Scarlet Stiletto - the First Cut Read online

  Scarlet Stiletto

  The First Cut

  Award-winning stories from Sisters in Crime Australia

  Edited by Lindy Cameron

  No copyright 2012 by MadMaxAU eBooks

  ~ * ~

  Contents

  Foreword

  First prize trophies

  About the authors

  Introduction

  Dust Devils, Julie Waight

  Concealer, Kerry Munnery

  Psycho-Magnet, Tara Moss

  Habit, Cate Kennedy

  Slasher’s Return, Jacqui Horwood

  Froth and Trouble or Sun Hill Blues, Margaret Pollock

  Still Life, Dianne Gray

  Thursday Night at the Opera, Christina Lee

  Birthing the Demons, Josephine Pennicott

  Shifty Business, Liz Cameron

  Pecking Order, Roxxy Bent

  The Bodyguard, Sarah Evans

  Mrs Wilcox’s Milk Saucepan, Roxxy Bent

  Everything $2 On This Rack, Cate Kennedy

  Operation Bluewater, Inga Simpson

  After Azaria, Ann Penhallurick

  Brought to Book, Liz Filleul

  The Super Murder, Margaret Bevege

  What We Do Best, Phyl O’Regan

  Dead Water, Bronwyn Blake

  Ripe Red Tomatoes, Ronda Bird

  Dead Woman in the Water, Janis Spehr

  Luisa, Christina Lee

  Divine Intervention, Louise Connor

  Vermin, Janis Spehr

  Floating in a Live Circuit, Siobhan Mullany

  ~ * ~

  Foreword

  The Sisters in Crime Australia Scarlet Stiletto Awards: 13 years, 1495 entries, 468 shortlisted short stories, 13 trophy winners, 91 category awards, 65 special commendations.

  Why do we Sisters in Crime do it, each year? Importantly — with so many wonderful tales of murder, mystery, mayhem, revenge, justice and just deserts — how did we autopsy such a body of writing to choose just 26 stories for the First Cut?

  Obviously the Scarlet Stiletto winners — 13 First Prize stories by only nine women — survived the first incision. Further probing, however, told us that some suspects kept turning up in other categories in different years. Second prize winners had won the Malice Domestic; many repeat offenders in the Special Commendation file had escalated to Third Prize or Police Procedural; and some, on serial writing sprees, had turned to a life of Verse or, disturbingly, tried to perpetrate the Funniest Crime.

  The final line-up reveals evidence of the twisted, the nefarious, the dark and the sinister; but mostly exposes the guilty pleasure of the perfectly executed crime ... story.

  It also explains why we Sisters keep doing it — we simply love crime fiction.

  Our investigation into the Scarlet Stiletto Award archives also raised one last question: Why do so many women out there want to get away with murder?

  Lindy Cameron, Editor

  National Co-convenor, Sisters in Crime Australia Inc.

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  First prize trophies

  2006 Roxxy Bent

  13th Mrs Wilcox’s Milk Saucepan

  2005 Julie Waight

  12th Dust Devils

  2004 Liz Filleul

  11th Brought to Book

  2003 Jacqui Horwood

  10th Slasher’s Return

  2002 Roxxy Bent

  9th Pecking Order

  2001 Josephine Pennicott

  8th Birthing the Demons

  2000 Janis Spehr

  7th Dead Woman in the Water

  1999 Janis Spehr

  6th Vermin

  1998 Christina Lee

  5th Thursday Night at the Opera

  1997 Siobhan Mullany

  4th Floating in a Live Circuit

  1996 Christina Lee

  3rd Luisa

  1995 Cate Kennedy

  2nd Habit

  1994 Cate Kennedy

  1st Everything $2 on This Rack

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  ~ * ~

  About the authors

  Listed in alphabetical order

  Bent, Roxxy

  Mrs Wilcox’s Milk Saucepan (2003: First Prize Trophy)

  Pecking Order (2002: First Prize Trophy)

  A South Australian writer, Roxxy won her first Scarlet Stiletto for ‘Pecking Order’ in 2002; and her second first-prize trophy in 2006 for ‘Mrs Wilcox’s Milk Saucepan’. In between award ‘shoes’, Roxxy earned a special commendation in 2003 for ‘The Inaugural Case of Shazza McFlint’.

  Roxxy was a founding member of Vitalstatistix National Women’s Theatre. She has written for stage, having eleven of her plays produced, she is a writer and script editor for television and film, and has worked as a feature writer for magazines. She is working on her first novel, and is now a Stiletto judge.

  ~ * ~

  Bevege, Margaret

  The Super Murder (2001: Malice Domestic)

  Margaret is a long-time member of Sisters in Crime Australia, and Partners in Crime Sydney. She is represented in the Queen of Crime anthologies and has self-published the Detective Elizabeth Ludowski series, which is set in Brisbane. Margaret is currently travelling around Australia writing on her laptop.

