Southern Cross Crime

Book excerpt: Australian and New Zealand crime and thriller writing - collectively referred to as Southern Cross Crime - is booming globally, with antipodean authors regularly featuring on awards and bestseller lists, such as Eleanor Catton's Booker Prize winning The Luminaries and Jane Harper's big commercial hit, The Dry, winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award. Hailing from two sparsely populated nations on the far edge of the former Empire - neighbours that are siblings in spirit, vastly different in landscape - Australian and New Zealand crime writers offer readers a blend of exotic and familiar, seasoned by distinctive senses of place, outlook, and humour, and roots that trace to the earliest days of our genre. Southern Cross Crime is the first comprehensive guide to modern crime writing from "Down Under". From coastal cities to the outback, leading critic Craig Sisterson showcases key titles from over 250 storytellers, plus screen dramas ranging from Mystery Road to Top of the Lake. Fascinating insights are added through in-depth interviews with some of the prime suspects who paved the way or instigated the global boom, including Michael Robotham, Paul Cleave, Emma Viskic, Paul Thomas, Candice Fox, and Garry Disher. 'Southern Cross Crime is informative, knowledgeable, wide ranging. If you have any ideas about writing a crime novel you need to read it, if you enjoy reading crime novels, you need to read it, if you simply love reading, you need to read it. This is not a dry as dust tome - the writer's encyclopaedic knowledge is carried lightly... a box of the finest literary chocolates' - Renée Taylor, 2018 recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction 'A valuable and illuminative resource for crime fiction fans everywhere' - Book'd Out