Charlie is sent to cover a ball held by socialites Lord & Lady Ashworth. When a prominent Parisian is found murdered in the grounds of the ball, Charlie seizes the opportunity to interview attendees hoping this will be the scoop that will prove to her boss that she can do this job.
Thursday 31 October 2024
Book Review: The Paris Mystery by Kirsty Manning
Charlie is sent to cover a ball held by socialites Lord & Lady Ashworth. When a prominent Parisian is found murdered in the grounds of the ball, Charlie seizes the opportunity to interview attendees hoping this will be the scoop that will prove to her boss that she can do this job.
Tuesday 29 October 2024
Book Review: Murder of a Suffragette by Marty Wingate
I enjoyed this cosy murder mystery set in the 1920’s and around a meeting of suffragettes.
Saturday 26 October 2024
Book Review: Can't Buy Me Love by Jane Lovering
Can't Buy Me Love is such a fun story! Jane Lovering has given her readers characters to love and characters to hate.
Friday 25 October 2024
Book Review: Head for the Hills by Tricia Stringer
Monday 21 October 2024
Book Review: Shadow Lives by Neil A White
What starts out as an exclusive interview with a Russian Billionaire soon turns into a story of spys, human trafficking, rape, abuse, political intrigue and corruption.
Book Review: Prize Catch by Alan Carter
Prize Catch is rich in suspense and although I found the beginning slow the pace soon picked up and I became totally immersed in the story.
I liked that it was set during the early days of Covid lockdowns which made an isolated Tasmania the perfect setting for a manhunt.
Friday 18 October 2024
Book Review: Shadow City by Natalie Conyer
Veteran Detective Schalk Lourens, disillusioned with life, and suspended from duty pending an ongoing inquiry, decides to visit his daughter in Australia. A friend asks him if he can look into the disappearance of a young South African woman who went to Australia a few months ago on a scholarship. Schalk is then introduced to Jackie and her team in Homicide.
Tuesday 15 October 2024
Book Review: The Medusa Situation by Gabiann Marin
Medusa's head has been stolen and her sisters ask Hera for help to find who stole it. What follows is a hilarious romp through different realms uncovering the regrets, animosity and squabbles of the top echelons of Greek gods.
Saturday 28 September 2024
Book Review: The Leaves by Jacqueline Rule
The Leaves
by
Jacqueline Rule
Review: The Leaves
Friday 27 September 2024
Book Review: The Seachangers by Meredith Appleyard
The Seachangers
by
Meredith Appleyard
Review: The Seachangers
Book Review: The Venice Hotel by Tess Woods
The Venice Hotel
by
Tess Woods
Review: The Venice Hotel
Saturday 14 September 2024
Book Review: The Hidden Girl by Lucinda Riley
The Hidden Girl
by
Lucinda Riley
Review: The Hidden Girl
Wednesday 11 September 2024
Book Review: Murder by Milkshake by Elizabeth Maria Naranjo
Murder by Milkshake
by
Elizabeth Maria Naranjo
Review: Murder by Milkshake
Tuesday 10 September 2024
Book Review: All You Took From Me by Lisa Kenway
All You Took From Me
by
Lisa Kenway
Review: All You Took From Me
Book Review: Codename Parsifal by Martin Roy Hill
Codename Parsifal
by
Martin Roy Hill
Review: Codename Parsifal
Saturday 7 September 2024
Sisters in Crime’s 24th Davitt Awards winners announced!!
Ruth Wykes, the judges’ coordinator, said that there had been a seismic shift with debut books.
“Increasingly, debut books are polished and sophisticated. There is nothing at all amateurish about them,” she said.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS!
Monica Vuu was born in Langley, British Columbia, and moved to Tasmania in 2019 with her Australian partner. When One of Us Hurts came out of a 90-day novel writing course and Vuu says it was inspired by the remoteness of rural Tasmania.
The judges said that it “takes courage to write a story like When One of Us Hurts and to portray a small, tight-knit community in a way that is at times familiar to readers of crime fiction, and at other times it’s uncomfortably confronting. Richly gothic at heart and fuelled by a multitude of masterful misdirects, When One of Us Hurts is a chilling foray into simmering small-town secrets, family tensions, and mental illness.”Eleanor Jones Is Not a Murderer, the YA-winning novel by Amy Doak, features Eleanor, the new girl at high school, who is falsely accused of stabbing another student and sets out to clear her name. The judges “all connected with Eleanor and loved her banter with the reader throughout the book. She was such a terrific character: bolshie and cynical, yet secretly vulnerable”. The sequel, Eleanor Jones Can’t Keep a Secret, was released in July.
Justice and the voices of women were at the heart of Rebecca Hazel’s Non-Fiction winner –The Schoolgirl, Her Teacher and His Wife. The judges reported, “This book focuses on ‘The Schoolgirl’ JC and Lynette Simms, the victims of Chris Dawson, now convicted of the murder of his first wife Lynn. Without Hazel’s curiosity and groundwork – conversations with JC when they worked together at a women’s refuge – Dawson would never have come to account for his crimes.
The prospect of turning 60 prompted Christine Keighery (who also writes as Chrissie Perry) to try her hand at an adult novel. She is the author of more than thirty-five novels for children and Young Adults, including 13 books in the hugely successful Go Girl! Series. Her work has been published in ten countries, including the US, UK, Spain, Brazil, Slovenia, and Korea.
The judges were thoroughly entertained and impressed by Lucinda Gifford’s children’s book, Boris in Switzerland, “an original take on the traditional boarding school mystery with the addition of an endearing family of anthropomorphic wolves. With witty, expressive illustrations on almost every page, it is jam-packed with the talent, passion, and esteem for readership of author-illustrator Lucinda Gifford."
Gifford said that as a life-long lover of mysteries and elaborate literary twists, she had been plotting for years to ‘move into crime’.Alison Goodman is the author of eight novels including her latest release The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies which was a Washington Post and an Amazon Best Mystery Book of 2023. Set in the Regency era, its sleuths are two clever older women solving crimes by using skills and knowledge they have developed through their lives.
The 2024 Davitt Awards were again supported by the Swinburne University of Technology
The Davitts are named after Ellen Davitt, the author of Australia’s first mystery novel, Force and Fraud, in 1865. The awards are handsome wooden trophies featuring the front cover of the winning novel under perspex. No prize money is attached.