IF I TELL YOU I’LL HAVE TO KILL YOU

Edited by Michael Robotham Australia’s leading crime writers reveal their secrets.  ‘So far I’ve killed around seventeen people. It’s hard to be completely sure without digging them up and counting them all, but I’ve been at it for a while now.’ – Shane Maloney Crime fiction is the single most popular genre in international publishing and Australia has some fine practitioners when it comes to walking the mean streets and nailing the bad guys. Shane Maloney, Marele Day, Peter Corris, Lenny Bartulin, Liz Porter, Garry Disher, Malla Nunn, Kerry Greenwood, Geoffrey McGeachin, Angela Savage, Leigh Redhead, Barry Maitland, Tara Moss, Adrian Hyland, Leah Giarratano, Michael Robotham, Katherine Howell, Lindy Cameron, Gabrielle Lord, as well as Michael Robotham who has edited the collection; these author’s conclusions about their own work are fascinating, provocative, often surprising, and all drawn from the hard school of personal experience. Whether readers are fans of crime fiction or true crime or are would-be-crime writers, this collection of essays provides laughter, understanding, insight, ideas, advice and hopefully some inspiration. There are stories of struggle and triumph, near misses and murderous intent, as the writers bare their souls and reveal their secrets as never before, along with their rules for writing and their personal reading lists.  ‘This isn’t a book about perfect crimes,’ says Robotham. ‘It is about imperfect ones. A perfect murder, by its very definition, is one committed by a complete stranger who has never met the victim, has no criminal record, steals nothing and tells no one. For a crime to be truly perfect it can never be detected, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for a writer. We need our murders to be imperfect, with grander or baser motives.’ ABOUT THE EDITOR Michael Robotham lives in Sydney but is published all round the world. His tense psychological thrillers include Lost, The Suspect, The Night Ferry, Shatter, Bleed For Me, The Wreckage and Say You’re Sorry. Previously a successful investigative reporter in the UK and Europe and later a Sunday Times bestselling ghost-writer, Michael’s novels have won many admirers including Val McDermid, Peter James and Stephen King.  He has been shortlisted for the UK Steel Dagger and won the Ned Kelly for best crime novel twice.  His latest, eagerly anticipated psychological thriller is called Watching You and was published by Little, Brown earlier this month. www.michaelrobotham.com

Publisher-       Allen & Unwin NZRRP:           $29.99