Rotorua authors finalists in Ngaio Marsh Award for best crime novel

Dame Fiona Kidman. Photo / File

Books by two authors with strong Rotorua links have been named among the 10 finalists for the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Award for best crime novel published during the past year.

They are Dame Fiona Kidman for This Mortal Boy and JP (Josh) Pomare for his debut novel Call Me Evie.

This Mortal Boy by Fiona Kidman. Photo / File

The latter's setting alternates between Maketū and Melbourne where Pomare now lives.

He was born and educated in Rotorua.

Josh Pomare. Photo / File

Kidman's book won the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize in last month's New Zealand Book Awards.

It's a fictionalised account of Irish seaman Albert (Paddy) Black, convicted and hanged for a 1953 Auckland milk bar murder.

Call Me Evie by JP Pomare. Photo / File

He was the second to last person to be hanged in this country.

Kidman came to Rotorua as a teenager, her prolific writing career was sparked by her job as a local librarian.