Winners of the Ngaio Marsh Crime Fiction Awards

TVNZ has announced that it's pumping millions more dollars into local content. While there's no breakdown of how that money will be spent at this early stage, it's a fair bet that a chunk will go into drama. Two big-budget local crime dramas have been on our screens so far this year - The Gulf, currently showing on TV3, while TVNZ screened The Bad Seed earlier in the year. There's also going to be a sixth season of the popular Brokenwood Mysteries on Prime. Producers looking for strong story lines could look to the winners of the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Awards, announced in Christchurch last night at the WORD spring event. Lynn Freeman speaks with the three winners. Dame Fiona Kidman won Best Novel for This Mortal Boy about Paddy Black, the penultimate prisoner hanged in New Zealand Best First Novel was taken out by J P Pomare for Call Me Evie, a psychological thriller about a traumatised teenager who's trapped in a remote cabin with a man who might be her carer, or might wish her harm. And the Best Nonfiction award went to The Short Life And Mysterious Death Of Jane Furlong by journalist Kelly Dennett who investigated this high profile unsolved murder case. It looks in depth at Jane's disappearance in 1993, and how the discovery of her remains in 2012 impacted on those who loved her.