Crime

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The Hanging of Jean Lee

by Jordie Albiston
Ligature untapped
genre Crime · Poetry

In 1951, Jean Lee was Australia’s last woman hanged. Award-winning poet Jordie Albiston’s acclaimed verse novel puts this woman’s tragic story within the context of her times.

‘As one might expect, it is a grim, tough story of the deterioration of a young woman’s life and its brutal end. It is divided into four sections with deliberately cold-hearted titles: Personal Pages, Entertainment Section, Crime Supplement and Death Notices. The Hanging of Jean Lee is economically and imaginatively conceived with a strong narrative drive. In a series of short connected poems, Jordie Albiston has made a heart-breaker out of her material, ringing the verse changes, using rhyme and blank verse in short chopped lines, colloquial language, reportage, and newspaper headlines with considerable skill.’ — Dorothy Hewett, Australian Book Review, 1999.

First published in 1998, The Hanging of Jean Lee was adapted for music-theatre and performed at the Sydney Opera House by a group of singers and musicians brought together for the purpose.

Jordie Albiston has published six collections of poetry. Nervous Arcs (1995), her debut, won the Mary Gilmore Award and The Sonnet According to M (2009) won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. Her most recent work is Fifteeners(2021). She received the Patrick White award in 2019.


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Murder in the Frame

by Dave Warner
Ligature untapped
genre Crime

Former rock star turned sleuth, Andrew ‘The Lizard’ Zirk, is back. This time he’s been invited to the short film festival, TropFest, and of course murder is on the program. First published in 1998, Murder in the Frame is the second in a three part series of whodunnits that read like a cross between Agatha Christie and Carl Hiaasen.

Dave Warner is an award-winning author, screenwriter and musician. He won the Western Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction in 1996 for City of Light (1995), the Ned Kelly Award for Best Australian Crime Fiction in 2017 for Before it Breaks (2015) and is a member of the WA Rock and Roll of Renown (1992). In 2015, he was named a Western Australian State Living Treasure. For more information visit davewarner.com.au.


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Murder in the Groove

by Dave Warner
Ligature untapped
genre Crime

When Australia’s most successful and least liked musician is found dead, it looks like an overdose. But his roadie is dead too, and there are a lot of suspects. First published in 1998 and featuring the country’s most unlikely sleuth—ex-rock star Andrew ‘The Lizard’ Zirk—Murder in the Groove is the first in a three part series of whodunnits that read like a cross between Agatha Christie and Carl Hiaasen.

Dave Warner is an award-winning author, screenwriter and musician. He won the Western Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction in 1996 for City of Light (1995), the Ned Kelly Award for Best Australian Crime Fiction in 2017 for Before it Breaks (2015) and is a member of the WA Rock and Roll of Renown (1992). In 2015, he was named a Western Australian State Living Treasure. For more information visit davewarner.com.au


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Murder in the Off-Season

by Dave Warner
Ligature untapped
genre Crime

Ex-rock star turned sleuth Andrew ‘The Lizard’ Zirk goes on a romantic island getaway with his chauffeur, Fleur. There are only two problems: they’re joined by a recently defeated football team—and murder. First published in 2000, Murder in the Off-Season is the final in a three part series of whodunnits that read like a cross between Agatha Christie and Carl Hiaasen.

Dave Warner is an award-winning author, screenwriter and musician. He won the Western Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction in 1996 for City of Light (1995), the Ned Kelly Award for Best Australian Crime Fiction in 2017 for Before it Breaks (2015), is a member of the WA Rock and Roll of Renown (1992). In 2015, he was named a Western Australian State Living Treasure. For more information visit davewarner.com.au.


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Crosskill

by Garry Disher
Ligature finest
genre Crime

The fourth Wyatt novel. Wyatt is meticulous, demanding and implacable, and this may be the toughest, coolest and most uncompromising series in Australian literature.


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Deathdeal

by Garry Disher
Ligature finest
genre Crime

The third Wyatt novel. Patient, exacting and not particularly lucky, Wyatt is a criminal’s criminal and this series is one of the most compelling in Australian fiction.


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Paydirt

by Garry Disher
Ligature finest
genre Crime

The second Wyatt novel. Careful, exacting and ruthless, Wyatt is a consummate criminal and a solitary giant in Australian crime writing.


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Kickback

by Garry Disher
Ligature finest
genre Crime

The first Wyatt novel. Professional, methodical and only slightly sentimental, Wyatt is a flinty poem of a criminal and one of the most memorable creations in modern Australian literature.


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The Blindman’s Hat

by Bernard Cohen
Ligature finest
genre Crime · Literary Fiction

The multiple award-winning The Blindman’s Hat is Paul Auster with added exuberant silliness, Sara Paretsky stuffed full of red herrings, and Hergé overcome by lust.


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Straight, Bent & Barbara Vine

by Garry Disher
Ligature finest
genre Crime · Literary Fiction · Stories

There are three ways to play a crime story. You can play it straight, making the most of the conventions of the genre. You can bend the conventions and the genre itself all the way around. Or you can take the genre deeper into the human mind and soul. These dozen stories play it every way there is, and they’re like nothing you’ve ever read.