Mount Dandenong author Sandi Wallace won the prestigious Davitt Award for best crime novel, readers, choice, for her debut Tell Me Why.

The gritty crime novel explores conflict between a Melbourne writer and Daylesford country cop who come to logger heads in the Hepburn Springs.

A former journalist and paralegal, among many others professions, Ms Wallace felt compelled to set her first novel in rural Victoria. 

“It’s a place I’ve always come to and when I wanted to write crime, Daylesford as a setting was a no brainer,” Ms Wallace said.

“It’s got that beautiful, romantic, cultural artistic feel – at the same time it is a real country town during the week, that is inundated with tourists on the weekend.

“So there is that potential for conflict between locals and tourists – with that simmering undercurrent and juxtaposition.” 

Ms Wallace spent time shadowing a Daylesford police officer.

“Making it believable was very important to me, even though they are fictional characters, there has to be a sense of believability,” Ms Wallace said. 

“The characters drink, the characters smoke – I make them as three dimensional as I can.” 

In the award winning novel a writer comes to town and, on the sly, attempts to dig up a story about a missing person. 

Ms Wallace, who will release her second novel Black Saturday in November, will set all her Rural Crime Files series books in Daylesford.

Ms Wallace said she was thrilled to be selected for the award out of 96 female authors.

“The judges loved it but what was even more important was that the prize was peer selected – so they loved it,” Ms Wallace said.

A personal trainer by day – Ms Wallace said she is now living her dream.

“I always knew I was going to a be a crime writer – but I had to go and get a job, but also at that point I didn’t have enough life experience,” Ms Wallace said.

Visit sandiwallace.com.