The Australian Crime Writers Association is proud to launch the 2025 Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime writers.   

The Ned Kelly Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious recognition honouring published crime fiction and true crime writing. The categories are Best Crime Fiction, Best Debut Crime Fiction, Best True Crime and Best International Crime Fiction. Entries are accepted for books published in the 12 months prior to 1 March each year.

Entries open: Saturday March 15, 2025
Entries close: Tuesday April 15, 2025 (11.59pm AEST) 

The Ned Kelly Awards are Australia’s oldest and most prestigious award, honouring published crime fiction and true crime writing. The awards are a highlight of the Australian publishing and literary calendar and they celebrate the very best crime writing has to offer.

The list of winners reads like a Who’s Who of Australian crime writers including some of the highest profile and best-selling Australian and international authors.  

The 2025 award categories are:
Best Crime Fiction, Best Debut Crime Fiction, Best True Crime and Best International Crime Fiction (published in Australia).

A shortlist for each award category is expected to be announced in August and the winners to be announced in September, 2025.

Ned Kelly Shortlist for Best Crime Fiction 2025 are:

Shadow City - By Natalie Conyer
Sanctuary – By Garry Disher
Unbury the Dead – By Fiona Hardy
The Creeper – By Margaret Hickey
Cold Truth – By Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Highway 13 – By Fiona McFarlane
17 Years Later – By JP Pomare
Storm Child - By Michael Robotham

The Australian Crime Writers Association is proud to announce the 2025 Ned Kelly Awards Shortlist for Best International Crime Fiction:

Return to Blood - By Michael Bennett
Leave the Girls Behind - By Jacqueline Bublitz
The Waiting - By Michael Connelly
A Case of Matricide - By Graeme Macrae Burnet
Moscow X - By David McCloskey
Home Truths - By Charity Norman

The Australian Crime Writers Association is proud to announce the 2025 Ned Kelly Awards Shortlist for Best True Crime:

They’ll Never Hold Me – By Michael Adams
A Thousand Miles from Care – By Steve Johnson
The Kingpin and the Crooked Cop - By Neil Mercer
Meadow’s Law - By Quentin McDermott
The Lasting Harm - By Lucia Osborne-Crowley

The Australian Crime Writers Association is proud to announce the 2025 Ned Kelly Awards Shortlist for Best Debut Crime Fiction:

Down the Rabbit Hole  - By Shaeden Berry
A Town Called Treachery - By Mitch Jennings
The Chilling - By Riley James
All You Took From Me - By Lisa Kenway
Everywhere We Look - By Martine Kropkowski
Those Opulent Days - By Jacquie Pham