
The 2020 Ned Kelly Award winners were just revealed in a virtual ceremony hosted by Michael Robotham on Facebook.
Proudly sponsored by Booktopia, the Ned Kelly Awards are the brainchild of the Australian Crime Writers Association. They recognise the finest of Australian crime writing each year, with awards given in best fiction, first fiction and true crime categories. 2020 also marks the first year that an award was given in a category for international writers.
Robert Goodman, the Australian Crime Writers Association chair, was thrilled with this year’s winners.
‘The Ned Kelly Awards has always prided itself on recognising great Australian crime writing talent,’ he said. ‘And while it was great to see some established names in our shortlists, it is also thrilling to see these Awards being won by some of our newer authors. It is testament to the vitality of Australian crime writing.’
Scroll down to see all of the winning books and authors at the 2020 Ned Kelly Awards!
Best Crime Fiction
The Wife and the Widow by Christian White
Set against the backdrop of an island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and the Widow is a thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local who is forced to confront the evidence that her husband is a murderer.
But nothing on this island is quite as it seems. Only when these women are pushed to the edge can they uncover the whole, crashing truth about the men in their lives.
Buy it here
Best Debut Crime Fiction
Present Tense by Natalie Conyer
Retired police chief Piet Pieterse has been murdered, necklaced in fact. A tyre placed round his neck, doused with petrol, set alight. An execution from the apartheid era and one generally confined to collaborators. Who would target Pieterse this way, and why now?
Veteran copy Schalk Lourens is trying to forget the past. But Pieterse was his old boss and when Schalk is put on the case, he finds the past has a way of infecting the present.
Buy it here
Best True Crime
Bowraville by Dan Box
From the creator of the Walkley Award-winning podcast comes the story of a small Australian town, the murders of three children and a desperate fight for justice.
Buy it here
Best International Crime Fiction
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
The morning starts like any other. Rachel Klein drops her daughter, Kylie, at the bus stop and heads into her day. But then a phone call changes everything.
A woman has Kylie bound and gagged in her back seat, and the only way Rachel will ever see her again is if she pays a ransom – and kidnaps another child. The caller is a mother herself, whose son has also been abducted, and if Rachel doesn’t do exactly as she’s told, both children will die. Rachel is now part of a terrifying scheme – The Chain.
Buy it here
Congratulations to all of the 2020 Ned Kelly Award winners!
Find out more about the Ned Kelly Awards here.
About the Contributor
Olivia Fricot
Olivia Fricot (she/her) is Booktopia's Senior Content Producer and editor of the Booktopian blog. She has too many plants and not enough bookshelves, and you can usually find her reading, baking, or talking to said plants. She is pro-Oxford comma.
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