Category Archives: Adrian McKinty

Dishing up Pulp Curry in a new way: why I am starting a Substack newsletter

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

After much thought I have decided that to experiment with moving the focus of my blogging from this site to a new Pulp Curry Substack newsletter.

Why am I doing this?

The first post on this website appeared on July 2010 (about the incredibly underrated 1979 Australian heist film, Money Movers – you can read the post here). I’ve been writing on the site with varying frequency ever since (579 posts in all), and for the most part have enjoyed it immensely.

But for the last 12 or so months I just haven’t been feeling it – or getting the hits to make it seem worthwhile – and have started to wonder whether it’s worth continuing with the effort. Posting on a website has been starting to feel like the equivalent of trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a crowded tram carriage, unwieldy and inconvenient.

And, thinking about it, I suspect the blog format is starting to get a bit stale for me and is actually now a brake on my posting more regularly.

I know that I’m no Robinson Crusoe in this regard. The majority of the blogs I used to follow have gradually fallen by the wayside, as people have moved on, grown weary of the effort, found other interests, adopted other means to get their message out, or, in some cases (gulp), died.… Read more

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Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, 1980s American crime films, 1990s American crime films, Adrian McKinty, Albert Dekker, Andre De Toth, Angela Savage, Angie Dickinson, Anthony Zerbe, Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Australian television history, Ava Gardner, Beat culture, Belmont Tower Books, Ben Wheatley, Billie Whitelaw, Black pulp fiction, Blaxsploitation, Book cover design, Book Reviews, British crime cinema, British pulp fiction, Bryan Brown, Burt Lancaster, Carter Brown, Charles Durning, Charles Willeford, Chester Himes, Christopher G Moore, Christopher Lee, Cinema culture, Claude Atkins, Coronet Books, Crawford Productions, Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Crime fiction and film from China, Crime fiction and film from India, Crime fiction and film from Indonesia, Crime fiction and film from Japan, Crime fiction and film from Laos, Crime fiction and film from Latin and Central America, Crime fiction and film from Malaysia, Crime fiction and film from New Zealand, Crime fiction and film from Scandinavia, Crime fiction and film from Singapore, Crime fiction and film from South Korea, Crime fiction and film from Thailand, Crime fiction and film from the Philippines, Crime Fiction and film set in Vietnam, Crime film, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1985, David Goodis, David Peace, David Whish-Wilson, Derek Raymond, Diana Dors, Dirk Bogarde, Don Siegel, Don Winslow, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Dystopian cinema, Ernest Borgnine, Eurocrime, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Femme fatale, Fernando Di Leo, Filipino genre films, Film Noir, Forgotten Melbourne, French cinema, French crime fiction, Garry Disher, Gene Hackman, George V Higgins, Georges Simenon, Ghost Money, Giallo cinema, Gil Brewer, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Gloria Grahame, Gold Star Publications, Gregory Peck, Gunshine State, Heist films, Horror, Horwitz Publications, Humphrey Bogart, Ian Fleming, Interviews, Ira Levin, James Caan, James Crumley, James Ellroy, James Hadley Chase, James Woods, Jim Brown, Jim Thompson, Joel Edgerton, John Frankenheimer, Joseph Losey, Karen Black, Kerry Greenwood, Kinji Fukasaku, Larry Kent, Lee Marvin, Leigh Redhead, Lindy Cameron, M Emmet Walsh, Mad Max, Mafia, Malla Nunn, Martin Limon, Megan Abbott, Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival, Men's Adventure Magazines, Michael Caine, Michael Fassbender, Mickey Spillane, Monarch Books, Ned Kelly Awards, Neo Noir, New English Library, Newton Thornburg, Noir Con, Noir fiction, Non-crime reviews, Oren Moverman, Orphan Road, Ozsploitation, Pan Books, Parker, Paul Newman, Peter Boyle, Peter Strickland, Peter Yates, Poliziotteschi, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Qui Xiaolong, Raymond Chandler, Richard Burton, Richard Conte, Robert Aldrich, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Robert Stone, Rock Hudson, Roger Smith, Rollerball, Rosaleen Norton, Roy Scheider, Rural noir, Sam Levene, Sam Peckinpah, Samuel Fuller, Science fiction and fantasy, Scripts Publications, Sidney Lumet, Sidney Poitier, Simon Harvester, Snowtown, Snubnose Press, Spies, Stanley Baker, Sterling Hayden, Steve McQueen, Sticking it the the Man Revolution and Counter Culture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950 1980, Stuart Rosenberg, Tandem Books, Tart noir, Tartan Noir, Ted Lewis, Toni Johnson Woods, True crime, Vicki Hendricks, Victor Mature, Vintage mug shots, Vintage pulp paperback covers, Wallace Stroby, War film, Westerns, William Friedkin, Woody Strode, Yakuza films, Yaphet Kotto