  ~ * ~

  Bird, Ronda

  Ripe Red Tomatoes (2000: Malice Domestic)

  As a mature-age student at Melbourne University in the 1990s, Ronda discovered a flair for writing short stories. After graduating she began entering competitions. Her first important success was in the Scarlet Stiletto awards when she won the 2000 Kerry Greenwood Malice Domestic prize. Since then Ronda has won more than fifty short story prizes in Australia and Britain, both crime and open theme; and had stories published in United Kingdom magazines.

  Ronda has just completed her third novel, featuring a Melbourne female PI; a change from her first two police procedurals set in Yorkshire.

  ~ * ~

  Blake, Bronwyn

  Dead Water (1995: Best Lesbian Protagonist)

  Starting as a special education teacher, Bron spent most of her employed years working with families, communities and health services. She now writes full time, has eight young adult books published, and has three more manuscripts, including an adult and a non-fiction, in the pipeline.

  Bron has lived or travelled in many of the world’s wild places, but the Australian bush, which usually provides the environment for her writing, remains her greatest love. She now lives on a property in Central Victoria.

  ~ * ~

  Cameron, Liz

  Shifty Business (2002: Third Prize)

  A long-time member of Sisters in Crime, Liz has entered the Scarlet Stiletto competition and been at least shortlisted four times. Her 2003 story earned a highly commended ‘with a bullet’; and ‘Shifty Business’ took out third prize in 2002. Liz has just made her second seachange, from the Mornington Peninsula to the Gippsland Lakes.

  ~ * ~

  Connor, Louise

  Divine Intervention (1995: Third Prize)

  A founding member of Sisters in Crime, Louise has twice won third prize in the Scarlet Stiletto awards. Louise, a former publicist and freelance journalist, is currently the Victorian Secretary of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, which is the union and professional association for media and arts workers.

  ~ * ~

  Evans, Sarah

  The Bodyguard (2005: Second Prize)

  An English ex-pat and former news journalist, Sarah writes short stories, novellas, novels and poetry and is published in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. She also runs writing workshops.

  Her latest book is Seasons and Seasonings in a Teapot: an anthology of r
ural family life (Access Press). It’s an account of modern pioneering life in the southwest of Western Australia, where Sarah lives on a hobby farm with her home-schooling family Although Sarah writes across most genres, chick-lit crime is her current favourite.

  ~ * ~

  Filleul, Liz

  Brought to Book (2004: First Prize Trophy)

  Melbourne author and freelance editor, Liz had won two commendations before ‘Brought to Book’, her story about women fans of schoolgirl stories, took out first prize in 2004. Born in the English Midlands, educated on the Welsh coast, and now living on top of a Victorian mountain with her Aussie husband, Liz gave up being a convenor of Sisters in Crime so she could enter the Scarlet Stilettos.

  She had a children’s picture book, Tumbler, published in 2001; and her first crime novel, To All Appearance, Dead, will be published in the United Kingdom in 2007.

  ~ * ~

  Gray, Dianne

  Still Life (2000: Second Prize)

  Dianne grew up in Canberra, the second youngest of six children, before moving to Cairns in the mid 1990s where she tried her hand at writing. Her ‘first’ short story won the Cairns Post Writers Award and since then she has won three Scarlet Stiletto category prizes as well as numerous national writing awards. Dianne’s first novel Let Sleeping Gods Lie won second prize in this year’s IP Picks ‘First Book’ Award.

  ~ * ~

  Horwood, Jacqui

  Slasher’s Return (2003: First Prize Trophy)

  A former Victoria Police staffer, Jacqui won the Scarlet Stiletto first prize trophy and the Chronicles Bookshop award for the Best Police Procedural for ‘Slasher’s Return’.

  Jacqui grew up on the mean streets of Frankston, reading the Famous Five and Nancy Drew and ‘hoping to smash international spy rings’. She worked as a project officer for ten years at Victoria Police where she learned to decipher police jargon and recognise the difference between GBH and GHB.

  ~ * ~

  Kennedy, Cate

  Everything $2 On This Rack (1994: First Prize Trophy)

  Habit (1995: First Prize Trophy)

  In her first attempt at writing crime fiction Cate won the inaugural Scarlet Stiletto Award in 1994 for her story ‘Everything $2 On This Rack’. She also won third prize for ‘In Off the Black Ball’.

  After winning her second Scarlet Stiletto trophy the following year for her smuggling story ‘Habit’, she was ‘forced’ to give up entering and become a Stiletto judge. Cate was, then, working in a second-hand bookstore in Daylesford. She is now married with a child and living in Benalla where she writes full time and has just published her first short-story collection Dark Roots (Scribe). ‘Habit’ also went on to win The Age Short Story competition for 2001.

  ~ * ~

  Lee, Christina

  Thursday Night at the Opera (1998: First Prize Trophy)

  Luisa (1996: First Prize Trophy)

  Christina won her first Scarlet Stiletto shoe trophy for ‘Luisa’ in 1996. Two years later she won her second first-prize trophy for ‘Thursday Night at the Opera’; and a special commendation for ‘Citizen’s Arrest’.

  In 1997, between her two first-prize wins, Christina—a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland—also won the Scarlet Stiletto third prize for ‘Current Affairs’; and a special commendation for ‘Friends’. With two winning shoes on her shelf, Christina is now a member of the Scarlet Stiletto judging panel.

