Click on the image above to see a map of Sydney showing famous crime locations. Then click on any blue marker to find out more.
Beasley is just about the best crime novelist writing about Sydney at the moment, and among the best in the country, so long as you include courtroom dramas as crime books. His Peter Tanner series is world class, with two out so far – Cyanide Games and The Burden of… Keep Reading
Heavy Allies is an extraordinarily good and extraordinarily unknown novel about the Nugan Hand Bank and the Sydney underworld of the 1970s. The writing takes it to a level rarely reached by crime fiction, yet is entirely appropriate for its subject. Rarely do we see these things written about so well.… Keep Reading
Although a resident of the Hunter Valley, Barry Maitland is best known for his successful Kolla & Brock series set in London. In more recent years, however, he has written a strong trilogy about NSW Homicide Squad detective Harry Belltree. It involves more violence than the UK series, and has a… Keep Reading
One of the most intriguing – and successful – of the younger crime novelists, Fox reportedly has been an avid reader of crime books since her early teens. Her first outing, Hades, showed the thriller-like treatment of the police procedural that is popular in America but which we haven’t seen… Keep Reading
Doyle’s four-book series about knockabout Billy Glasheen is set in the period from the 1940s to the early 1970s. The attention to detail is impressive and Doyle’s lippy character, world weary and cool, has proved popular, with the novels winning several awards. The Big Whatever is set in a time – the late 1960s and… Keep Reading
In the 1990s Peter Robb wrote two novellas set all or partly in Sydney, Final Cut (1995) and Pig’s Blood. These have been published both alone and in the volume Pig’s Blood and Other Fluids, which also contains his Brazil novella Lime Juice. The novellas are all just 25,000 words in… Keep Reading
Katherine Howell has written an eight-book series about detective Ella Marconi, now concluded. The books draw on Howell’s own background as a paramedic. Note: This entry is what Wikipedia would call a “stub”, the brevity due solely to lack of time. We would welcome more words, from author, publisher or admirers,… Keep Reading
Relatively little crime fiction based in Sydney was published before the Australian publishing boom of the 1980s. Exceptions included the 18 books by two sisters known as Margot Neville, starting in 1945, and the books by Pat Flower from the 1950s to the 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s three… Keep Reading
Along with Jon Cleary and Peter Corris, Lord was the major Sydney crime novelist in the 1980s and 1990s, and continues be a significant writer. Her first published novel, based on a real event, was Fortress (1980), published internationally. She has published series about ex-cop PI Gemma Lincoln and forensic scientist… Keep Reading
Two books in, this series about detective Nhu Kelly is impressive. Newton is a former cop and her novels reek of authenticity. Few writers anywhere in the world have captured so accurately what police work is like. Sometime they go a bit too far – too much of repetition, office… Keep Reading
