River City novel wins prestigious national award
A gritty crime novel set in Brisbane has won a top national award, prompting its author Troy Henderson to say he’s ‘just getting started’.
Brisbane publisher Carolyn Martinez has an eye for emerging literary talent and her independent publishing house is currently making waves, with local author Troy Henderson winning the 2025 Australian Fiction Prize for crime thriller River City.
We figure this is why Martinez calls her business Hawkeye Publishing.
And yes, you can guess from the title that his novel is set in Brisbane. The 2025 Australian Fiction Prize is a national award presented by The Australian and HarperCollins Publishers. It recognises an unpublished manuscript of exceptional promise. As part of the prize, HarperCollins will publish River City in early 2027, alongside awarding Henderson $20,000 in prize money and a $15,000 publishing advance.
River City follows the dangerous power struggles that erupt after a Brisbane crime boss disappears, exploring loyalty, betrayal and the thin line between right and wrong. Judges praised its pace, grit and magnetic voice, calling Henderson “a bold new force in Australian crime fiction”.
Martinez, director of Hawkeye Publishing, might rather be publishing it herself but she’s just happy to be the one to publish her rising star’s debut novel, Head Grenade. That was published by Hawkeye Publishing in 2023 after being shortlisted for the Hawkeye Manuscript Development Prize. Since then, Henderson has gone from strength to strength, with recognition from Queensland Writers Centre’s adaptable and publishable programs and multiple short-form accolades.
‘We are enormously proud of Troy … His dedication, craft and unique storytelling voice were clear from the start’
As one of Australia’s few remaining small independent trade publishers, Hawkeye Publishing plays a vital role in discovering and nurturing new voices – talented writers who might not fit the risk profiles of the often conservative so called “big five” publishers. Many Hawkeye authors go on to become award winners, industry standouts and powerful new additions to the national literary landscape.
“We are enormously proud of Troy,” Martinez says. “His dedication, craft and unique storytelling voice were clear from the start. It has been our honour to support his early career and we are delighted to see him step into this extraordinary next chapter with HarperCollins.”
The award has generated renewed interest in Head Grenade – a bold, darkly funny work of speculative fiction. It was through the Hawkeye Manuscript Development Prize that Henderson first came to Hawkeye’s attention. Since publication, Head Grenade has carved out a loyal readership and Henderson’s current prize win has sparked a new wave of interest from readers discovering his voice for the first time.
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Henderson is a Brisbane writer with a background shaped by both creative and journalistic training. Aside from a two-year stint in London, he has lived in Brisbane his entire life. His short fiction has been recognised nationally, longlisted in the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Furious Fiction competition and placing in the GenreCon Short Story Competition and FLEUR Flash Fiction Contest.
In 2024, he was commissioned to contribute to the anthology Is This Working? and appeared at the 2024 Brisbane Writers Festival, further establishing himself as an emerging Australian voice with versatility, grit and heart.
His second novel River City offers a tense, atmospheric dive into Brisbane’s criminal underbelly following the disappearance of a crime boss. The novel started as a short-film script.
“A mate wanted to shoot a short film with a guy getting tortured in a warehouse,” Henderson says. “So, I wrote that idea and I held on for my life as it grew legs, stole a gun and went on a rampage across Brisbane,” Henderson says.
“My third novel Rocket Surgery, an urban Brisbane-based drama, is also in the works, so I hope to see that arrive in the next couple of years. There’s also a fourth novel on the cards, about a woman who wakes up with no memory and joins a group of people trying to survive after a mass power outage, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I hope to eventually release a short story collection and get started on my fifth novel. I’m not lacking in inspiration, just time.”
Hawkeye Publishing, based on Brisbane’s north side, is now one of the few remaining small trade presses committed to identifying fresh talent, taking creative risks and giving new authors the break they may otherwise never receive.
InReview’s classical music correspondent Gillian Wills is one of a fresh crop of Hawkeye authors and her novel Big Music has achieved great acclaim. Another Queenslander, Greg Bourke, is one to watch with his novel Under Silkwood set in Far North Queensland. Keep an eye out for our story about him next week.
Small presses like Hawkeye are essential to the health of Australia’s literary ecosystem: they diversify the national voice, elevate bold stories such as these that might not pass commercial gatekeeping and act as a crucial springboard for writers whose careers go on to flourish – Troy Henderson among them.
“We recognised his talent early,” says Martinez. “And it has been our honour to support his debut and early career. His Australian Fiction Prize success underscores exactly why small presses matter.”
The Hawkeye Manuscript Development Prize continues to unearth remarkable new Australian stories. It is now open for entries, inviting emerging and unpublished writers to submit their manuscripts for professional feedback, development and potential publication.