AustLit logo
Best True Crime (2000-)
Subcategory of Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2022

Indexed selectively.
winner Debi Marshall for Banquet: The Untold Story of Adelaide's Family Murders.

Year: 2021

winner Bret Christian for 'Stalking Claremont'.

Year: 2020

winner y separately published work icon Bowraville Dan Box , Melbourne : Viking , 2019 15449719 2019 single work prose crime

'From the creator of the Walkley Award-winning podcast comes the story of a small Australian town, the murders of three children and a desperate fight for justice.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2019

winner y separately published work icon Eggshell Skull Bri Lee , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2018 13717214 2018 single work autobiography

'EGGSHELL SKULL: A well-established legal doctrine that a defendant must 'take their victim as they find them'. If a single punch kills someone because of their thin skull, that victim's weakness cannot mitigate the seriousness of the crime.

'But what if it also works the other way? What if a defendant on trial for sexual crimes has to accept his 'victim' as she comes: a strong, determined accuser who knows the legal system, who will not back down until justice is done?

'Bri Lee began her first day of work at the Queensland District Court as a bright-eyed judge's associate. Two years later she was back as the complainant in her own case.

'This is the story of Bri's journey through the Australian legal system; first as the daughter of a policeman, then as a law student, and finally as a judge's associate in both metropolitan and regional Queensland -- where justice can look very different, especially for women. The injustice Bri witnessed, mourned and raged over every day finally forced her to confront her own personal history, one she'd vowed never to tell. And this is how, after years of struggle, she found herself on the other side of the courtroom, telling her story.

'Bri Lee has written a fierce and eloquent memoir that addresses both her own reckoning with the past as well as with the stories around her, to speak the truth with wit, empathy and unflinching courage. Eggshell Skull is a haunting appraisal of modern Australia from a new and essential voice.' (Source: Publisher's blurb)

Year: 2017

joint winner y separately published work icon The Drowned Man : A True Story of Life, Death and Murder on HMAS Australia Brendan James Murray , Richmond : Echo Publishing , 2016 11580105 2016 single work biography

'A chance encounter in a fish-’n’-chip shop set Brendan Murray on the trail of a mystery. Had a gay man been secretly murdered on HMAS Australia during the Second World War?

'The veteran he spoke to was certain. ‘I knew about it,’ he said. ‘We all did.’

'But was the story true? If so, who was the dead man? And why was it so hard to find out?

'The Drowned Man is a search for the answer, almost stymied by cover-up and silence. In the end, it brings us to the lies that have shrouded our understanding of war, and especially of war at sea.

'As one of the survivors poignantly says, ‘I want to pass it on to the next generation. What it was like. What it was really like.’'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Works About this Award

Garner Gets Nod with Ned Jason Steger , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 23 August 2015; (p. 19)
Helen Garner’s True Crime Award Jason Steger , 2015 single work column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 23 August 2015; (p. 12)
Lauded for Work, Crime Writer Lord Cast the First Stein Jason Steger , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 30 August 2012; (p. 14)
X