Forget the usual suspects, crime fiction is not what it used to be

Opinion

Jane SullivanBooks columnist and reviewer

November 12, 2026 — 12:12pm

November 12, 2026 — 12:12pm

Watch out, the Baddies are coming. That’s the name for fans of the BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary with a program of events next Friday and Saturday, November 20 and 21. We are promised the baddest festival ever.

It wasn’t all that long ago that literary festivals would grudgingly include a token crime panel somewhere in their programs, among events deemed more worthy. Now crime panels are not only respectable, they are highly desired, and crime writers are often festival stars. So it was inevitable that festivals devoted solely to crime writing would spring up.

BAD Sydney is one among many international festivals of crime books. The UK alone has at least 25, including St Hilda’s Crime Weekend in Oxford, Murder One in Dublin, Bloody Scotland in Stirling and the Agatha Christie festival in Devon. Then there are festivals in France, the Dutch Thriller Festival and Licensed 2 Thrill Literary Experience in Nashville, which showcases black crime writers. In Australia there’s Terror Australis in Tasmania, a festival at Currumbin on the Gold Coast, and a Crime Fic Fest on the NSW Central Coast.

One very welcome aspect of BAD Sydney is that it doesn’t just host the big names: it promotes up-and-coming writers and offers a program of workshops, pitching and feedback sessions designed to help all those wannabe crime writers to smarten up their manuscripts and find publishers. These opportunities get snapped up quickly.

We’ve seen big changes in crime writing over the past decade and these are reflected in the BAD Sydney program. One is the huge impact podcasts and TV shows have had on true crime books, which are now more popular than ever. Erin Patterson wasn’t the first Australian to host a lethal dinner: true crime writers Greg Haddrick, Tanya Bretherton and Hedley Thomas will look at a long tradition of poisoners.

Fiction writers are moving away from traditional police procedurals towards stories with fewer detectives and more individuals getting caught up in crimes they can’t solve, says the festival’s artistic director, Catherine Du Peloux Menage. “Psychological noir and domestic noir within an unstable and possibly dangerous social context are strongly represented.”

Other changes include a strong feminist focus, shown both in the ever-increasing numbers of women writing about crime, and in the more sensitive ways writers approach themes such as abuse and domestic violence.

There’s a lot more variety and diversity. When BAD Sydney began, says the program, it was almost impossible to meet major LGBTQIA+ characters in mainstream crime novels. Now queer authors abound and straight writers are taking the genre into new communities, settings and themes.

Celebrities and other prominent people are getting interested in writing crime says Du Peloux Menage. We’ve recently had crime fiction from actor Bryan Brown and social commentator Jane Caro. And YA crime is on the rise from writers such as Troy Hunter and Amy Doak Ayliffe, whose witty teen detective Eleanor Jones solves small-town mysteries.

Outback noir, brought to us by writers such as Jane Harper and Chris Hammer, is still very popular. But it’s merging with other themes, says Du Peloux Menage: the rise of sovereign citizens, the manosphere, climate change, bushfire and flood, social and political cover-ups.

So what are the next big themes in Australian crime writing? Certainly you’ll see more books featuring AI crime and tech crime in general. Beyond that, you’ll need a crystal ball. Or join the Baddies at the last festival panel, where writers Fleur McDonald and Tim Ayliffe, agent Dan Pilkington and publisher Anna Valdinger will give you their take on a criminal future.

BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival takes place on November 20-21.

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