DAVITT AWARDS SHORTLISTS: Sisters in Crime Australia

Sisters in Crime Australia announced the shortlist for the Davitt Awards, named for Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), Australia’s first crime novelist, who wrote Australia's first mystery novel, Force and Fraud (1865).

Adult Crime Novels
Bruny, Heather Rose (Allen & Unwin)
Eight Lives, Susan Hurley (Affirm Press) Debut
Life Before, Carmel Reilly (Allen & Unwin) Debut
Present Tense, Natalie Conyer (Clan Destine Press) Debut
The Scholar, Dervla McTiernan (HarperCollins Australia)
Six Minutes, Petronella McGovern (Allen & Unwin) Debut
The Trespassers, Meg Mundell (University of Queensland Press) Debut

Young Adult Crime Novels
All That Impossible Space, Anna Morgan (Lothian Children’s Books, a Hachette Australia imprint) Debut
Four Dead Queens, Astrid Scholte (Allen & Unwin) Debut
When the Ground is Hard, Malla Nunn (Allen & Unwin)

Children’s Crime Novels
The Girl in the Mirror, Jenny Blackford (Eagle Books, an imprint of Christmas Press) Debut
The Girl, the Dog and the Writer in Lucerne, Katrina Nannestad (The Girl, the Dog and the Writer #3, ABC Books, a HarperCollins Australia imprint)
Jinxed!: The curious curse of Cora Bell, Rebecca McRitchie (Jinxed #1, HarperCollins Australia)
Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery, Renée Treml (Allen & Unwin) Debut

Non-fiction Crime Books
Banking Bad: Whistleblowers. Corporate cover-ups. One journalist’s fight for the truth, Adele Ferguson
(ABC Books, ABC Books, a HarperCollins Australia imprint) Debut
Fallen: The inside story of the secret trial and conviction of Cardinal George Pell, Lucie Morris-Marr (Allen & Unwin) Debut
Fixed It: Violence and the representation of women in the media, Jane Gilmore (Viking, an imprint
of Penguin Random House Australia)
See What You Made Me Do: Power, control and domestic abuse, Jess Hill (Black Inc.) Debut
Troll Hunting: Inside the world of online hate and its human fallout, Ginger Gorman (Hardie Grant
Books) Debut

Debut crime books
Banking Bad: Whistleblowers. Corporate cover-ups. One journalist’s fight for the truth, Adele Ferguson (ABC Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Australia)
Bee and the Orange Tree, The, Melissa Ashley (Affirm Press)
Drover’s Wife, The, Leah Purcell (Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Random House Australia)
Eight Lives, Susan Hurley (Affirm Press)
Four Dead Queens, Astrid Scholte (Allen & Unwin)
Life Before, Carmel Reilly (Allen & Unwin)
Present Tense, Natalie Conyer (Clan Destine Press)
Six Minutes, Petronella McGovern (Allen & Unwin)
Troll Hunting: Inside the world of online hate and its human fallout, Ginger Gorman (Hardie Grant Books)

The Davitt Award ceremony will be conducted by Zoom this year. A new trophy is being designed to mark the 20^th anniversary of the awards.

 HT: The Rap Sheet