Helen 0:00

The Kill City podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands we're on. Here in Melbourne, that's the Wurrundjeri Woi Worong people of the Kulin Nation. We honour their deep connection to storytelling, a tradition carried across more than 2,000 generations. Pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and we extend that acknowledgement to First Nations people listening today.

Leigh 0:45

Now, as always, I'm joined by Helen, and for this bonus episode, we're sharing some fantastic Indigenous crime reads to add to your TBR lists. Firstly, how are you, Helen?

Helen 0:54

I'm very well, thank you. And you're right, this really is a very special episode because we're celebrating some of the brilliant Indigenous Australian writers whose storytelling traditions go back tens of thousands of years and whose contemporary work, including those in crime fiction, continues to broaden and deepen what Australian literature looks like today. Now, for anyone listening overseas, Nadoc Week happens in the first week of July in Australia, and it's an Indigenous-led celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. It's organised by the National Nadoc Committee, which is made up entirely of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members, and it comes out of a long history of First Nations activism and community leadership. Now this year's theme is 50 years of Deadly, and it marks five decades of NADOC Week and honours the generations of people who've kept the movement going and pushed for visibility, pride and cultural strength. During NADOC Week, there's heaps of events and celebrations that happen all around the country that recognise the achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and one of the really big moments each year is the National Nadoc Awards. Now the award most relevant to writers that we're talking about today is the Creative Talent Award, and that's the category that celebrates excellence in the arts, including writing. The awards are announced during Nadoc Week, which kicked off on Sunday, the 5th of July, and runs through to Sunday, the 12th of July. And if you look at creative talent winners recently, people like Christine Arnoux, Rachel Perkins, Lowell Hunter, you get a sense of the calibre we're talking about. So I'm really looking forward to seeing who takes it out again this year. And we'll pop a link to the NADOC website in the show notes so you can check out all the categories.

Leigh 2:42

Nadoc work is always such a brilliant celebration of culture and creativity, and there are always some incredibly deserving winners.

Helen 2:49

There sure are.

Leigh 2:52

Now just a couple of caveats before we get into the books. Some of the titles we're talking about today aren't straight-up crime novels, and some wouldn't probably be classified as crime fiction at all. But they're all powerful examples of indigenous storytelling, and they show the range and depth of First Nations voices across the last few decades. And in the spirit of transparency, we haven't read every single one on this list. Um, they span more than 30 years, and researching the episode has been a great reminder how much incredible work is out there and how much more there always is to learn. Um, what really stands out across all of these writers is the strength of their craft and the way their stories are grounded in culture, country, and community. You come away with a deeper understanding of the worlds they're writing from, and that's a real privilege as a reader.

Helen 3:39

Oh goodness, I totally agree. It's such a stunning list of books. Alrighty, where shall we start?

Leigh 3:45

Uh I think we should start with um Melissa Lukashenko. She's got three books that sit really comfortably in this crime hemisphere, across a broader canon of work of hers. Um for anyone who isn't familiar with her work, Melissa is an acclaimed Aboriginal writer of Guri and European heritage. Her debut novel, Steam Pigs, came out in 1997, and since then she's become one of the most awarded and widely respected writers in the country across novels, essays, and short fiction. She's picked up a stack of major awards over the years. The Aury Ellis Award for a young adult novel Killing Darcy, the Queensland Literary Awards, and Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Mullum Bimby, and of course the Miles Franklin and another Queensland Literary Award for Too Much Lip. And her 2024 novel, Eden Glassy, absolutely cleaned up, shortlisted or won around 15 awards. She's even won a Walkley back in 2013 for her long-form journalism piece, Sinking Below Sight. Now, Killing Darcy, which was published, first published in 1998, is described as a gripping tale of murder and prejudice and follows young, broken on-parole, courry teenager Darcy Mango, who is trying to reconnect with his mob in northern New South Wales. After he picks up work on the Menzies Horse Farm, he stumbles across this old-fashioned camera in the rainforest, and what it reveals pulls him into something much bigger and stranger than he expected.

