Fighting for justice for women crime writers; promoting women’s crime fiction
Sisters in Crime Australia, Inc. ABN 52 728 423 463
GPO Box 5319, Melbourne, Vic, 3001
Webpage: http://www.vicnet.net.au/~sincoz/
Embargoed to 10pm, Friday November 2, 2007
Media Release:
CRIME BOOKS PASS CONNEX TEST: ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS
OF 7th DAVITT AWARDS
Undertow (PanMacmillan), Sydney Bauer’s debut legal thriller set in Boston, has won
tonight's Davitt Award for the best (adult) crime novel by an Australian woman in 2006. Silent
Death: The Killing of Julie Ramage (Hodder) by Age journalist, Karen Kissane, took out the
Davitt (true crime) and jointly shared the Davitt (readers’ choice) with Devil’s Food (Allen &
Unwin) by Kerry Greenwood. Jacyln Moriarty won the Davitt (young adult) for The Betrayal
of Bindy Mackenzie (PanMacmillan).
The Davitt Awards were set up by Sisters in Crime in 2001 to celebrate the achievements of
Australian women crime writers and, this year, have been sponsored by the Victoria Police
Museum.
Sisters in Crime spokesperson, Dr Sue Turnbull, said that this year the judges used a unique
and innovative form of assessment – the Connex Test – to assess the 38 Australian
women’s crime books in contention.
“The Connex Test establishes whether or not the book was engaging enough to distract the
reader from the tedium of travel on Melbourne’s public transport system. The quality of the
writing – the plot or narrative, character and originality – determined how well the books
passed the test,” she said.
Walkley Award winning Perth journalist, Estelle Blackburn, was guest speaker at the Davitts
award ceremony at the Celtic Club in Melbourne tonight. Blackburn’s investigations resulted
in pardons for John Button and Darryl Beamish, both wrongfully imprisoned for murder in
Western Australia. Her latest book, The End of Innocence (May 2007), outlines her journey
while searching for justice for the two men.
Blackburn presented the awards for best crime novels (adult and young adul