Neither Hayley Scrivenor nor James McKenzie-Watson originally set out to write a crime novel when they began writing their first books, inspired by the regional towns where they grew up. Novels that centre around a crime have always spoken to the societies that they reflect and the power structures that sit underneath them. Australia loves the regional small town with a dark secret, and we’ve invited our titular Partners in Crime to speak not just about how they wrote and published their award-winning novels, but also the role of creative community in what often can be a solitary profession, and how their works sits within (and outside) the crime genre.