The Ned Kelly Awards (named for the famous Australian bushranger Ned Kelly) are Australia's leading literary awards for crime writing in both the crime fiction and true crime genres. They were established in 1996 by the Crime Writers Association of Australia to reward excellence in the field of crime writing within Australia.

The genre of crime writing has long been popular, but it wasn't until the early 1990's that a local growth of writing within the genre occurred in Australia. By the middle of the decade support for the field had grown sufficiently that it was decided to establish the Ned Kelly Awards.

The awards are effectionately referred to as 'The Neddies' within the community. Winners are announced during the Melbourne Writers' Festival each year.

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Winners & Nominations: Ned Kelly Awards 2009

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Best first fiction

Winner:
Ghostlines, Nick Gadd - Ghostlines centres on Philip Trudeau, a once-respected investigative journalist who has stepped on the wrong toes. With his personal life and health deteriorating around him, Philip is consigned to a suburban newspaper where he writes 'filler' local news articles to be slotted in among the real estate and restaurant advertisements. Sent to cover whatappears to be a tragic yet routine death at a levelcrossing, Philip is drawn into a multilayered mystery that involves art theft, political intrigue, and business corruption. More

Other Shortlisted

Crooked, Camilla Nelson -Sydney is a savage place. A series of violent killings escalate with a spectacular execution-style murder. When a black book with names of prominent politiciansand members of the police force is discovered among the dead man's things, the case is blown wide open, and someone will have to pay . . . More

The Build Up, Phillip Gwynne - For Detective Dusty Buchanon, a female cop in the very male world of the Northern Territory Police Force, it always pays to expect the unexpected.

When the body of a young Thai prostitute is found in a billabong near a camp of disaffected Vietnam Veterans, Dusty knows this is what she’s been looking for — a spectacular case to get her back on top after the debacle of an infamous British backpacker murder trial that almost destroyed her career.

But when the body disappears and her colleagues turn against her, Dustygets help from an unlikely source: a handsome German bird-watcher holidaying in the Northern Territory, who just happens to be a cop. More

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Joint Winner

Best Fiction

Deep Water, Peter Corris - 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 takes on the investigation, and it turns out that McKinley had discovered a way to tap into the massive Sydney basin aquifer, a possible solution to the city's water problems. More

Joint Winner

Smoke and Mirrors: A Brad Chen Novel, Kel Robertson -ce detective Brad Chen is lured back to workby the double murder of a Whitlam government minister and the editor of his political memoirs. The body count rises as Chen uncovers the deadly secret behind the most momentous events in Australian political history. Smoke and Mirrors is the second Brad Chen novel.

'...this one’s got the lot... A very satisfying and enjoyable cime novel...matches it with the best of the overseas releases.' - Canberra Times More

Other Shortlisted

Bright Air, Barry Maitland- On a cliff-face in New Zealand, two men fall to their deaths carrying the secret of a horrifying betrayal. Four years before, the bright and beautiful Luce, another member of the same close-knit group of friends, had also died tragically while climbing. As the circle of friends dwindles, Luce's best friend, Anna, persuades Josh, Luce's ex-lover, to help in her own investigation, asshe is convinced that the original verdict of accidental death was wrong. Had detail been overlooked, or, worse, ignored? More2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | back to top | Fishpond Books Australia | ebooks | Home Page

Best True crime

The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island, Chloe Hooper - In 2004 Cameron Doomadgee, a 36-year-old resident of Palm Island, was arrested for swearing at a white police officer. Within 45 minutes he was dead. The main suspect was well respected Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley. This is the story of what happened, the trial, and the Aboriginal myths around the case. More

Other Shortlisted

A Question of Power: The Geoff Clark Case, Michelle Schwarz- At the centre of this book are the rape and assault charges brought against Geoff Clark, the former chairman of ATSIC. The book includes an account and analysis of the court case, interviews with the parties involved, and an analysis of the media response to the case. The book asks: what does this case tell us about who we are as a society today? Although indigenous issues will be a part of the book, this is not a general study of Aboriginal politics. Rather, it looks at issues in the community as they relate specifically to this case. More

The Killing of Caroline Byrne: A Journey for Justice, Robert Wainwrights - On a bleak, moonless winter night in the winter of 1995 beautiful Sydney model Caroline Byrne died, her body embedded head-first into a crevice at the bottom of The Gap at the historic entrance to Sydney Harbour. How did she get out so far, almost 12 metres from the base of the sheer sandstone precipice? Did she jump, as so many had done before at the notorious suicide spot, or had she been thrown in a fit of rage? What begins with the retrieval of a shattered body from the harbour city's most notorious suicide spots turns into one of thenation's most extraordinary murder investigations, leading to the dark heart of a city gripped by greed, pandering to its powerful, and exposing a police force whose lack of imagination and resources was surpassed only by the doggedness of its finest officers to right an unforgivable wrong. More

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The SD Harvey Short Story
Fidget's Farewell, Scott McDermott - Winner
Farewell My Lovelies, Chris Womersley
Fern's Farewell, Bronwyn Mehan
Farewell to the shade, Cheryl Rogers

Lifetime Achievement: Shane Maloney

The 2008 winners are:

Fiction : Shatter, Michael Robotham (Little, Brown)

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?

