Category Archives: Australian crime fiction

Top 5 crime reads for 2011

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

I was recently asked by the UK site Crime Fiction Lover to list my top five crime novels for 2011.

I cheated a little and, in addition to my top five, gave a few honourable mentions. Money Shot, Christa Faust’s first Angel Dare novel (the second having recently come out), Frank Bill’s short story collection Crimes in South Indiana, Roger Smith’s Dust Devils, and Yvette Erskine’s gritty police procedural The brotherhood were all in contention for my top five in 2011.

But my final list was:

5. Butcher’s Moon – Richard Stark (University of Chicago Press)

I waited ages to read Butcher’s Moon by Richard Stark aka Donald Westlake. It was almost impossible to get a copy until University of Chicago Press, which has been gradually re-leasing all the Parker books, published it. 

First released in 1974, Butcher’s Moon was the last Parker book before Westlake took a 23-year rest from the character. It takes Parker back to the familiar territory of his earlier books The Hunter and The Outfit, hot on the trail of money owed him by the mob. A failed heist sends Parker to an amusement park where he stashed $73,000 during a previous caper several years earlier. Parker enlists the help of his only friend, another thief called Grofield.… Read more

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Australian crime fiction, Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Megan Abbott, Parker, Peter Corris, Roger Smith

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Pulp Friday: Triple Shot of Carter Brown

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

“A cold corpse becomes a hot assignment to curvy blonde, Mavis Seidlitz.”  

Today’s Pulp Friday is a triple shot of covers from one of my late father’s favourite pulp authors, Carter Brown.

Carter Brown AKA Alan Geoffrey Yates was a Australian-British author who wrote a massive 317 novels in a career that spanned from 1958-1985. Tens of millions of these were sold all over the anglo world.

Most of his stories were crime, although at the beginning of his career he also wrote horror and Westerns under the alias Tex Conrad. His books were published in Australia by Horwitz and in the US by Signet.

Cops and private investigators were his staple characters, the stories a mixture of sex and action, leavened with a bit of tough guy humour. The writing’s not brilliant, but, hey, that’s no surprise given how fast he churned books out.

His first Horwitz contract stipulated two novellas and one full length novel a month. He could write as much as 40,000 words overnight, reputedly with the assistance of Dexedrine which he used to stay awake for periods of up to 48 hours.

As was common practice on the part of Australian pulp writers in the fifties and sixties, all of his books were set in the United States.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian pulp fiction, Carter Brown, Horwitz Publications, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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SheKilda and women’s crime writing in Australia

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

It’s when someone asks you to contribute a blog post on the state of female crime writing in Australia from the point of someone watching the industry, that you realise you just don’t read enough.

Not nearly enough.

That said, in my view, female crime writing in this country looks in rude health.

Exhibit A is SheKilda this weekend, the women’s crime writing conference I’ve been asked to write this blog post to coincide with. There’ll be 60 speakers spanning fiction, true crime, young adult, ‘crimance’ and screenwriting. With the exception of the Crime and Justice Festival, there’s nothing else like it.

The 53 books by local female writers entered in the current Davitt awards for female crime writing, is Exhibit B.

It’s when you make statements like these that you come up against claims female crime writers are discriminated in reviewing and awards. Certainly, studies overseas have shown that female writers are vastly underrepresented in the review sections of newspapers. I presume the same is true here.

Awards? Let’s look at the top categories for the last ten years of the Ned Kelly Awards, 2002 – 2011.

The results are fairly split in the category of true crime. Five women have won it (it was tied between two women in 2007) and five men (with the result being tied between two men in 2002).… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime fiction, Kerry Greenwood, Lindy Cameron, Malla Nunn

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Pulp Friday: The Spungers

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

This Friday’s pulp offering comes via Line of Sight author, David Whish Wilson.

Julian Spencer’s The Spungers was put out in 1967 by Scripts, a publishing company based in London, Melbourne and Sydney, that released a lot of the more explicit Australian pulp fiction I’ve come across from the sixties and early seventies.

As I’ve written previously, the sixties saw Australian pulp publishers start to produce kitchen sink and exploitation fiction, often dressed up as lurid exposés of drug use and sexual promiscuity. These fed off mainstream society’s fears of youth rebellion and changing sexual standards.

The focus of many of these tales was Sydney’s Kings Cross, which in the sixties became well known as a centre for prostitution, sly grog and drugs, often to meet the demand of American servicemen on R&R during the Vietnam War.

The Spungers is a classic piece of exploitation pulp dressed up quasi social commentary on the declining moral values of youth in the sixties. Not that much has really changed. Update the language a bit and whack in a TV crew from A Current Affair and The Spungers would be right at home in Australian in 2011.

The inside front cover blurb is priceless:

“The Vicious, sordid activities of a scruffy Kings Cross beatnik clash with those of a young surfie who decides to spend a misspent holiday rorting up the Cross.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian pulp fiction, Pulp Friday, Scripts Publications

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New crime anthologies and Ned Kelly Awards

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

An interesting trend that seems to be occurring parallel with the rise of e-publishing is the growing popularity of short story anthologies.

I’m told by people who know about these things, that anthologies are not popular with mainstream publishers. Well, e-publishing is now allowing small niche publishers to get their product out there.

Exhibits A and B are two upcoming crime anthologies, both of which I have stories in.

In September, the first Crime Factory anthology will be available through US indie crime publisher, New Pulp Press.

Crime Factory: The First Shift contains 28 noir stories from established and emerging authors in the US, UK, South Africa and Australia. There’s names Australian crime readers may be familiar with, including Ken Bruen (author of The White Trilogy and London Boulevard), Adrian McKinty (Falling Glass), and local writer, Leigh Redhead (Thrill City).

First Shift is also a chance for Australian audiences to check out several members of the new wave of noir writers in the United States who are relatively unknown here, including Hilary Davidson, Dave Zeltserman, Scott Wolven and Dennis Tafoya. South African writer, Roger Smith, whose upcoming book Dust Devils is on my to read list, also contributed a story.

You can pre-order Crime Factory: The First Shift here at Barns and Noble and Amazon.… Read more

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Posted in Angela Savage, Australian crime fiction, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Ned Kelly Awards, Neo Noir

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