Jason Steger speaking at the Celebrating Peter Temple event

As a nation mired in certain delinquent traditions, you might say that Australians are overachievers in the field of crime writing. Amongst us, though, Peter Temple was one of the very best.

His prose elevated crime fiction to literary significance, too. In addition to winning prestigious crime fiction prizes including five Ned Kelly Awards and the Crime Writers’ Association Duncan Lawrie Dagger – the first Australian to claim the Gold Dagger – his last novel, Truth, won the Miles Franklin.

Temple died in March this year, a couple of days shy of his 72nd birthday. To celebrate his contribution to Australia’s crime fiction canon, we brought together some of his contemporaries, friends and admirers for a night of readings from his work – and stories from his own life. Hosted by Jason Steger.