Authors

After a generally messy and wandering life, including living in four countries before she was fifteen, Alex now live in Canberra with her husband.  

Alex’s books are available from Fishpond, various bookstores and (she’s been told) E-bay.

Go out and get Blood Redemption and enjoy a compelling thriller.  CrimeDownUnder (Full review here)

What eventuates is a mysterious and very very complicated set of events around illicit biotechnology, corruption, big business, fraud and con schemes, politics and espionage.  AustCrimeFiction (Full review here)

An outstanding read from one of Australia’s rising literary stars.  AussieReviews (Full review here)

Not strictly a police procedural, THE LABYRINTH OF DROWNING would be an interesting book for anybody who liked the earlier 2, or anyone who is looking for something less structured than a procedural but not quite as free-form as a private investigator style book.  AustCrimeFiction (Full review here)

Palmer's characters are real. Their language is authentic. It helps that the book is set in Sydney because it is easy to get strong visuals of the suburbs and people she depicts. It also has a streetwise grittiness that both impresses and depresses.  Lawyers Weekly  (Full review here)

Liz was born in the English Midlands and spent several years working as a London-based journalist before setting off on a solo trip around the world. A holiday romance in Tasmania led to marriage and migration to Melbourne in 1995. Liz now lives with her husband and son in the Dandenong Ranges, where she works as a freelance book editor and writer.

Liz’s first published fiction appeared in the 1980s, when she sold a number of stories to the British teenage girls’ magazine Patches. After that, fiction took a back seat while she concentrated first on her journalistic career and later on settling into her new life in Australia, but she began writing fiction again, seriously, in 2003.

A long-time member of Sisters in Crime Australia, Liz won the 2004 Scarlet Stiletto Award for short crime fiction, was runner-up in 2007 and has been shortlisted three times. Her award-winning story, ‘Brought to Book’, is included in the book, Scarlet Stiletto: The first cut.

Liz’s first novel, To All Appearance Dead – featuring Australian magazine editor and book collector Sally Meredith – was published by UK small-press publisher Bettany Press in 2007. Bettany Press is currently publishing her series of contemporary boarding-school stories.

Liz has also written true-crime essays for the anthologies Meaner Than Fiction, Outside the Law 2 and Outside the Law 3.

Angela Savage travelled to Laos in 1992 on a six-month scholarship, then spent the next six years living in Southeast Asia. Based in Vientiane, Hanoi and later Bangkok, she set up and headed the Australian Red Cross HIV/AIDS subregional program. By mid-1998, she’d tired of writing sexual health training manuals and turned to fiction.

Angela’s short story ‘The Mole on the Temple’ won third prize at the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Awards in 1998, and introduced Bangkok-based detective Jayne Keeney, the main character in her first full-length novel, Behind the Night Bazaar, published in 2006 by Text.

Behind the Night Bazaar won the 2004 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in the unpublished manuscript category (as Thai Died) and was short-listed in the 2007 Ned Kelly Awards for Best First Book.

The second Jayne Keeney novel, The Half-Child, also set in Thailand, was written in Cambodia, where Angela, her partner Andrew Nette and their young daughter lived for the year in 2008. The Half-Child will be published by Text in September 2010.

Angela juggles relationships and writing with paid work in the community sector in Melbourne, whilst plotting to get back to Southeast Asia. She is working on the third Jayne Keeney novel.

www.angelasavage.wordpress.com

Savage has taken a risky gambit with her first book and it is testament to her confidence and skill that it has paid off. Rather than try a standard whodunit, she quickly gets the crime and its perpetrators out in the open. She then impressively manages the difficult task of keeping suspense and interest high while Keeney tries to satisfy her need for revenge and moral rectitude.  The Age (Full review here)

The compelling thing about this book is that it's a crime fiction novel which is touching on a number of very serious social issues: child sexual exploitation, AIDS/HIV, sex tourism and official corruption, but the book tells the message, reveals the consequences, and avoids lecturing.  AustCrimeFiction (Full review here)

Angela Savage writes with engaging clarity and displays a deep understanding of Thailand and its customs and conveys them admirably. She peppers the narrative with Thai words and phrases that enhances the authenticity of the story and nicely brings the place to life. Her descriptions of the surroundings are suffused with a stark clarity which goes a significant way to setting the desperate tone of the story.  CrimeDownUnder  (Full review here)

Feel free to call me Moss, everyone does – even my mother (and she came up with Merrilee).

Long long ago in a land called Canberra… I started my writing life as a poet, until someone suggested I write a sketch for a revue night at ANU. I wrote a short dialogue by hand (yes, with pen and paper) one evening and handed it to the producer, thinking that would be the end of that. But a couple of weeks later three professional actors performed my script Baked Beans and a theatre full of people roared with laughter while I sat in the audience bursting at the seams.

I was hooked – and I’ve been chasing that moment ever since. Every now and again I almost achieve it: at the opening night of a play when someone laughs; or when I tear open a parcel to find a new book hot off the press; or glimpse someone reading one of my books; or read a good review – particularly if it’s written by one of my readers…

I’ve written lots of plays since then, and they’ve toured theatres and community venues all over Australia: If Looks Could Kill, Empty Suitcases, Over the Hill, The Slippery Slope and Night Breakfast. 