  ~ * ~

  Moss, Tara

  Psycho Magnet (1998: Young Writer’s Award)

  During her transition from international model to crime writer, Tara won the Scarlet Stiletto Young Writer’s award. Canadian born, now proud Aussie citizen, Tara is the author of four bestselling novels featuring Makedde Vanderwall: Fetish, Split, Covet and Hit.

  Tara’s research has taken her to the FBI Academy at Quantico and into squad cars, courtrooms, morgues and criminology conferences around the world. She’s also taken polygraph tests, fired guns with the LAPD, and flown with the RAAF Roulettes. According to ACNielsen BookScan sales figures, Tara is Australia’s number one selling crime writer.

  ~ * ~

  Mullany, Siobhan

  Floating in a Live Circuit (1997: First Prize Trophy)

  A Sydney solicitor specialising in criminal law, Siobhan won the Scarlet Stiletto first prize in 1997 for her story ‘Floating in a Live Circuit’.

  Over the years Siobhan has represented clients in murder trials where the facts were more incredible than fiction. The short story is her favourite form and she hopes to submit more stories for publication that are as interesting as her work.

  ~ * ~

  Munnery, Kerry

  Concealer (2003: Second Prize)

  A Melbourne writer who enjoys experimenting across a range of genres, Kerry has been placed in short story competitions including The Age, the Glen Eira Literary Awards, and the Greater Dandenong Short Story Competition, as well as the Scarlet Stiletto.

  Kerry has also published children’s fiction and was shortlisted for the Silver Brumby Award for children’s stories in 2005. ‘Concealer’ was her first attempt at crime fiction.

  ~ * ~

  O’Regan, Phyl

  What We Do Best (2002: Funniest Crime/Best Crime in Verse) Residing on the Central Coast of New South Wales, where fishing and growing tomatoes are now the big thing, Phyl is a retired nursing sister. As a writer, however, she has won first prizes for poetry in competitions in Katoomba, Bendigo and Eaglehawk; has written for nursing journals and hospital centenary books; and has had short stories published in anthologies and in the Australian Womens Weekly.

  Phyl’s greatest kick was winning a double at the 2002 Scarlet Stiletto awards. ‘What We Do Best’ took out the Dorothy Porter award for the Best Crime in Verse and the Pulp Fiction award for Funniest Crime. Phyl is now working on a mystery novel for young adults.

  ~ * ~

  Penhallurick, Ann

  After Azaria (2004: Best Police Procedural)

  Ann is currently a full time PhD student, part-time psychologist and mother of three who runs solar-powered eco-friendly accommodation in the Blue Mountains bush. She has given herself a reliable diagnosis of hyperactivity.

  Ann is very pleased to be in this anthology because of all her activities she loves writing by far the best, and has a novel just about polished to submit for publication. She is also pleased to be ‘here’ as Scarlet Stiletto parties are fantastic.

  ~ * ~

  Pennicott, Josephine

  Birthing the Demons (2001: First Prize Trophy)

  After winning second prize for ‘Bait’ in 2000, Josephine was awarded the eighth annual Scarlet Stiletto for the very disturbing ‘Birthing the Demons’. She then went on to win the 2003 third prize and Malice Domestic for ‘Hail Mary’; the Malice Domestic again in 2004 for ‘Tadpole’; and two special commendations in 2006 for ‘Love Me Tender’ and ‘Children’s Hour’.

  Josephine, a Sydney writer and artist, is also the author of three dark fantasy novels: Circle of Nine, Bride of the Stone and A Fire in the Shell, published by Simon & Schuster. Her website is at www.josephinepennicott.com.

  ~ * ~

  Pollock, Margaret

  Froth and Trouble or Sun Hill Blues (2003: Best Crime in Verse)

  A Melbourne writer, Margaret has been a member of Sisters in Crime for many years, and has entered the Scarlet Stiletto three times. Each of her stories has won either an award or a special commendation. She has written two crime novels, which are as yet unpublished.

  ~ * ~

  Simpson, Inga

  Operation Bluewater (2006: Third Prize; Best Police Procedural)

  Inga grew up on a property in central New South Wales, moved to Canberra to complete a Bachelor of Arts at Australian National University and then moved to Brisbane, seventeen years later, where she works part-time as an investigation officer for the Commonwealth Ombudsman. She picked up a Masters in English and a well-developed love of crime novels along the way, a
nd is currently working towards a PhD in Creative Writing at the Queensland University of Technology, looking at detective fiction.

  ‘Operation Bluewater’ was inspired by a memorable stay in Darwin and an ongoing concern about the impact of illegal fishing on Australia’s fish stocks.

  ~ * ~

  Spehr, Janis

  Dead Woman in the Water (2000: First Prize Trophy)

  Vermin (1999: First Prize Trophy)

  The third writer in seven years to win the Scarlet Stiletto first prize twice, Janis won her a first shoe in 1999 for a story about murderous homophobia in country Victoria; and its pair in 2000, for a tale of murder, drugs and development in the Western District.