6 Ulverscroft Titles Shortlisted At The Ned Kelly Awards

4 July 2022

The Ned Kelly Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious recognition honouring published crime fiction and true crime writing. We are proud to see Ulverscroft titles shortlisted across all four categories.

Best Crime Fiction
The Others by Mark Brandi
Published in large print in December 2022 and published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in June 2022.
On his eleventh birthday, Jacob's father gives him a diary. To write in about things that happen. About what he and his father do on their farm. About the sheep, the crop, the fox and the dam. But Jacob knows some things should not be written down. Some things should not be remembered.

The only things he knows for sure is what his father has taught him. He is sheltered, protected, isolated. But who is his father protecting him from? And how far will his father go to keep the world at bay? All too soon, Jacob will learn that sometimes we all have to do terrible things...

You Had It Coming by B. M. Carroll
Published in large print in December 2021 and published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in June 2022.
When paramedic Megan Lowe is called to the scene of an attempted murder, all she can do is try to save the victim. But as the man is lifted onto a stretcher, she realises she knows him. She despises him. Why should she save his life when he destroyed hers?

Jess Foster is on her way home when she receives a text from Megan. Once best friends, the two women haven't been close for years, not since the night when they were just the teenage girls whom no-one believed; whose reputations were ruined. All Jess can think is, you had it coming.

Now Megan and Jess are at the centre of a murder investigation. But what secrets are they hiding? Can they trust one another? And who really is the victim?

Best True Crime
A Witness Of Fact by Drew Rooke
Published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in October 2022.
For nearly three decades, Dr Colin Manock was in charge of South Australia's forensic pathology services. In cases of unexpected or unexplained death, it was his job to determine when a person took their final breath, and whether they had died naturally - or not.

But Manock did not have the necessary training for such a specialist role, and made serious errors in several major cases. The full extent of his wrongdoing, and the exact number of cases impacted by it, remain a mystery more than twenty-five years after he retired.

In this book, Rooke examines several of Manock's most controversial cases. A Witness Of Fact describes how an entire legal system has failed, how unsafe verdicts have been swept under the carpet - and how forensic evidence that is admitted in courts of law is dubious more often than we would like to think.

Best Debut Crime Fiction
Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham
Published in large print in December 2022 and published in CD and MP3 CD audiobook and uLibrary eAudiobook in June 2022.
Edwina is an old-school battler. Her life revolves around the church and her job unpacking vegetables early in the morning, while around her a new generation turns Ponsonby into a trendy, uber-chic suburb. It is a chance win in a church raffle - a gym membership - that changes her life. She meets different people; makes a new young friend named Rose, and transforms herself: a metamorphosis, Rose calls it.

And then Edwina is murdered.

Detective Alex Cameron and his team, Jerry and Marion, investigate. It's a casual comment from Rose which sends them trawling through Edwina's childhood - a time when Ponsonby was tougher, poverty carved a deep scar, and some people would do anything to escape...

Best International Crime Fiction
The Heron’s Cry by Ann Cleeves
Published in large print in July 2022.
North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder - Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed. His daughter Eve is a glassblower, and the murder weapon is a shard of one of her broken vases. Dr Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He's a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter. Matthew is unnerved, though, to find that she is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband. Then another body is found - killed in a similar way. And Matthew finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community...

The Maid by Nita Prose
Published in large print in July 2022.
I am your maid.

I know about your secrets. Your dirty laundry.

But what do you know about me?

Molly the maid is all alone in the world. A nobody. She's used to being invisible in her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows and wiping away the grime, dust and secrets of the guests passing through. She's just a maid - why should anyone take notice?

But she is suddenly thrown into the spotlight when she discovers an infamous guest, Mr Black, very dead in his bed. This isn't a mess that can be easily cleaned up. And as Molly becomes embroiled in a hunt for the truth, following the clues whispering in the hallways of the Regency Grand, she discovers a power she never knew was there. She's just a maid - but what can she see that others overlook?