I NEVER SET out to be a crime writer, it was something that crept up on me like the growing awareness of the killer in a whodunnit, and it all started with my early love of Agatha Christie novels.

The prospect of my debut novel Tank Water being consigned to the crime section of major bookshops was a little unsettling; but considering I was a debutante at the age of 51, I had little time to dissemble and embraced my place in one of the world’s highest-selling genres.

Crime has opened doors, not least the invitation to join the board of BAD Sydney, the writer’s festival that platforms journalists, academics, podcasters, broadcasters, film-makers and a myriad of professionals from the justice system.

It’s also led to reporting one of the more heinous crime waves that gripped the suburbs of Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong from the 1970s to the 2010s, an era known as the Gay-hate Decades.

I’m often asked whether I struggle with the brutality of murder when reporting or writing fiction in which the body count mounts up. Consideration around this is so common (and empathic) that I thought it wise to put myself through a challenge a few years ago, to check if I was becoming desensitised.

Pain and trauma

I sought the most disturbing real-life crime I could find, and it didn’t take long to land on Helter Skelter, the seminal book on the Sharon Tate and La Bianca family murders in California in 1969, said to be the highest-selling true-crime publication ever.

Written by trial prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry, this incredible work lays bare the sad and sordid case in a manner that did spark anxiety in me, mainly because the killers – the so-called Manson family – had been part of the popular hippie counterculture of the era.

But I got through it intact, in some ways relieved that I was still able to be shocked by exploring shocking crimes, yet not stymied in my own work.

What drives my interest in crime writing and interviewing crime authors, is that crimes – murders in particular – rarely exist in a vacuum without other themes of grief and justice.

Dead bodies do more than throw up murder suspects, they cause pain and trauma to loved ones and communities. For me, the best crime writing delves into this territory with sensitivity and courage, because it can lift a crime novel’s significance above mere entertainment.

The exploration of grief in crime novels is rare, and although they say order needs to be restored by the end of a classic whodunnit, life is rarely as neat.

I’m also captivated by those aspects of victim/survivor’s lives that show resilience and endurance, where the hope of justice can sometimes be stronger than justice itself, posing the question: is justice ever really attainable?

It’s a fascinating concept, justice, a word with almost no effective synonym, one that means different things to different people.

It meant something to Doris Tate, Sharon Tate’s mother, who worked tirelessly to ensure the voices of surviving families were heard in the Californian judicial system. Her statements during the parole hearings for the convicted former members of the Manson family stand as a critical enduring addendum to Helter Skelter.

Restoring order

Agatha Christie loved a little order restoration at the conclusion of her books, although she didn’t always wrap things up neatly. In her works, lovers survive death and destruction while impatient philanderers get their just desserts. Family members are reunited even while others are split asunder. Most baddies get it in the neck, but some get off scot-free.

This tension between crime and punishment is one of the hallmarks that drives BAD Sydney, the festival that explores what crime can tell us about ourselves.

For this year’s event I’m delighted to be hosting two sessions: Bush Justice and Queer Crossroads, both explorations of how law and due process have been lacking in some of Australia’s marginalised and remote communities.

See you there!

BAD Sydney takes place at the State Library of NSW from August 11-14, 2024. Book now.