What is it about crime stories that make people hunger for them? While crime fiction has long held appeal for the reading public, the ways that crimes play out in the real world are often more complex, compelling and shocking than the most complicated imagined plots. Griffith Review 65: Crimes and Punishments tells stories of reform and possibility, of state-sanctioned violence, of justice after decades of systematic failures and betrayals, of truths, lies and assumptions, and of the ones that get away.

Edited by Ashley Hay, this edition features writers including Matthew Condon, Gideon Haigh, Kristina Olsson, Behrouz Boochani and Omid Tofighian, Amy McQuire, Ross Homel, Sally Piper, Bill Wilkie and Paul Mazerolle.