Quote of the Week

 

Ned Kelly Shortlists

 

The Australian Crime Writers Association announced the shortlists for the Ned Kelly Awards, Australia’s oldest honor for published crime fiction and true crime writing. The categories are Best Crime Fiction, Best Debut Crime Fiction, Best True Crime and Best International Crime Fiction. Entries are accepted for books published in the 12 months prior to 1 March each year. The awards are named after Ned Kelly, one of Australia’s earliest crime writers. Congratulations to this year's finalists!

 

Best Crime Fiction:

Liar’s Game by Jack Beaumont
Lyrebird by Jane Caro
The Other Child by Susi Fox
Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth
The Ghost Walk by Karen Herbert
Fire in the Head by Daniel Oakman
The White Crow by Michael Robotham
The Casino by Iain Ryan

Best Debut Crime Fiction:

In Bloom by Liz Allan
The Butterfly Women by Madeleine Cleary
The Peak by Sam Guthrie
Melaleuca by Angie Faye Martin
The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey
The Wykehamist by Alexandra Strnad

Best True Crime:

Saffron Incorporated by Stuart Coupe
Duty to Warn by Charlotte Grieve
The Mushroom Murders by Greg Haddrick
The Postcard Bandit by Derek Pedley
The Red House by Kate Wild

Best International Crime Fiction:

Lucky Thing by Tom Baragwanath
Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet
The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly
The Death of Us by Abigail Dean

 

Petrona on Parade

Euro Crime's Karen Meeks revealed that twelve crime novels from Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden have made the longlist for the 2026 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The longlist contains a mix of newer and more established authors including previous Petrona Award winners Satu Rämö, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Antti Tuomainen. The shortlist will be announced on 24 September 2026. 

The Petrona Award was established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in December 2012. Maxine, whose online persona and blog was called Petrona, was passionate about translated crime fiction but in particular that from the Scandinavian countries. The award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.

 

Here are the longlisted titles:

 

• Snæbjörn Arngrímsson - One True Word tr. Larissa Kyzer (Pushkin Vertigo, Iceland)
• Stella Blómkvist - Murder Tide tr. Quentin Bates (Corylus Books, Iceland)
• Jón Atli Jónasson - Broken tr. Quentin Bates (Corylus Books, Iceland)
• Ørjan N Karlsson - Into Thin Air tr. Ian Giles (Orenda Books, Norway)
• John Ajvide Lindqvist - The Writing in the Water tr. Michael Meigs (Amazon Crossing, Sweden)
• Jo Nesbø - Wolf Hour tr. Robert Ferguson (Harvill Secker, Norway)
• Aslak Nore - The Heirs of the Arctic tr. Sean Kinsella (MacLehose Press, Norway)
• Satu Rämö - The Grave in the Ice tr. Kristian London (Zaffre, Finland)
• Lilja Sigurðardóttir - Black as Death tr. Lorenza Garcia (Orenda Books, Iceland)
• Yrsa Sigurðardóttir - The Wake tr. Victoria Cribb (Hodder & Stoughton, Iceland)
• Karin Smirnoff - The Girl with Ice in her Veins tr. Sarah Death (MacLehose Press, Sweden)
• Antti Tuomainen - The Winter Job tr. David Hackston (Orenda Books, Finland)

 

 

 

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