Last year in New York, I visited the Mysterious Bookshop, Manhattan’s only bookstore specialising in crime fiction. The otherwise knowledgeable bookseller had heard of three Australian crime novelists: Peter Temple, Garry Disher, and Jane Harper.

If I were to visit this year, however, I’m pretty sure the bookseller would be able to add more Australian novelists to his list – the multi-award-winning author Emma Viskic for one, along with Dervla McTiernan and Candice Fox. Fox has become an internationally bestselling author, a success amplified by her four parallel collaborations with James Patterson, one of which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. McTiernan’s 2018 début, The Ruin, was both a critical and commercial success in Australia and overseas, garnering praise from fellow writers, critics, and fans alike for the Ireland-set novel’s clear-eyed style and deep characterisation.

In 2018, Garry Disher was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Australian Crime Writer’s Association Ned Kelly Awards in recognition of a career spanning several decades. Twice awarded Germany’s most prestigious crime-writing award, the German Crime Prize, and twice winner of the Australian equivalent for best crime novel, the Ned Kelly Award, Disher is one of Australia’s great writers and the author of more than fifty books.