

In the meantime, we're really happy to announce that the winner of Redback is Pat Reid, from Kansas in the USA. Congratulations Pat - we hope you enjoy the book. Do please, let us know what you think.

Added by Karen from AustCrime on June 20, 2008 at 1:35pm — No Comments

Win a copy of Redback - final week

Just a quick reminder - we're drawing the competition winner on Friday the 20th - so make sure you've put your hat into the ring (so to speak)

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4624

Added by Karen from AustCrime on June 16, 2008 at 11:46am — No Comments

Competition to win a copy of Redback by Lindy Cameron

We're having a go at a little competition - no geographical restrictions on this one so please feel free to enter if you'd like to try a thriller style book from an Australian Author:

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4624

Added by Karen from AustCrime on June 2, 2008 at 2:45pm — No Comments

Review - What Burns Within, Sandra Ruttan

While I'm at it - I've just had the pleasure of posting a review of Sandra Ruttan's terrific new book:

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4529

Added by Karen from AustCrime on May 5, 2008 at 10:58pm — No Comments

Review - Blood Sunset, Jarad Henry

I haven't been posting reviews here recently - as I've been RSS feeding my blog in instead, but every now and again a book comes along that you want to let people know about - and Blood Sunset's definitely it!

The Synopsis of the book starts:

When the sun lowers itself into the bay and leaves the sky over St Kilda a dark crimson, it's beautiful and threatening at the same time. But the tourists don't see it that way. They only see the pretty colours and the calm water, the… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on May 5, 2008 at 7:06pm — No Comments

Australian Writers - Become a Crime Writer!

Now this is the sort of news that makes the despairing Australian Crime Fiction fan do happy dances in the kitchen first thing in the morning!

Penguin Australia (bless their little cotton socks) have started a competition to find a new Australian voice in the commercial crime and thriller market.

"I've been a London editor for 13 years now, specialising in the crime-thrillers genre, and it really is saturated with US and UK authors," says Beverley Cousins, editorial… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on April 19, 2008 at 12:19pm — No Comments

Favourite Aust/NZ Books - Non-Scientific Poll

Just for a bit of fun (and to avoid doing what I should have been doing yesterday), we've set up a little poll on AustCrime that lets you tick the local Australian and New Zealand books that you've enjoyed reading recently. If you haven't read any of them - use it as a suggestion list instead :)

You can also add your own choices if there's been a favourite book you liked that we didn't include:…

Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on April 13, 2008 at 11:17am — 1 Comment

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshots - this round finishes - stand by for more

Well, we've run through the list - you can see the full list of interviewees now at:

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/

AustCrime finished off by asking the 6 people who post reviews on the site the (sort of) same questions as we asked of the authors. Please wander over to see those interviews as it's really fascinating to see what readers think / particularly about the hoary chestnut of promotion.

There's also a… Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on March 12, 2008 at 10:24am — No Comments

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshots - 22 interviews and more to come

We're up to 21 interviews, spread across 3 blogs now with a day and half to go - make sure you check out what so many of our authors are saying / doing:

http://www.austcrimefiction.org will point you to the other blogs as well

Added by Karen from AustCrime on March 6, 2008 at 12:48pm — No Comments

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshots - Underway

Just a quick reminder for anybody who is interested - we've kicked off the Snapshot interviews this morning with:

PD Martin
Adrian Hyland
Marshall Browne
Lucy Sussex
Matthew Freeman

more to come later today / rest of the week.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org

will point you to all the articles on the 3 participating sites.

Added by Karen from AustCrime on March 3, 2008 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Introduction

For the week starting 3rd of March 3 Australian book blogs will be running a large number of short and sharp "interviews" with Australian Crime fiction authors. For the full details / an introductory post you can catch up at:

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/

and…

Continue

Added by Karen from AustCrime on February 29, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Review - Stalked, Brian Freeman

STALKED is the third Jonathan Stride novel. Set in Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota Stride finds himself investigating his own. His long-term work partner Maggie is in her house, asleep in bed, when her husband - downstairs, on the couch, is shot with her gun. Full review at:

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/3978

Added by Karen from AustCrime on February 20, 2008 at 12:35pm — No Comments

Review - A Quiet Belief in Angels, R J Ellory

This is a different sort of crime fiction book - with an ongoing series of murders as a (for want of a better way to describe this) a backdrop to the central character's life. Slow, moving and fascinating. Full review at:

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/3968

Added by Karen from AustCrime on February 19, 2008 at 4:00pm — No Comments