SA Sisters in Crime writers are topping bestseller lists as they help plan the best murders

Plotting ways to commit the best murders with their Sisters in Crime is paying off for a group of Adelaide women.

Crime writers from left: Rebecca Heath, Samantha Battams, Michelle Prak, and Lainie Anderson in front. Picture: Matt Loxton

It’s windy as some of the state’s best writers gather outside an East End cafe to talk about the Sisters in Crime group that has helped push their books onto the national stage.

Adelaide’s Lainie Anderson is the latest success story with The Death of Dora Black sitting at number one debut and number two new fiction novel on national best selling lists, just behind internationally acclaimed author Liane Moriarty.

There is a second crime novel called Murder on North Terrace underway and Lainie is candid in sharing stories about the first based on South Australia’s first woman police officer Kate Cocks, as coffees arrive

“It was slash and burn early on …. my agent said I had to move my fifth chapter, get rid of chapter one, and I was asked ‘why is everyone whispering, does everyone whisper in Adelaide’,” Lainie says with a laugh.

Another of the Sisters in Crime group, Michelle Prak, saw her own outback thriller The Rush garner widespread interest after it debuted last year.

Crime authors Rebecca Heath, Lainie Anderson, Michelle Prak, and Samantha Battams in Adelaide. Picture: Matt Loxton

Rebecca Heath and Lainie Anderson. Picture: Matt Loxton

It is now published in the United States, France, New Zealand and Canada. Michelle has an American agent looking to sell film rights and a second book is coming in April next year.

Talking DNA analysis and police investigations with other women crime writers has helped the writing process, along with regular wrestling bouts with Michelle’s 23-year-old son.

“We wrestle to work out scenes, if an arm here or there works …. I tweeted the other day ‘if there was a dead body at the beach would an Australian bird come and nibble on it’,” Michelle says.

After hearing disappointing accounts from bird specialists she dropped the scene.

It was Adelaide academic and nonfiction crime writer Samantha Battams who started the group with a handful of writers in 2019 in a bid to grow the genre locally.

She says the number of women publishing crime books in SA has swelled dramatically ever since and other successful writers like Mercedes Mercier and Fiona McIntosh are among the ranks.

The Sisters in Crime group now boasts some of Australia’s best-selling authors. Picture: Matt Loxton

There is a real camaraderie as these women share stories, like how they often “think if someone got hold of my google search history I would be arrested” and Samantha, who wrote The Secret Art of Poisoning, saying her computer regularly shows police recruitment pop ups.

Around the table is another successful author, Rebecca Heath, whose third book The Wedding Party is being published in January.

She talks of how regular Sisters in Crime meetings with guest detectives and other writers helped take her work to the next level, along with tackling hurdles along the way.

“My agent and publisher wanted me to move my first book from Yorke Peninsula to near Sydney,” Rebecca says.

Lainie nods, saying “it’s not a cringe, it’s a commercial decision because more people who read books live in the eastern states” and she explains that publishers believe readers find beaches near Sydney more relatable.

Michelle speaks for all around the table when she adds: “What we’ve done is disprove that”.

Originally published as SA Sisters in Crime writers are topping bestseller lists as they help plan the best murders