About Karina

Author, Where The Truth Lies

“With a family like mine, there’s no shortage of inspiration: wharfies, truckies, bookies and political players,” Karina says. “Add divided families and secret children to the mix and, well, there’s a lot of experience and emotion to draw from.

“I always wanted to be a story-teller, from a very early age, not just a writer.

During business hours Karina was, until recently, a full-time finance journalist (Byline Karina Barrymore) and has covered almost every major financial event and scandal since the 1987 global share market crash. She has a passion for consumer rights and social justice and is a strong financial rights advocate, including reporting for the banking Royal Commission.

Although she is a debut crime novelist, Karina has had more than 3 million words published in articles for newspapers, magazines and news websites around the world – equivalent to more than 30 novels! She has also written three financial advice books.

Karina’s debut novel Where the Truth Lies, has been shortlisted for:
2017 The Victorian Premiers Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript
2020 The Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Fiction
2021 The Davitt Award for Best Debut Crime Novel
2021 The Davitt Award for Best Adult Crime Novel
2021 The Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel

Karina, who is of Maori heritage, says she was “lucky” to grow up in the North Island of New Zealand – Middle Earth. And although she dropped out of high school, she later studied business and journalism at New Zealand’s Massey University.

Karina was also a former Books Section Editor for Australia’s largest daily newspaper The Herald Sun and is an ongoing book reviewer. She is chair of the Australian Crime Writers Association and a volunteer with Sisters in Crime Australia.

Karina also hosts the regular Murder Monday crime writing Q&A YouTube series for Sisters in Crime and is an associate author and co-host of the 8000+ Global Girls Online Book Club which regularly interviews authors from around the world.

Karina splits her time between the bustling inner-city suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne and a small seaside town along the wild Great Ocean Road, Apollo Bay. After 11 years as a surf lifesaver, she has recently hung up her lifesaving membership. She is writing a second novel.