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The Ned Kelly Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious awards honouring Aussie writers of crime fiction!
The categories span from Best Crime Fiction, Best Debut Crime Fiction, Best True Crime and Best International Crime Fiction.
In this post we’ll break down all the winners of Best Crime Fiction from 1996 through to 2023!
This list should sort you out for top-shelf Aussie Crime reads until we roll-call the 2024 shortlist in August 2024, with winners decided in September!
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We encourage you to always source books from your local independent bookshop. However, we understand this is sometimes not practical based on location or budget.
Therefore, this post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means, if you click on the link and purchase the book from that link, I get a few dollars at no extra cost to you! This way we can both stock up on Aussie fiction! 😀
Happy Reading, Friends!
Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"Inside Dope" Book Blurb:
After getting out of a Thai jail, Duane Ricketts had planned to stay away from drugs, but instead, following the last request of a dying man, he finds himself looking for 10 kilos of cocaine, during which time he comes across a body, and gains the unwanted interest of the Auckland police.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in ‘The Brock and Kolla Mysteries’.
"The Malcontenta" Book Blurb:
Kathy is on temporary assignment away from London with the Family and Juvenile Crime division. Desperate to escape the second-rate duties assigned to her, she jumps at the chance to investigate the unnatural death of a young physiotherapist at an exclusive local naturopathic spa. Very soon it becomes clear that the apparent suicide is fraught with complications. Is a cover-up taking place to protect the reputations of wealthy clients? Or was the cause of death really suicide? Taken off the case before she has the chance to discover the truth, Kathy turns to Brock for help. But when Brock poses as a client, they both learn that spas are not always good for your health—especially if you’re a target for murder.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in the ‘Murray Whelan Thriller’ series.
"The Brush-Off" Book Blurb:
When the body of an artist is fished from the moat outside the National Gallery, Murray—political minder, brushed-off lover and art buff on the make—goes looking for the big picture. If he can put the fix in, he might have a chance of staying employed. The second adventure in Shane Maloney’s series brilliantly mixes high art with low blows.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"Amaze Your Friends" Book Blurb:
SYDNEY, 1959. Billy Glasheen is flogging mailorder schemes out of a seedy back room in Chinatown. Want to play guitar in 14 days? Learn Italian in your spare time? Win big with an infallible betting system? Master the love secrets of the ancients? Bill’s your man. But there are unsettled accounts in Billy’s past, and they’re coming due. As shadowy factions line up around him, he can’t be sure if he’s the target or caught in someone else’s crossfire. Or is he imagining the whole thing? Finally an ultimatum is delivered: come up with a small fortune in hush money, or cop a bullet and a shallow grave. Six months, and the clock is ticking. It’s time to call in all debts and favours, but right when he needs them most, Bill’s old gang of beatniks, bandits, and hoochie coochie girls seem to have made themselves strangely scarce. He’s on his own.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"Shooting Star" Book Blurb:
Anne fifteen, beautiful, wayward. Abducted. Her rich family has closed ranks and summoned Frank Calder, ex-soldier and sacked police hostage negotiator. They want him to deliver the ransom money to the kidnappers. Frank wants them to call in the law, but the family refuses, since police bungling nearly cost the life of another Carson child kidnapped years before. But are the two kidnappings connected? And is greed the motivation? Revenge? Or could it be something else? To find out, Frank Calder must go beyond his brief. As Frank feverishly searches for suspects in the web of Carson family businesses and deals, marriages and indiscretions, rivalries and intrigues, he knows that if his instincts are wrong, the girl will surely die.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in ‘The Apocryphon Of Joe Panther’ series.
"The Second Coming" Book Blurb:
‘There is no god,’ I told him. Then I drove the syringe up into his nostril and straight through the side of his nose. Joe Panther is a psychotic, alcoholic, violent, substance-abusing heroin dealer. He is also, he believes, Joshua Ben Pantera, born two thousand years ago, the son of Mary and the Lord God Yaweh Himself, not dead yet, the crucified Jesus: still around, abandoned by his Father, abused by the world, and as pissed off as hell.
Grab yourself a copy:‘The Second Coming: The Passion of Joe Panther’ by Andrew Masterson
Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 3 in the ‘Jack Irish’ series.
"Dead Point" Book Blurb:
It takes a lot to rattle Jack Irish but, as Melbourne descends into a cold, wet winter, his mood is on the same trajectory. The woman in Jack’s life has reconnected with an old flame. He has gambled and lost massively and seen a champion horse put down. It’s not surprising that Jack’s mind is not fully on the job he’s being paid to do: find Robbie Colburne, occasional barman. But when Jack does get serious, he finds the freelance drink-dispenser is of great interest to some powerful people, people with very bad habits and a distinct lack of respect for the criminal justice system…Any lapse in concentration could prove fatal.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book One in the ‘Jack McCain‘ series – available on audio.
