The debut novels of two forceful, intelligent journalists are bold, brash stories of powerful women at the top of their game. One details a horrific sexual crime, the other ugliness in the art world.
The story of Anne Hamilton-Byrne’s cult The Family has been told in a non-fiction book and documentary, a novel, In the Clearing, and now a Disney+ series. What can stories like this teach us?
Crime fiction’s place-specific exploration of justice seems ideally suited to Indigenous authors wanting to explore historical and contemporary issues.
Tracey Lien’s debut novel investigates a murder of a model student in a Cabramatta restaurant. Anh Nguyen Austen says it brilliantly conveys the complexities of the Vietnamese refugee experience.
Heat 2, the literary sequel to Michael Mann’s classic cops-and-robbers film, is weird. Would it stand alone as a novel? Possibly not. But reading it is an incredibly pleasurable experience.
Many think of crime fiction as a predominantly English and American phenomenon, but the genre is thriving internationally, breaking rules and exploring pressing issues.
Do we read crime novels because we know what is right and wrong, or for guidance through a world that appears ‘all grey’? The books of lawyer-turned-writer Dervla McTiernan prompt such questions.
A true hoax provokes. It questions cultural biases, shattering conventions. But the curious case of the three men writing as a female author Carmen Mola does none of this.
There’s something disturbing about a story tracking a character’s mental decline for thrills. Happily, Paula Hawkins’ new novel, A Slow Fire Burning, joins a genre of books bucking this trend.