Peter Temple Wins the 2010 Miles Franklin Award

Crime writer Peter Temple has won the Miles Franklin Award for his novel Truth. The award is given annually for the best Australian "published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases." It is the first crime novel to win Australia's most prestigious literary prize since the award's inception in 1957.

About Truth (from the publisher): Inspector Stephen Villani, head of homicide in Melbourne, Australia, has a full agenda: a murdered woman in a penthouse apartment, three men butchered in a sadistic rampage, a tattoofaced drug dealer corrupting his rebellious daughter, a crumbling marriage. As these seemingly unrelated events begin to unfold, Villani finds himself immersed in an unfamiliar world of political scandal and ethical ambiguity. He must navigate the inept bureaucracy that is the police department, all the while maintaining a solid front and trying to keep the press, his family, and his own past from breaking him completely. With each twist and every turn of this taut crime novel, Villani is forced to question whom he can trust.