Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Crime on the rise: Herald on Sunday feature on the Ngaio Marsh Award, New Zealand crime fiction, and me (gulp)


On Sunday the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, along with your Crime Watch host, was featured in the Books section of the Herald on Sunday, one of New Zealand's biggest, and best (according to the Qantas Media Awards), newspapers. It's great to see New Zealand crime fiction getting more of this kind of coverage recently (eg the likewise excellent features in the New Zealand Listener, The Press and The Dominion Post, and the Sunday-Star-Times).

I was interviewed, and the article was written, by Books Editor Nicky Pellegrino, who is herself an acclaimed author of bestselling novels (eg Delicious, The Italian Wedding, Recipe for Life) that have been sold in 14 countries and translated into 10 languages. She is also a freelance writer and former editor of the Women's Weekly (she's just stepped back into that role on an interim basis too). You can read a review of her latest novel, RECIPE FOR LIFE, here.

It's a very good article (if a little too focused on me), and hopefully some of you will find it interesting. I'd just add one minor correction - Paul Cleave has of course sold several hundred thousand novels in Germany, not several thousand. Sometimes I mumble.

You can now read the full article on the New Zealand Herald website, by clicking on the image above, or here. Oh, and the books I'm holding with the award - HUNTING BLIND by Paddy Richardson, THE FALLEN by Ben Sanders, SURRENDER by Donna Malane, CAPTURED by Neil Cross, SLAUGHTER FALLS by Alix Bosco and BLOOD MEN by Paul Cleave - are some (but not all) of the 2010 Kiwi crime and thriller novels that could be in the running for next year's award. The future looks bright for New Zealand crime fiction. Perhaps I should have worn shades.

What do you think of the article? Have you read more New Zealand crime novels in recent times? Who are some of your favourite authors/books? Who are your favourites for the 2011 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel? Thoughts and comments appreciated.

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