Australian Crime Writers Association · award year

Ned Kelly Awards 2023

The 2023 Ned Kelly Awards went to Exiles by Jane Harper (Best Crime Fiction), Wake by Shelley Burr (Best Debut Crime Fiction) and The Lemon Man by Keith Bruton (Best International Crime Fiction), with winners in 1 more category. 25 books made the shortlist across 4 categories.

Winners

Best Crime Fiction

  1. Exilessource (opens in a new tab)

Best Debut Crime Fiction

  1. Wakesource (opens in a new tab)

Best International Crime Fiction

  1. The Lemon Mansource (opens in a new tab)

Best True Crime

  1. Betrayedsource (opens in a new tab)

Shortlist

Best Crime Fiction

  1. Lying Beside Yousource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Seven Sisterssource (opens in a new tab)
  3. The Carnival Is Oversource (opens in a new tab)
  4. The Soulmatesource (opens in a new tab)
  5. The Tiltsource (opens in a new tab)
  6. Those Who Perishsource (opens in a new tab)
  7. When We Fallsource (opens in a new tab)

Best Debut Crime Fiction

  1. Black Riversource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Denizensource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Dirt Townsource (opens in a new tab)
  4. How to Kill a Clientsource (opens in a new tab)
  5. Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murdersource (opens in a new tab)
  6. No Country for Girlssource (opens in a new tab)
  7. The House of Now and Thensource (opens in a new tab)

Best International Crime Fiction

  1. Paper Cagesource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Favoursource (opens in a new tab)
  3. The Hitchhikersource (opens in a new tab)

Best True Crime

  1. Death Row at Trurosource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Out of the Ashessource (opens in a new tab)
  3. Rattledsource (opens in a new tab)
  4. Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!source (opens in a new tab)

About the Ned Kelly Awards

Book categories only: Best Crime Fiction (called Best Fiction to 2019), Best Debut Crime Fiction (Best First Fiction to 2019), Best True Crime, and Best International Crime Fiction (from 2020, its first year). Year is the award year ACWA uses; winners are announced in August-October of that year. Winners for 2006-2019 come from ACWA's all-winners pages. Shortlists come from ACWA's pages for 2019-2025 and from archive.org snapshots of ACWA's old site for 2013-2017. ACWA's shortlists for 2006-2012 and 2018 are not online or archived, so those come from fallbacks: City of Parramatta Libraries' Parra Reads posts made at announcement (2009-2011, 2018) and Stop, You're Killing Me! (2006-2008, 2012). No published Best True Crime shortlist was found for 2006-2008, so those years list winners only. Ties are recorded as two winners (fiction 2006 and 2009, true crime 2007 and 2017). Skipped: the S.D. Harvey short story award, Readers' Vote, Lifetime Achievement, the 2013 and 2018 longlists, and the Louie Award for unpublished manuscripts.

Organization: Australian Crime Writers Association. Years are award years, which can differ from publication years. Official site (opens in a new tab)

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