Helen 5:14

Oh, that sounds like a great start to a um a crime novel for sure. Look, Melissa's one of my favourite Indigenous Australian authors, and what I love about being able to talk about her this early in her career is that from what we read about the book, it just set her off in terms of that trademark sharp humour she has, that really strong sense of place, and the way she writes about community with such clarity and heart in Killing Darcy. And then the next one of Melissa's books that I want to mention is Hard Yards. Now, this one was published in 1999, and I'd actually probably call it crime-adjacent fiction because it follows a fellow called Rue Glover, who's got two big talents, from the back of the book tells us. He can fight and he can run like the clappers. He's a survivor. He's been in foster care, juvenile detention, um, poverty stricken, and he's pushing hard against a dream of Olympic qualification. So Rue's also navigating life with his girlfriend's Aboriginal family, and in the same week he finds his father, he loses his cousin Stanley, who dies in custody. And that's just such a lot coming for him at once. And the story just really digs into that pressure and injustice and the choices that start closing in on him. Now, critics were really complimentary. They called it a powerful story of life and death on the run, and um, you can you can really see why why Melissa's stuff was so great in this space.

Leigh 6:39

Yeah, you can see those themes running right through her work, you know, family, justice, community, and that dark humour that she always nails. Um, they're the heartbeat of so much Australian crime writing, and Melissa brings her own really sharp spin to them. Um which brings us to the last of Melissa's novels that we're highlighting today, Too Much Lip from 2020. Um Kerry Salter is one of those characters who just jumps off the page, she's witty, angry, absolutely done with everyone's nonsense. With her pop dying and the law closing in, she heads home on a stolen Harley, planning to stay 24 hours tops. But Bunjalung Country has other plans. Old wounds flare up, the Salters are fighting to protect their river, and a good-looking Jugai block turns up to complicate things even more. It's fierce, funny, messy, and it's basically Melissa Lukashenko at her best.

Helen 7:36

Yeah, she's such a good author for us to kick off our list with. Now, in the spirit of trying to make Leigh's life slightly easier, and you can thank me later, Leigh, I'm going to run through a few more authors, and we're actually going to do it in chronological order of about when their crime novels came out. So, first up, we've got Scream Black Murder by Philip McLaren that was published in 1995. Now, this was his second novel, but is actually his first crime novel. Now, Philip McLaren is an Australian author and academic, and his work spans literary fiction, thrillers, social commentary, and screenwriting. He's one of those writers who moves across different forms but he always brings his sharp political edge and a deep sense of place. Now, Scream Black Murder is actually a really dark thriller that won the 1996 David Unipond Award. Now, Curry detectives Gary Leslie and Lisa Fuller, part of the new Aboriginal Homicide Unit, are thrown together on their first case, and they have to navigate a hostile police department, all this media pressure, and their own kind of complicated connection. When a young white woman is killed, the scrutiny intensifies and the state skyrocket, becomes a real cat and mouse chase through parts. Australian crime fiction doesn't always shine a light on. There's systemic racism, institutional pressure, and there's that community tension that drives the danger as much as the killer does.

Leigh 9:06

Next, we've got My Island Homicide by Catherine Titesse, published in 2012, and this one was the winner of the Queensland Literary Award for Best Emerging Author. The story follows Thea, who takes on the role of officer in charge at the Thursday Island Police Station, hoping for a fresh start and a connection back to her mother's islander roots. Instead, she finds a close-knit community shaken by a brutal crime, and she's pulled into an investigation that tests her place on the island. Tidisse writes this world with real familiarity. She was born in Sydney, raised in PNG, and then eventually settled on Thursday Island after meeting and marrying a local fisherman who she's raised her six children with. That lived connection comes through in the humour, the setting, and the community dynamics, all wrapped around a proper crime story.