"Death Delights" Book Blurb:
When Jack left the police force to join the Forensic Science Unit in Canberra, he thought his days of visiting crime scenes were over. But while he’s on leave in Sydney, his old friend Bob asks him to help out with a series of grisly murders. Someone is horribly mutilating and murdering convicted paedophiles the moment they are released from jail. Still grieving from the collapse of his marriage and the disappearance of Jacinta, his teenage daughter, four years earlier, Jack tries to make sense of what is happening. An anonymous caller seems to link his daughter with the murders, though pursuit of that line of questioning leads nowhere fast. Against his instincts and professional judgement, Jack allows himself to become enmeshed in an affair that threatens to jeopardise the entire investigation. And then suddenly, Jacinta rings Jack, a desperate voice on the line saying, “Dad, I’ve just done something really stupid.…”
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 4 in the ‘Jack Irish‘ series.
"White Dog" Book Blurb:
Jack Irish-gambler, cook and cabinetmaker, finder of people who don’t want to be found-has a new job, hunting for evidence that might save the beautiful sculptor Sarah Longmore from a murder rap. Jack soon discovers there was nothing straightforward about Mickey Franklin’s death, and falls headlong into a world of shady deals, sexual secrets and country rednecks.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 20 in the ‘Scobie Malone‘ series.
"Degrees of Connection" Book Blurb:
Once again Scobie Malone and Ron Clements delve into the dark side of Sydney and bring us a story as fresh as this morningᱠheadlines. From Sylvania Waters to Rooty Hill to harbourside penthouses, they negotiate a lethal world of corporate crime, dodgy deals and some very unorthodox business practices. Marilyn Hyx, loyal private secretary to Natalie Shipwood, the high-profile dynamo behind the high-profile Orlando Development Company, is found murdered in her home. Is it simply coincidence that she had in her possession some very sensitive Orlando documents? Was Marilyn trying to blackmail her long-time boss? Or is Marilyn’s death a warning from someone trying to get at Natalie? An anthrax scare at the Orlando offices suggests the latter, but then lots of people don’t like Natalie Shipwood – her business partners first among them. then a second murder occurs. this time a party-loving young woman is strangled in a Pyrmont townhouse, and the case puts Scobie into a conflict of interest – he must both find the killer and protect one of his own.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in the ‘Joseph O’Loughlin‘ series.
"Lost" Book Blurb:
Everyone knows that Mickey Carlyle is dead and a man is in prison for her murder. Everyone, that is, except DI Vincent Ruiz, who cannot stop searching and hoping. He is discovered one night clinging to a buoy in the River Thames, with a bullet in his leg and a bigger hole in his memory. Under investigation by his colleagues and accused of faking amnesia, Ruiz’s only hope of unravelling the puzzle is to retrace his steps and relive that night. But there are further dangers lying in wait and other ways for a man to drown.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book One in the ‘Broken Shore’ series.
"The Broken Shore" Book Blurb:
Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you’ve come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs. Then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is bashed and left for dead. Everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community; everyone seems to want it to. But Cashin is unconvinced. And as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"Crook as Rookwood" Book Blurb:
In an inner suburb of Sydney, a pensioner is bashed in his own home. An old Labor Party stalwart loses the faith and goes looking for someone to blame. And a young woman called Slick finds an unsettling connection between the death of her ex-husband and her new boss. When Gold Coast lawyer Eddie Moran comes to Sydney to look after Slick’s interests after the death of her ex, he finds a simple drug overdose isn’t so simple after all. It’s not just the crooked cops, it’s the strong whiff of a deal being done higher up and well offstage. From sleazy Sydney backstreets to the new-money glamour of the Gold Coast, this is the world where politics and business meet, and where the consequences are far-reaching – and surprising.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 4 in the ‘Hal Challis Investigation‘ series.
"Chain of Evidence" Book Blurb:
Ten-year-old Katie Blasko is missing. Detective Sergeant Ellen Destry, alert to rumours of a paedophile ring operating on the Peninsula, is thinking abduction. Her colleagues are thinking bad family, truancy. Her boss is thinking about the media. And everyone, including Ellen, is wondering whether she’s good enough to handle this without D. I. Challis. But Hal Challis is a thousand kilometres away, watching his father die. Ellen Destry’s leading the team on her own. And if she’s right, Katie Blasko is running out of time.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 3 of the ‘Joe O’Loughlin‘ series.