I live in Melbourne now and I don’t just write scripts; I also write novels. I love a good read. I’m a narrative junkie - addicted to story. I have to know what happens next and I have to experience the whole ride. (No skipping to the end; no skim reading.) I blame writers like Enid Blyton (The Famous Five), Noel Streatfield (Ballet Shoes) and L M  Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) who kept me in bed reading on the weekends as a child, and later inspired me to write an adventure series for young adults: Hot Pursuit, and a novel for younger readers: Thriller & Me.

Right now I’m writing a comic detective novel for adults: Fedora Dances. It’s a sequel to my book Fedora Walks, featuring Julie Bernard, lesbian detective extraordinaire, a touch of time travel, a blue heeler called Jodifosta, and Julie’s ghostly client, Fedora.

I taught writing at Victoria University for 14 years, but now I’m a student myself - just finished a Masters in Playwriting at QUT - now studying for a PhD in Theatre Performance at Monash University.

If you're fans of the supernatural, if you're a fan of theatricals, if you're a lover of lesbian fiction (crime or not), or if you simply want something funny to fill in a few pleasant hours, then FEDORA WALKS is a great little book.   AustCrimeFiction  (Full review here)

A super quick supernatural mystery, Fedora Walks is an enjoyable little novel pumped with steamy, sometimes lustful, asides. CrimeDownUnder (Full review here)

When (also) not working part-time as a journalist (an actual paid job), her days are spent feeding, grooming and cleaning up after cats. In return she gets plenty of blood-pressure lowering furry-purry hugs.

Fin and her husband, Steve, also manufacture cat havens so that other cat lovers can let their precious felines ‘out’ but always know where they are.
   
After starting her working life as a cadet journalist on a country newspaper, followed by 10 years on suburban papers, Fin discovered the joy of turning a bit of wood into a work of art. She and Steve then ran a woodworking business for 10 years.

Back on a small country newspaper again, it seems her life has come full circle – although it is now graced by the coming and going of other people’s beautiful cats and a desire to write for herself.

Fin’s first published book is the true crime anthology, Killer in the Family, co-written with her big sister Lindy Cameron.

And then… a funny thing happened on the way to finishing her first mystery.

Fin has been sidetracked into writing a novel about well, cats actually. She figures it’s a natural progression, given she now knows it’s impossible to write without a cat on her lap.

Apparently there are some who might call Fin’s latest writing project a work of fantasy, but she knows better. AKA Fudgepuddle is, after all, a biography, a journal, a memoir, so it’s not really even fiction. It is, in fact, the true-life adventures of a demanding cat called Megsy who insisted Fin translate her story into English… sort of.
 

  http://www.katzwizkerz.com.au/

Read the first Chapter of

AKA Fudgepuddle here

Alan is an author living on the south coast of NSW, Australia. He writes dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, rides a motorcycle and loves his dog. He also teaches Kung Fu. Read his short stories, novella and novel extracts at his website and feel free to tell him what you think. About anything.

http://www.alanbaxteronline.com

RealmShift is a mesmerizing novel that will both entrap and entrance the reader. It is a book to be read slowly in order to discover and savor the subtle messages and twists in it.  Bitten by Books (Full review here)

And this is really a strong point which deserves mentioning: Alan Baxter excels at writing action. Whether it's man versus man, your immortal Isiah versus demons or Satan himself, you feel every bone crunching kick. You hear every wet thud of a fist hitting slimy flesh. You smell the gunpowder. Baxter's world is populated by all kinds of supernatural creatures, from angels to demons to vampires to whatever else people believe in, so the potential for conflict is limitless.   Horror Bound Online Magazine (Full review here)

So if you're willing to try something a little different, then this is the book for you to try. I highly recommend it!  Books Books and more Books (Full review here)

Prose flows smoothly, almost poetic. RealmShift is a novel I am loath to put down. A most surprising read. Quite a ride.  TCM Reviews (Full review here)

MageSign is a thriller, a mystery, a love story and a thought-provoking examination of the relationship between religion and humanity in all its glory and shame. Alan Baxter takes the reader right to the edge and then pushes us over. And I thank him for it.  Bitten by Books  (Full review here)

But Baxter’s true claim to fame is his final climaxes. In the first book, the build up was very well done although the aftermath and character reactions were disappointing – not the case here. The mounting tension is exquisitely handled, built up to a crescendo of amazing proportions.  Oz Horror Scope (Full review here)

When I decided that I wanted to try and write one of my own – but of course it would be set in Melbourne where I grew up – I realised that I had a big deficit of knowledge about murderers and why some people killed other people. I set out for my favourite book store – Kill City in Prahran and found a book about one of the infamous Moors Murderers called: Myra Hindley: inside the mind of a murderess. Reading true crime had an instant impact. All of a sudden stories with a body in the library and seven suspects seemed trite and unreal.
     

True stories were full of power because they were about real people and real suffering. I read every true crime book that I could lay my hands on but most of them were from the UK or American. There was little written about crime in Australia.

