Vikki Petraitis

A multi award-winning, best-selling author, Vikki Petraitis has been writing crime since the early 1990s. She has written eighteen books covering a range of cases including the 1986 bombing of Melbourne’s Russell Street Police Headquarters, Lawyer X, and the serial killings that took place in Frankston, Victoria in 1993. Vikki’s best-selling The Frankston Murders was re-released in 2018 to mark the 25th anniversary of the crimes, while her 2023 podcast series of the same name hit Number 1 on the Apple podcast charts in just two days and stayed there for a month. The series has achieved millions of downloads and is credited with helping in the public campaign that successfully stopped the killer Paul Denyer’s bid for parole.

As a podcaster Vikki has made three series with Casefile Presents. Following The Frankston Murders series, The Vanishing of Vivienne Cameron topped Spotify charts in Australia and the UK and was shortlisted for an Australian Podcast Award. Her second series, Searching for Sarah MacDiarmid was released in November 2021. All three series’ have topped charts around the world and have been downloaded millions of times.

With Casefile, Vikki has also written two seasons of the Crime Interrupted podcast for the Australian Federal Police, documenting twelve operations they’ve worked on.

In 2020, she released two books: Cops, Drugs, Lawyer X and Me and Police Stories, while the crime fiction The Unbelieved, which Vikki wrote for the creative component of her PhD in Creative Writing, was released in August 2022 to strong acclaim and won the inaugural Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Prize. Within months it became a bestseller and there is strong interest in bringing it to the screen.

A popular speaker and presenter, Vikki runs workshops for students of all ages, and her author presentations are sought after by her fast-growing fan-base of true crime podcast enthusiasts. Vikki appears on panels and at comic debates and has been a judge for the national Ned Kelly Awards.

Her latest podcast project is top secret and will involve advocating for people who have experienced the unthinkable.

Awards and Nominations

Winner: Reader’s Choice Award, Davitt Awards (2023)
Winner: Best New Talent Prize (in fiction) Scarlet Stiletto Award (2007)
Winner: John Hill Award Australian Police Journal (2007)
Winner: Crime Fiction Prize Allen & Unwin (2022)
Nominated: Ned Kelly Award (2006, 2014, 2018)
Nominated: Davitt Awards (2007, 2009)