"Shatter" Book Blurb:
A naked woman in red high-heeled shoes is perched on the edge of Clifton Suspension Bridge with her back pressed to the safety fence, weeping into a mobile phone. Clinical psychologist Joseph O’Loughlin is only feet away, desperately trying to talk her down. She whispers, ‘you don’t understand,’ and jumps. Later, Joe has a visitor – the woman’s teenage daughter, a runaway from boarding school. She refuses to believe that her mother would have jumped off the bridge – not only would she not commit suicide, she is terrified of heights. Joe wants to believe her, but what would drive a woman to such a desperate act? Whose voice? What evil?
Grab yourself a copy:
Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in the ‘Brad Chen‘ series.
"Smoke and Mirrors" Book Blurb:
Ace detective Brad Chen is lured back to work by the double murder of a Whitlam government minister and the editor of his political memoirs. Solving the crimes, while searching for a missing friend, Chen is plunged into the murky worlds of international espionage and organised crime. The body count rises as Chen uncovers the deadly secret behind the most momentous events in Australian political history.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 34 in the ‘Cliff Hardy‘ series.
"Deep Water" Book Blurb:
Stripped of his private detective licence and devastated by the murder of his partner Lily Truscott, Cliff Hardy travels to the US to help Lily’s brother’s tilt for a world boxing title. In San Diego he suffers a heart attack and undergoes a quadruple bypass. He meets nurse Margaret McKinley, an expatriate Australian who is concerned about the disappearance in Sydney of her father – renowned geologist Dr Henry McKinley. Hardy undertakes to investigate in association with Hank Bachelor, his former associate who now runs his own agency. It turns out that McKinley had discovered a way to tap into the massive Sydney basin acquifer, a possible solution to the city’s water problems. Working with Margaret who visits Sydney, Bachelor, and his daughter, Megan, Hardy confronts an old enemy and contending forces bent on exploiting the discovery and prepared to kill for it. Energised by the case and by his attachment to Margaret, Hardy obeys the strict rules for the restoration of his health – but in pursuing the truth and the malefactors, he makes his own rules.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 7 in the ‘Wyatt‘ series.
"Wyatt" Book Blurb:
The job’s a classic jewel heist: quick, clean and simple. Except for one thing. Wyatt prefers to work alone, but this job belongs to Eddie Oberin and his very smart ex-wife Lydia. She has the inside information; Wyatt has the planning genius and meticulous preparation. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty. But when you cross Wyatt, you don’t walk away.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book One in the ‘Charlie Berlin‘ series.
"The Diggers Rest Hotel" Book Blurb:
Grab yourself a copy:
Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"Pig Boy" Book Blurb:
On Damon Styles’s eighteenth birthday, he is expelled from school. But it’s what happens afterwards that changes everything. Now Damon must come up with a plan. It’s the only way he can think straight. First, get his firearms licence. Then, see if the Pigman will give him a job – pig hunting will teach Damon what he needs to know. And he’d better get a lock for his wardrobe so his mother won’t find what he’s hiding. Damon’s taking matters into his own hands – but so is the town of Strathven.
Grab yourself a copy:
Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in the ‘Charlie Berlin‘ series.
"Blackwattle Creek" Book Blurb:
When a recently widowed friend asks a favour, ex-bomber pilot and former POW Detective Charlie Berlin is dropped into something much bigger than he bargained for. What starts with body parts disappearing from funeral parlours leads to Blackwattle Creek, once an asylum for the criminally insane and now home to even darker evils. If Berlin thought government machinations during World War 11 were devious, those of the Cold War leave them for dead.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 3 in the ‘Sean Duffy‘ series.
"In the Morning I'll be Gone" Book Blurb:
It’s the early 1980s in Belfast. Sean Duffy, a conflicted Catholic cop in the Protestant RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary), is recruited by MI5 to hunt down Dermot McCann, an IRA master bomber who has made a daring escape from the notorious Maze prison. In the course of his investigations Sean discovers a woman who may hold the key to Dermot’s whereabouts; she herself wants justice for her daughter who died in mysterious circumstances in a pub locked from the inside. Sean knows that if he can crack the “locked-room mystery,” the bigger mystery of Dermot’s whereabouts might be revealed to him as a reward. Meanwhile the clock is ticking down to the Conservative Party conference in Brighton in 1984, where Mrs. Thatcher is due to give a keynote speech.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in the ‘Archer and Bennett Thriller‘ series.
