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UK Gold Dagger Longlist

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Silver has been longlisted for one of the world’s most prestigious crime writing awards, the UK Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger for the best crime novel of the year. This is a big one, as all books published in the UK during the past year are eligible, including novels from the USA and the rest of the English-speaking world, so there’s a lot of competition! My thanks to the wonderful… Read More »UK Gold Dagger Longlist

Booksellers’ shortlist!

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This has been such a tough year for Australian bookstores, hit by the covid lockdown and economic recession. And still they do their best to promote local authors, including hand selling our books. So I was already immensely grateful to them all. And now I’m even more grateful; Silver is shortlisted for the Booksellers’ Choice for best adult fiction. And in such wonderful company. Australia has such a strong literary… Read More »Booksellers’ shortlist!

Love Your Book Shop…

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So Silver didn’t win the ABIA general fiction award – that went to Bruny by the wonderful Heather Rose (we share the same publishers) – a thoroughly deserving winner. Bruny is a great read, part thriller, part family saga, part political satire. Now Silver has been longlisted for the Australian Booksellers’ Association’s Booksellers’ Choice Award for adult fiction book of the year. As you can see, it’s again among some… Read More »Love Your Book Shop…

And the shortlist!

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I’m so happy that Silver has made the shortlist for the ABIAs – the Australian Book Industry Awards. It’s the General Fiction category. It’s quite the honour, given the quality of the other books shortlisted, and given those on the longlist. The only disappointment is that there won’t be an awards ceremony this year, especially as I know Dervla, Michael and Heather and we could have had quite the party!… Read More »And the shortlist!

ABIA General Fiction 2020 longlist

Silver makes ABIA longlist

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Silver is longlisted for the Australian Book Industry Awards for 2020 for general fiction! It goes to show how popular Australian crime fiction is right now – and how many good crime writers we have – seven out of the eight are crime books. I’ve read seven of the eight and they’re all good. I was lucky enough to make the shortlist last year with Scrublands, but I’m not too… Read More »Silver makes ABIA longlist

Scrublands US Harback and Paperback

Scrublands finalist in US Barry Awards

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Some excellent news from the United States: Scrublands has been shortlisted for a prestigious Barry Award for the Best First Mystery/Crime novel. The winner will be announced in October at the Bourchercon World Mystery Convention to be held in Sacramento. Huge thanks to US publisher Atria for giving Scrublands such great support.

Silver published in UK

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January has been a big month. Silver is in bookstores in the UK, thanks to the wonderful team at Wildfire, who have produced a most beautiful hardback. Silver is already winning some great reviews in the UK and in Ireland, with The Sunday Times naming it their crime book of the month for January. I’m indebted to the Times crime reviewer Joan Smith, herself an accomplished crime novelist, for choosing… Read More »Silver published in UK

Port Silver map

Helping the Fire Fighters

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It was such a small thing to do – donate some signed first editions and a couple of coloured maps as part of the #AuthorsForFiereys auction on twitter. But it felt good to be making even a small contribution to a much wider effort. I particularly like the maps – professionally coloured by artist Alex Potocnik – large scale copies of the maps in Scrublands and Silver. Some other authors… Read More »Helping the Fire Fighters

Indie longlist for Silver

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So proud that Silver, published just two months ago, is already in the running for a major award -it’s been longlisted for an Indie, for best fiction.. These are the annual prizes awarded by Australia’s wonderful independent bookstores, grouped together as Leading Edge. Not sure of Silver will make the shortlist, given the quality of the books here, but so good to be listed alongside them. One observation – in… Read More »Indie longlist for Silver

Is this a dagger….?

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Bloody hell – I won a Dagger! A lightning trip to London to attend the UK Crime Writers’ Association’s annual awards and Scrublands won the best debut novel of the year – The John Creasey New Blood Dagger. It’s one of the most prestigious international crime fiction awards and I’m elated. I’m told I might even be the first Australian to win it since its inception in 1973 – although… Read More »Is this a dagger….?