Debut books triumphed at Sisters in Crime’s 24th Davitt Awards for best
women’s crime and mystery books held on 31 August 2024.
Four of the six winning crime and mystery books were first-time forays into the genre.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.
Wykes
said that judging the Davitts gives you “a front-row seat to the
wonderful entertainment that is Australian women’s crime stories. This
year, we travelled the world through the pages of 153 books: from an
isolated house in Tasmania, to a road trip to the Kakadu National Park
and all the way to a posh boarding school in Switzerland; and a hundred
places along the way. We met some rather colourful characters; some who
made us laugh out loud, others who left us in tears. And we had moments
where we were secretly rooting for the bad guy,” she said.
“This
year’s themes seemed darker than last year. There were several stories
that revolved around close family dramas, many that sadly reflected the
darker, more hidden side of real-life Australia. Family violence and
dysfunction, or long-buried secrets were the basis for many stories.
Several authors wove their stories around mental health issues, a theme
that has been taboo; deliberately avoided or watered down for many
years. But this is perhaps a realistic reflection of the impact of COVID
and those life-changing lockdowns we experienced in 2020. Our worlds
changed, and so did the worlds of our storytellers.”
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS!
BEST ADULT NOVEL
When One of Us Hurts by Monica Vuu
Pan Macmillan Australia
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.”
BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
Eleanor Jones is Not a Murderer by Amy Doak
Penguin Random House Australia
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.
BEST NON-FICTION BOOK
The Schoolgirl , Her Teacher and His Wife by Rebecca Hazel
Vintage Press
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.
Rebecca Hazel spent more than a decade researching this compelling case. She hit roadblock after roadblock, yet never gave up."
DEBUT AWARD
The Half Brother by Christine Keighery
Ultimo Press
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 described The Half Brother as “a gripping story set in
modern Australia, full of psychological suspense, gaslighting, new
developments, and a well-handled final section that we didn’t see
coming. The quality of her characters, the joys of her twisting plot,
her control of pacing and pay-off merited this award.”
BEST CHILDREN"S NOVEL
Boris in Switzerland by Lucinda Gifford
Walker Books Australia
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’.
READER'S CHOICE AWARD
The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman
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.
“Lady
Gus and Lady Julia were born from my own desire to read stories about
older women having adventures,” Goodman said. “For me, this is a
particularly sweet win — voted by readers from the Sisters in Crime
membership. You, the readers, are why we plot and write and rewrite. You
are why we strive to create the delight, whether that delight be the
comfort of a cosy crime or the terror of a thriller or the fascination
of a police procedural.”
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.