"Eden" Book Blurb:
Most police duos run on trust, loyalty, and the desire to see killers in court. But Detective Frank Bennett’s partner, the enigmatic Eden Archer, has nothing to offer him but darkness and danger. She doesn’t mind catching killers – but it’s not the courthouse where her justice is served. And now Eden is about to head undercover to find three missing girls. The only link between the victims is a remote farm where the desperate go to hide and blood falls more often than rain. For Frank, the priority is to keep his partner monitored 24/7 while she’s there – but is it for Eden’s protection, or to protect their suspects from her? Across the city at the Utulla Tip, someone is watching Hades Archer, a man whose criminal reputation is the stuff of legend. Unmasking the stalker for him might be just what Frank needs to stay out of trouble while Eden’s away. But it’s going to take a trip into Hades’s past to discover the answers – and what Frank uncovers may well put everyone in danger.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 2 in the ‘Dave Warner Crime‘ series.
"Before it Breaks" Book Blurb:
Detective Inspector Daniel Clement is back in Broome, the tropical town where he grew up, licking his wounds from a busted marriage and struggling to be impressed by his new team of small-town, inexperienced cops. But stagnation and lethargy soon give way to a case with urgent purpose. On the edge of the desert, a man is found dead in a crocodile-infested watering hole. And he is only the first. The connection between the victims is elusive, but Clement must pursue it as a decades-old mystery begins to unravel and a monster cyclone brews on the horizon.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 6 of the ‘Sean Duffy‘ series.
"Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly" Book Blurb:
Belfast, 1988. A man is found dead, killed with a bolt from a crossbow in front of his house. This is no hunting accident. But uncovering who is responsible for the murder will take Detective Sean Duffy down his most dangerous road yet, a road that leads to a lonely clearing on a high bog where three masked gunmen will force Duffy to dig his own grave. Hunted by forces unknown, threatened by Internal Affairs, and with his relationship on the rocks, Duffy will need all his wits to get out of this investigation in one piece.
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‘Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly’ by Adrian McKinty
Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"Crossing the Lines" Book Blurb:
A successful writer, Madeleine, creates a character, Edward, and begins to imagine his life. He, too, is an author. Edward is in love with a woman, Willow, who’s married to a man Edward loathes, and who loathes him, but he and Willow stay close friends. She’s an artist. As Madeleine develops the plot, Edward attends a gallery show where a scummy critic is flung down a flight of fire stairs…murdered. Madeleine, still stressed from her miscarriages and grieving her inability to have a child, grows more and more enamored of Edward, spending more and more time with him and the progress of the investigation and less with her physician husband, Hugh, who in turn may be developing secrets of his own. As Madeline engages more with Edward, he begins to engage back. A crisis comes when Madeleine chooses the killer in Edward’s story and Hugh begins to question her immersion in her novel.
Grab yourself a copy:
‘Crossing the Lines’ by Sulari Gentill
Check out our book review of ‘After She Wrote Him’ by Sulari Gentill!
Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"The Lost Man" Book Blurb:
Two brothers meet at the border of their vast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outback Queensland. They are at the stockman’s grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is buried there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last chance for their middle brother, Cameron. The Bright family’s quiet existence is thrown into grief and anguish. Something had been troubling Cameron. Did he lose hope and walk to his death? Because if he didn’t, the isolation of the outback leaves few suspects.
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Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"The Wife and the Widow" Book Blurb:
Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and the Widow is a mystery/thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside down when she’s forced to confront the evidence that her husband is a murderer. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives.
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Series or Standalone? :
Book 3 in the ‘Hirsch‘ series.
"Consolation" Book Blurb:
Tiverton’s only police officer Constable Paul Hirschhausen is dealing with a snowdropper. Someone is stealing women’s underwear, and Hirsch knows how that kind of crime can escalate. Then two calls come in: a teacher who thinks a child may be in danger at home. A father on the rampage over at the primary school. Hirsch knows how things like that can escalate, too. Families under pressure. Financial problems. But it’s always a surprise when the killing starts.
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Check out our book review of ‘Bitter Wash Road’ by Garry Disher!
Series or Standalone? :
This is a standalone novel.
"The Chase" Book Blurb:
When more than 600 of the world’s most violent human beings pour out from Pronghorn Correctional Facility into the Nevada Desert, the biggest manhunt in US history begins. But for John Kradle, this is his one chance to prove his innocence, five years after the murder of his wife and child. He just needs to stay one step ahead of the teams of law enforcement officers he knows will be chasing down the escapees. Death row supervisor turned fugitive-hunter Celine Osbourne is single-minded in her mission to catch Kradle. She has very personal reasons for hating him – and she knows exactly where he’s heading .
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Series or Standalone? :
This is Book 3 in the ‘Aaron Falk‘ series.
"Exiles" Book Blurb:
At a busy festival site on a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her pram, her mother having vanished into the crowds. A year on, Kim Gillespie’s absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family. Aaron Falk, federal investigator, is joining the celebrations. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems. As hidden truths slowly emerge, Falk faces the darkest of questions.
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Check out our Book Review of ‘Exiles’ by Jane Harper!
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