About the Author

Before writing full-time, Michael Robotham was an investigative journalist in Britain, Australia and the US. He is the pseudonymous author of 10 best-selling non-fiction titles, involving prominent figures in the military, the arts, sport and science. He lives in Sydney with his wife and 3 daughters.

Reviews

'Shatter is a gripping journey into the weaknesses and strengths of the human psyche...it is the inevitablility of the plot's development that builds the tension and will have you turning the pages compulsively, desperate to get to the end, but not daring to miss a word' The Times 'Brilliant' Company 'Genuinely terrifying' Literary Review 'Robotham's restrained and knowledgeable method of writing means that the story develops at just the right pace' RTE Guide 'His most disturbing and powerful read to date' Shortlist 'Michael Robotham's outstanding debut The Suspect was so inventive and raw it caused a tremor of excitement among thriller fans.

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First Novel
The Low Road, Chris Womersley (Scribe)

A young petty criminal, Lee, wakes in a seedy motel to find a bullet in his side and a suitcase of stolenmoney next to him, with only the haziest memory of exactly how he got there. Soon he meets Dr. Wild, a morphine addict who is escaping his own disastrous life. The two men form an unwilling, unlikely alliance and set out for the safety of a country estate owned by a former colleague of Wild's named Sherman. As they flee the city, they develop an uneasy intimacy, inevitably revisiting their pasts even as they desperately seek to evade them. Lee is haunted by a brief stint in jail, while Wild is on the run from the legacy of medical malpractice .... more

Non-Fiction
Red Centre, Dark Heart, Evan McHugh (Viking)

Journey into Australia's heart of darkness...where life is lived by a different set of rules and it is easy for criminals to disappear into the vast landscape - and yet it can be difficult to remain anonymous. The worst aspects of human nature reveal themselves in the red centre. Beginning with the chilling tale of convict and cannibal Alexander Pearce, Red Centre, Dark Heart explores historic and recent true-crime in the outback, including the Belango State Forest murders and the disappearance of Peter Falconio. Read these stories and you'll discover that Australia's dark heart is frighteningly close to home. From the bestselling author of Shipwrecks: Australia's Greatest Maritime Disasters, Outback Heroes and Outback Pioneers. More

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Lifetime Achievement Award
Marele Day

2008 Ned Kelly Nominations

Best First Fiction:

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Golden Serpent, Mark Abernethy... Alan McQueen, aka Mac, was once a star of the global intelligence community, renowned for being the Aussie spook who shot and killed Abu Sabaya, the world's most dangerous terrorist.But that was 2002.Now, during a routine assignment in Indonesia, McQueen discovers that Sabaya is not in fact dead. Instead he's teamed up with rogue CIA veteran ...More

A Fraction Of The Whole, Steve Toltz- An uproarious indictment of the ridiculousness of the modern world and it's mores, this novel also tells the moving, memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings. More

Maelstrom, Michael MacConnell - Sarah Reilly is the daughter of FBI legend Harry Reilly. Her father made his reputation hunting down one of America's worst serial killers. But Harry never met the violet-eyed man. Sarah has inherited her father's impulsive intuition and is making a name for herself as a rookie FBI agent. Given the job of investigating a recent double murder, she uncovers some strange anomalies in the modus operandi of the killer ...and a maelstrom of evil is unleashed as a killer finds himself hunted by more than one adversary.

The Low Road, Chris Womersley - A young petty criminal, Lee, wakes in a seedy motel to find a bullet in his side and a suitcase of stolen money next to him, with only the haziest memory of exactly how he got there. Soon he meets Dr. Wild, a morphine addict who is escaping his own disastrous life. The two men form an unwilling, unlikely alliance and set out for the safety of a country estate owned by a former colleague of Wild's named Sherman. As they flee the city, they develop an uneasy intimacy, More

The Butcherbird, Geoffrey Cousins - Set in the boardrooms, yachts and waterfront mansions of Australia's most decadent city, The Butcherbird is a boisterous thriller about corruption and excess in the corporate world. Jack Beaumont, a successful small-time property developer, is as surprised as the next person when he is approached by insurance tycoon Mac Biddulph to become the new CEO of HOA, the second largest home-insurer in Australia More

Bye Bye Baby, Lauren Crow -A schoolteacher is found murdered in an alleyway in a northern English city. Three months later a courier's body turns up in a toilet block in a rough London suburb. Two men with very different lives, but a common death: both bodies have been gruesomely mutilated. Suddenly the entire country is on high alert: Britain has a serial killer! More

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