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Category Archives: Australian crime fiction
Nothing but one big shill
Okay, you best all be warned, the following post is one giant shill, mostly on behalf of yours truly.
I am flat out at the moment with the third year of my PhD, so I am finding it hard to make the time to post as much as I would like on my various cultural obsessions, film noir, crime fiction and pulp. That said I still have a lot going on.
First up, this coming Friday, May 4, from 7pm, I’ll be taking part in the first of what will be a series of free events run by my local bookstore, the wonderful Brunswick Bound, in which authors will be reading from the opening chapter of the their current work. This one has a crime theme and there’ll be four of us reading, including me doing a section from Gunshine State, which was re-released earlier this year by Down and Out Books. So, if you are inner Melbourne north way this Friday and feel like hearing some words and drinking some wine, drop on down, 361 Sydney Road Brunswick.
The second incarnation of Gunshine State has been getting a bit of love recently, the best of which is this review of the site of Canberra based blogger and writer, Tim Nappertime.… Read more
Posted in Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Gunshine State, Noir fiction, Pulp fiction, Pulp paperback cover art
Tagged 1950-1980, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, Brunswick Bound, Dancing Home, Down and Out Books, Girl Gangs, Gunshine State, Jock Serong, Paul Collis, The Rules of Backyard Cricket, Tim Nappertime
10 great Australian crime films
To mark the addition of Ivan Sen’s 2016 film, Goldstone, to BFI Player, I was asked to write on 10 great Australian crime films. The piece is live and can be read in full on the BFI site here.… Read more
Posted in 1960s American crime films, Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian television history, Bryan Brown, Crime film, Ozsploitation, Peter Corris, True crime
Tagged Animal House (2010), Australian crime film, Blue Murder (1995), Chopper 2000, Goldstone (2016), Heatwave (1982), Ivan Sen, Money Movers (1977), Shame (1988), The Boys (1998), The Empty Beach (1985), Two Hands (1999)
‘The novel is about making believe your world is real’: an interview with Peter Temple
The death of Peter Temple at the age 71 has robbed Australia of what is undeniably one of its most influential crime writers. His Jack Irish novels were made into a popular television show by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Broken Shore, which won the coveted British Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger award in 2007 – the first Australian author to do so – and Truth, awarded the Miles Franklin in 2010, were significant works of local crime fiction that, arguably, helped usher in the popularity of literary crime fiction in Australia.
David Honeybone, former editor of the influential hard copy magazine, Crime Factory [the precursor to the on-line magazine which I helped edit for a number of years until it recently ceased production], and a fan of Temple’s work, interviewed the author for issue 2 of the magazine in 2010. As a tribute, Honeybone generously shared his interview, in which Temple recalls his national service in the South African Defence Force, his literary influences, the challenges of translating his uniquely Australian dialogue into other languages, and what degree of realism a crime author should be aspiring to in their work.
Peter Temple is a South African by birth and an Australian by choice. A former journalist, he is one of Australia’s most successful crime writers, having five times won the Crime Writers’ Association of Australia’s Ned Kelly Award.… Read more
Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian television history, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, George V Higgins
Tagged Charles McCarry, Crime Factory, David Honeybone, Elmore Leonard, Jack irish, John O’Hara, Peter Temple, The Broken Shore
Pre-orders open for Gunshine State
A very quick heads up that pre-orders are now open for the re-released version of my novel, Gunshine State, which will be dropping from Down and Out Books on February 26.
It is available via this link here in e-book and paperback.
Gunshine State is a heist thriller set in Queensland, Melbourne and Thailand. Think Richard Stark’s Parker, Garry Disher’s Wyatt, and Wallace Stroby’s Crissa Stone. Add a touch of Surfers Paradise sleaze and a very dangerous stopover in Asia.
Gary Chance is a former Australian army driver, ex-bouncer and thief. His latest job sees him in Queensland working for Dennis Curry, an aging Surfers Paradise standover man. Curry runs off-site, non-casino poker games, and wants to rob one of his best customers, a high roller called Frederick ‘Freddie’ Gao. While the job may seem straightforward, Curry’s crew is anything but. Frank Dormer is a secretive former Australian soldier turned private security contractor. Sophia Lekakis is a highly-strung receptionist at the hotel where Gao stays when he visits Surfers. Amber is Curry’s female housemate and part of the lure for Gao. Chance knows he can’t trust anyone, but nothing prepares him for what unfolds when Curry’s plan goes wrong.
As part of the re-release the new book will include the first 5000 or so words of my follow up, Orphan Road.… Read more
My top 10 crime reads of 2017
Late last year the German culture website, CulturMag, asked me to nominate my top 10 reads for 2017. My list is now live (and in English), along with contributions from a number of other individuals and can be seen in full here.
As usual, it is a mix of old and new fiction, as well as some of the non-fiction books I enjoyed. What were your top crime reads of 2017?… Read more
Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Latin and Central America, Neo Noir, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art, Ted Lewis
Tagged Day In, Day Out, Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir, Grady Hendrix, Hector Aguilar Camin, Iain Ryan, Julie Szego, Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Paperbacks From Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70s and ‘80s Horror Fiction, Ted Lewis, The Jones Men, The Love of a Bad Man, The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Tales of Conspiracy Noir, The Student, The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama, Three Hours Past Midnight, Tony Knighton, Vern E Smith