Helen 9:58

I love that we've got a um a TI based novel in there. That's great to see that representation.

Leigh 10:04

Yeah, it is.

Helen 10:06

Now let's move on to another giant of Indigenous Australian storytelling, and I'm talking about Tony Birch. Now I think his work isn't crime fiction kind of in the traditional sense, but it does deal with the type of pressure and injustice and moral stakes that really sit at the heart of Australian crime writing. So he's an Aboriginal Australian author, he's an academic and an activist. He's a regular voice on radio as well. In 2017, he became the first Indigenous writer to win the Patrick White Award for Ghost River. And his 2019 novel, The White Girl, won the Indigenous Writers Prize at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. Now his books are constantly being shortlisted and recognised, and for good reason. Now The White Girl is a brilliant example of how Birch writes tension and threat with such clarity. It follows the main character, Adette Brown, who's lived her whole life on the fringes of a small country town. She's raising her granddaughter Sissy and she's doing just about everything she can to stay off the radar from the welfare authorities who are removing Aboriginal children from their families. Now when Sergeant Lowe arrives, he's determined to enforce the law to the harshest edges. The fragile safety that Odette has built starts to crumble, and suddenly she's facing an impossible choice to protect her family. Now it's not a who-done it, but it does have that real sense of danger and surveillance and systemic power bearing down on a family that's just so in step with the common themes that we see in Australian crime fiction writing.

Leigh 11:36

Next on the list is Maduca The River Serpent by Julie Jansen, published in 2023. I haven't read this one yet, but it's been getting a lot of love from readers and critics, so it's definitely earned its spot. Auntie Julie Jansen, the author, is a playwright, poet, and novelist from Borough Barongul, clan of the Darong Nation, and she's been a major voice in Australian literature for years. The book itself follows Auntie Jane, a fictional PI who's proudly completed a TAFE certificate three in investigative services and sets up her own business. When her nephew Tomo, an environmental activist, goes missing and the police don't take it seriously, she decides to investigate herself. What she uncovers drags when to corruption, cotton farmers, bikes, racism, water theft, and a police force that's not exactly helpful, all set against the drying Barker, the Darling River. Even from the synopsis, you can see how it fits right into the heart of Australian crime. Community pressure, systemic failures, and one woman determined to get to the truth.

Helen 12:36

Hmm, it sure does. And wrapping up our list is Melaleuca. Now, this is the Deboo novel from Angie Fay Martin, and it was published in May last year. Now it's been getting such great feedback from readers and really strong reviews from critics. So it's definitely on my TBR list. Now the story goes, it's basically follows an Aboriginal policewoman, Renee Taylor, who returns reluctantly to her outback hometown. Now she's planning to stay just long enough to help her mum. She's expecting sort of some quiet country town policing, but then a woman is found murdered down by the creek and she's pulled into an investigation that starts echoing the disappearance of two young women 30 years earlier. And as Renee digs deeper, the town's past, kind of the racism, the corruption, and all that long-buried harm begins rising to the surface. Now Angie is a writer and editor of Kuma, Camilla Roy, and European Heritage, and Melaluke has actually already been shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction, which is a great accolade. Her work has already appeared in Miangin, Garland, The Salt Bush Review, and The Rocks Remain. So while this is her first novel, she's definitely not new to it.

Leigh 13:49

Now I'm sure that everyone will agree that this list just shows how many incredible Indigenous writers are shaping Australian crime storytelling.

Helen 13:56

Oh, it really does. And look what I love is the range. There's different styles, different eras, different parts of the country. But what every one of these books has in common is they're so well regarded and really worth celebrating, not just during NADOC week, of course, but all year round.

Leigh 14:12

Absolutely. And I'm looking forward to adding a few more of these to my TBR, even if it's getting a little bit out of hand, which it certainly is.

Helen 14:19

I know the feeling. Alrighty, well, that's it from us today. We're putting the bookmark back into the book.