Our judging panels and committee members have spent the past three months reading, discussing and debating the 135 entries to this year’s competition. We are proud to report that Aussie crime writing continues to grow in strength and identity. It was particularly pleasing to see authors breaking away from some of the more common crime tropes, with a large variety of characters, settings and social diversity in this year’s entries
The Best Debut Crime Fiction entries were very strong with an incredible range of new Australian writers choosing the crime genre for their first books - and signaling very positive futures ahead.
As usual, the Best True Crime entries were totally compelling, while Best International Crime Fiction (published in Australia) was again a Who’s Who of global crime writing.
The flagship award, Best Crime Fiction, was again the most popular category with more than 75 entries and the breadth of writing style and subject within this year’s shortlist is testament to another diverse and hard working year by our local authors.
Congratulations and thank you to everyone who entered the 2022 Ned Kelly Awards and special recognition to the shortlisted authors. The winners are expected to be announced in about four weeks.
In the meantime, please enjoy our announcement video on YouTube here and find further updates on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter over the next few days.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FOLLOWING AUTHORS:
BEST DEBUT CRIME FICTION SHORTLIST
Sweet Jimmy - Bryan Brown
Shadow Over Edmund Street - Suzanne Frankham
Cutters End - Margaret Hickey
Banjawarn - Josh Kemp
BEST TRUE CRIME SHORTLIST
The Mother Wound - Amani Haydar
Larrimah - Caroline Graham and Kylie Stevenson
Banquet: The Untold Story of Adelaide's Family Murders – Debi Marshall
A Witness of Fact - Drew Rooke
BEST INTERNATIONAL CRIME FICTION SHORTLIST
Case Study - Graeme Macrae Burnet
The Heron's Cry - Ann Cleeves
The Maid - Nita Prose
Cry Wolf - Hans Rosenfeldt
BEST CRIME FICTION SHORTLIST
The Enemy Within - Tim Ayliffe
The Others - Mark Brandi
You had it Coming - BM Carroll
The Chase - Candice Fox
Kill Your Brother - Jack Heath
The Family Doctor - Debra Oswald
The Deep - Kyle Perry