On Saturday night, the 2015 Ned Kelly Awards were celebrated at the Bella Union as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival. This is the twentieth year of the awards, and there was a superb turnout of writers, readers, reviewers, and general literati for a night of awards, debates, good humour and an absolute love of the genre.

Previous winner Michael Robotham awarded the Best First Crime statue to Jock Serong for the excellent Quota, the story of a lawyer fighting for an accused criminal—and his own sanity—on Victoria’s southwestern coast.

Renowned true crime author Rochelle Jackson then announced the winner of Best True Crime as Helen Garner for This House of Grief, her devastating and personal take on the case of Robert Farquharson, accused of driving his three sons to their death in a dam. Next to receive an award was Peter Lawrance, previous organiser and staunch supporter of the awards, with a Lifetime Achievement trophy; without his years of conviction and perseverance, the Neddies would not be what they are today.

Following this was a debate on the topic of “Can the Bad Guy Ever be the Good Guy?” from writer/debaters Matthew Condon, Leigh Redhead, Vikki Petraitis and Robert Gott, MCd by author Jane Clifton. This diligent reporter can’t actually remember who won, but the point is that I laughed very hard and had a blast.

The SD Harvey Short Story award was presented by Emma Viskic, last year’s winner (and author of the upcoming Resurrection Bay) to Andrea Gillum for Short Term People, which will be published in an upcoming edition of Kill Your Darlings, who teamed up with the Neddies for the first time this year with the SD Harvey prize.

The final award of the night was presented by SJ Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep—and the winner was (drumroll on your screen for suspense, please) Candice Fox, for Eden—the sequel to Hades, which won last year’s Best First Fiction award. The party roared into the night with good drinks, good company (Sulari Gentill, Jason Steger, Anne Buist, Shane Maloney, Tania Chandler, Alex Hammond, Nicholas J Johnson, amongst countless others) and a hearty time had by all, thanks to the Australian Crime Writers Association, the team behind the awards. Here’s to another twenty years of crime writing.

Winners:

Best First Fiction: Quota by Jock Serong

Best True Crime: This House of Grief by Helen Garner

Best Crime Novel: Eden by Candice Fox

Lifetime Achievement Award: Peter Lawrance

SD Harvey Short Story Award: Short Term People by Andrea Gillum