We asked Angela
Savage – crime writer, voracious reader and
first prize winner in this year’s Scarlett Stiletto Awards –
for her top ten crime novels published by women in 2011. In a nice
touch, seven out of ten of her picks were Australian writers. She
told us, ‘As well as bias toward local authors, the list reflects
my preference for great writing, engaging characters and
interesting historical or political settings, rather than blood,
guts and gore.’
Angela’s latest book is The Half Child, her second adventure starring feisty thirtysomething ex-pat PI Jayne Keeney. Jayne, an Aussie who has been living in Bangkok for many years, has been hired to investigate the alleged suicide of a young Australian woman in a seedy Thai coastal town. Add it to your to-read list!
The End of
Everything
Megan Abbott
A novel about two young girls discovering their sexuality; about fathers and daughters; about family and friendship; about jealousy, secrets and lies, The End of Everything is a powerful reminder that things aren't always what they seem.
The Good
Daughter
Honey Brown
Rebecca Toyer and Zach Kincaid eachlive on the outskirts of town, but come from very different sides of the tracks. When Zach's wealthy mother goes missing, Rebecca – the truckie's daughter – is implicated in her disappearance.
The
Brotherhood
Y.A. Erskine
When Sergeant John White, mentor, saviour and all-round good guy, is murdered during a routine call-out, the tight-knit world of Tasmania Police is rocked to the core.
A Decline in
Prophets
Sulari Gentill
A Rowland Sinclair Novel. In 1932, the RMS Aquitania embodies all that is gracious and refined, in a world gripped by crisis and doubt.
Watch Out
for Me
Sylvia Johnson
Australia, 1967. Four children tell a lie to get out of trouble. As a result, an immigrant worker is wrongly accused of a crime, with horrific repercussions.
Until Thy
Wrath Be Past
Asa Larsson
In the first thaw of spring the body of a young woman surfaces in the River Thorne. Rebecka Martinsson is working as a prosecutor in nearby Kiruna. Her sleep has been disturbed by haunting visions of a shadowy, accusing figure. Could the body belong to the ghost in her dreams?
Death and the
Spanish Lady
Carolyn Morwood
Death and the Spanish Lady is the first in an historical trilogy featuring Eleanor Jones, a first world war nurse. The year is 1919 and Eleanor is recently returned to Melbourne when the Spanish Flu pandemic takes hold.
Daddy’s
Girl
Margie Orford
Friday evening. A deserted street below Table Mountain. A six-year-old ballerina waits alone for her mother to fetch her. Then an unmarked car approaches, and she is gone. With no trace of where, or why she's been abducted, suspicion falls on her divorced father, Captain Riedwaan.
The
Boundary
Nicole Watson
Long ago, Meston Park in Brisbane's West End marked the city's boundary. A curfew kept its Aboriginal population outside the city limits after dark. When the park becomes the site of a multi-million dollar development, the Corrowa People vow to fight and file a native title claim. Hours after rejecting the claim, Justice Bruce Brosnan is brutally murdered.
The Courier’s New Bicycle
Kim Westwood
Salisbury Forth is a courier of bootleg goods in the alleyways of inner Melbourne, a city of fuel rationing, rolling power outages and curfews. Its a stressful life, post-pandemic. A vaccine that was dispensed Australia-wide has messed with human endocrinology and left people scrambling for fertility cures like adulterers for clothes.
