One week to go before Treasure & Dirt is published Australia/New Zealand publication, and here I am signing copies on the back deck during lockdown. Booktopia delivered a pallet load, so I worked my may through them and sent them back. Usually, I would be visiting their Sydney warehouse. What a strange couple of years it has been! Treasure & Dirt is now available for pre-order. Please support your local… Read More »Book signings
Treasure & Dirt won’t be published until September 28th in Australia and New Zealand, but already Apple Books is getting in early with the opportunity to pre-order. This is for Australia & New Zealand only – T&D will be published in the UK and Commonwealth in January 2022 as ‘Opal Country‘. This is standalone crime novel – or maybe the beginning of a new series. Even so, there are a… Read More »Apple Books pre-orders
Scrublands continues to be published around the world in translation. Here are the covers from Taiwan and France; it was published in both territories in May 2021. It does my head in, imagining the effort of translators, editors and designers to convert my work for non-English speaking audiences, together with sales, marketing and publicity teams. It’s such an honour.Huge thanks top all of them! I love the idea of people… Read More »Taiwan and France
It’s really only after the covid year of 2020 that I’ve come to realise how important writers festivals and similar events are to me. I always enjoyed them, but also thought they were a bit like the cherry on the cake. Now I think they’re far more important, almost essential. Writers spend so much time by ourselves, those solitary hours of working. It’s something I enjoy, but you can have… Read More »Sydney Writers’ Festival
Here I am with the wonderful Emma Viskic, about to embark on our session ‘Charismatic Crime Fighters’ at the Adelaide Writers’ Week. It was such a joy to be out and about, in front of a large and enthusiastic audience, without masks, in an atmosphere of near normality. Huge thanks to Jo Dyer for the invitation, and Kvitka Becker for making the visit run so very smoothly. Travelling to Adelaide… Read More »Adelaide Writers’ Week
I’m absolutely thrilled to have Trust longlisted in the General Fiction category for the Australian Book Industry Awards. It’s quite the honour, particularly considering the quality of the other books in contention, and the quality of many books that could so easily have been included. It’s also worth noting the continuing strength of Australian crime writing, with five of the eight longlisted books fitting into crime/thriller genre. Congratulations to my… Read More »Trust longlisted for ABIAs
Scrublands has been published in Italy this week by the wonderful Neri Pozza press. It’s called ‘Scrublands Noir’ and is presented with this wonderfully minimalist cover. Huge thanks to all concerned, especially translators Annamaria Biavasco and Valentina Guani. Such an amazing skill! Crime website Contorni di Noir says: “Supported by magnificent prose and a fast pace, Scrublands noir places Chris Hammer among the most original contemporary authors of noir and… Read More »Scrublands published in Italy
Excellent news from the UK! Silver has been named a Times/Sunday Times Crime Book of the Year for 2020. This is a great honour, and follows on from Scrublands being named a Crime Book of the Year for 2019. Huge thanks to UK publishers Headline/Wildfire who have done so much to promote the book. Here’s the whole list. You can Silver is in some pretty good company. Troubled Blood by… Read More »Crime Book of the Year!
The first review in mainstream Australian media: The Weekend Australian October 10th, three days before publication. A huge thanks to Robyn Walton (mysteriously given the by-line ‘Dalton’ here) for such a positive review. She says, among other thing: “Chris Hammer has excelled himself with Trust.” And “Hammer…delivers a thriller strong on character development, social insights and ethical issues as well as dramatic action.”
LoveReading styles itself as the UK’s leading book recommendation website, so I’m very happy and grateful that the team there has chosen Silver as one of its six books of the month. Great timing with Silver published in paperback in the UK. Here’s what the site’s Reviews Editor Liz Robsinson writes: “A cracking and class-act of a crime novel stuffed full of atmosphere and detail which skilfully sits alongside a… Read More »Book of the Month