Launch of Girl Gangs, Biker Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Thanks to all those who came out on Monday for the launch of Girl Gangs, Biker Biker Boys & Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, at Grub Street Bookshop in Fitzroy. A fine time was had by all ushering the book into the world.

The book is the first comprehensive account of how the rise of postwar youth culture was depicted in mass-market pulp fiction. It is the perfect Christmas present for that hard to buy for family member or friend.

Melbourne folk can buy copies of Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats at Grub Street Bookshop, Brunswick Bound bookshop and Sun Books in Yarraville, with other locations to follow soon.

You can order the book online from the following places:

From the publisher, PM Press, here

From Amazon

From Book Depository.

From Booktopia

From Angus and Robertson Online

From Waterstones

Folks in the US who have pre-ordered have started receiving the book. Those in the UK will have to wait a little longer, probably until later in December, early January, to receive their copy.

Those of you who have the book and like it, please don’t forget to spread the word, including rating it on Goodreads and Amazon. If you work in a library, it would be great if you could order the book in.… Read more

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, New English Library, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art

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Pulp Friday: British horror pulp

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Halloween approaches and, as has been my habit over the last couple of years, I want to mark the occasion with a bit of pulp. Horror pulp, actually. British horror pulp, to be exact.

American horror pulp got a bit of love on this site a little while ago, when I reviewed Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70s and ‘80s Horror Fiction, a history of American horror from the 1970 and 1980s.

But I reckon the Brits have always done horror pulp really well. And, if you want proof, feast your eyes on the wonderful selection of British horror pulp from the 1960s and 1970s, all sourced from my collection, including a couple of ultra rare Hammer paperback film tie-ins I own.

Enjoy Halloween.

… Read more

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Albert Dekker, British pulp fiction, Horror, New English Library, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art

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Beat Not the Bones & the story of an Australian Edgar Allan Poe Award winner

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Andrew Nette| 13 Comments

Beat Not the Bones Avon 1955As many of the my US readers will no doubt be aware, America’s foremost crime writing awards, the annual Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Awards, will be presented on April 28.

The upcoming awards make it an opportune time to revisit the winner of the Edgar Award in 1954. That book was called Beat Not the Bones, and it was written not by an American but by an Adelaide-born woman called Geraldine Halls, writing under the pseudonym, Charlotte Jay. That the winner the next year was Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, gives you some idea how prestigious Halls’ win was.

Why some writers and their books go onto achieve lasting literary fame, while others, in this case Halls and her considerable work, sink into obscurity, always fascinates me. In a writing career stretching from 1951 to her last published novel in 1995, she produced fifteen books. Seven of these appeared under the pseudonym of Jay, her maiden name, and seven as Geraldine Halls, Halls being her married name. Another was published under the alias Geraldine Mary Jay.

There is very little information available about Halls, who died in Adelaide in October 1996, and the only image I could find on the Internet is on the Austlit site and is taken from the Adelaide Advertiser, dated May 8, 1853.… Read more

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Australian crime fiction, Book Reviews

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Empty beaches: In search of Australia’s fictional private eyes

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Empty BeachSeptember 12 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of a little-known Australian crime movie, The Empty Beach. The film fared poorly upon release and is still unavailable on DVD — you’d have to track down a rare second-hand VHS edition to view it.

Nonetheless, the film is something of an obsession of mine and I have been wanting to write about it in detail for a while now. This is partly because I am a huge Bryan Brown as well as always being fascinated with movies that I thinks are good but which have, for whatever reason, sunk into obscurity.

Also The Empty Beach and its source material, the third book in what has become a long-running series by Sydney writer Peter Corris, feature something largely absent from Australian crime fiction and film: the bone fide, card-carrying, full-time private investigator for hire.

I finally got around to writing a piece on the film and its source book for the Los Angeles Review of Books. You can read the essay, ‘Empty Beaches: In Search of Australia’s Fictional Private Eyes’ in full here.… Read more

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Bryan Brown

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