From the moment I started reading true crime, I knew that if I was going to be a writer, these were the stories that I wanted to write. Back to Kill City and another book, this one by an author called Gary Provost called How to write and sell true crime. I followed Gary’s advice and produced my first book called The Phillip Island Murder. And the rest as they say is history.

http://www.vikkipetraitis.com

Lindy never grew up to be the famous scientist she’d always dreamt of being.

Instead she spent time as a journalist, a traveller and a book editor before turning happily to a life of crime. She is now the author of five crime, mystery and adventure novels.

Lindy lives with her wonderful partner Michele on Victoria’s beautiful Mornington Peninsula, which they rarely leave because it’s too hard to get a sitter for the four-legged kids. They share their home with one dog, Tess; and four cats, Xena, Gabby, Emmett and Ares.

Lindy is an unashamed Xenite, Xenaphile, XWP buff – you get the drift; a Buffy, Angel, Stargate, Dr Who, Torchwood, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica fan; a Trekker; a closet warrior princess; and a philogynist, who obviously doesn’t mind being labelled.

She is also a National Co-Convenor of Sisters in Crime Australia and editor of its magazine Stiletto.

As a true crime writer and editor Lindy is: co-author, with her sister Fin J. Ross, of Killer in the Family; co-author, with her friend Ruth Wykes, of Women Who Kill; contributing editor of Meaner Than Fiction and Outside the Law 2; and editor of Outside the Law 3.
 
Lindy much prefers to make things up and is therefore thrilled to be the author of the archaeological-adventure Golden Relic; the three-book Kit O'Malley mystery series - Blood Guilt, Bleeding Hearts and Thicker Than Water; and the adventure-thriller Redback.

She is currently working on the sequel to Redback; and a YA urban fantasy time-travelling adventure.

Lindy Cameron

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Pacey, peopled with strong female characters; good male characters; a complicated yet disconcertingly believable multi-threaded plot and a hefty dose of subtle humour, REDBACK is definitely going to be amongst my best books of 2007 list.    AustCrimeFiction (Full review here)

Redback is a grand action thriller set on a global scale reaching from Texas, through Luxembourg and on to Peshawar, Pakistan. Author Lindy Cameron has hatched an ingenious terrorist plot, spread by terrorist leaders on many fronts. To counter them she has introduced a brand new group of highly trained operatives known as the Redback Retrieval Group.CrimeDownUnder (Full review here)

Even though she has been writing all her life, in one form or another, 2010 will be the year Ruth Wykes has her first taste of being a published author. She has co-written a true crime book with friend and mentor, Lindy Cameron.

Women Who Kill will be available in May.

Her interest in true crime and her love of crime fiction is reflected in her personal library; the only thing that competes with the resident felines for domination of her modest, but happy, home.

For ten years Ruth was editor and publisher of a magazine, until she grew tired of the constant battle between wanting to write something of reasonable quality, then trying to sell it to a readership that was yearning for something quick and easy to digest. A little like the trends in our Western diets really.

These days Ruth is often bemused by the knowledge that she works in a place that sells murder weapons, crime-concealment tools, and other apparently malevolent stock for the criminally minded – Bunnings. It has certainly made her look a little harder at some of the customers who ask her for rope, shovels and chainsaws.

At the same time it offers up some interesting material for her imagination, and has inspired some of the more random moments in the crime fiction novel she is currently writing.

She remains unclear about her role in the house she shares with five cats. There are moments when she feels like the unpaid cleaner, cook and masseuse of the menagerie – and other times where she just feels like she has been slotted somewhere into the predominantly feline hierarchy.

She harbors a dream to travel extensively through Europe, to relocate to the eastern seaboard… and she lives for the day her beloved Fremantle Dockers will reach an AFL grand final.

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From an early age, Felicity wanted to write. But it wasn’t until the pet kangaroo ate her sheep pedigree notes – the final nail in the coffin of her unsuccessful ram breeding business – that she decided to do something about it.

Crème de la Crime published Felicity’s first crime novel, A Certain Malice, in the UK in 2005. Since then she has written three novels in the Stevie Hooper series: An Easeful Death (2007) Harum Scarum (2008) and Take Out (2010). All three are published in Australia by Fremantle Press.

Felicity’s three adult children have fled, but her husband Mick has remained with her on the family farm. When not hunched over their laptops or looking after the menagerie, they are fighting fires with their local volunteer bush fire brigade.

  www.felicityyoung.com

‘… Take Out could be recommended to please any fan of Patricia Cornwall and Kathryn Fox’s work and is perfect for anyone that needs a lazy day of reading, especially with holidays coming up.’ Bookseller+Publisher.

‘Hopefully Young will find a ready audience.She deserves it.’ Good Reading.

‘Felicity Young is an intriguing new addition to the upper echelons of Australian thriller writing.’ Sun Herald.

TAKE OUT really does take on a difficult subject with sensitivity and insight, making the victims a point of focus, delivering a realistic (and therefore not all neatly wrapped up and sealed off) resolution.  AustCrimeFiction (full review here)