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Recommended reading
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Category Archives: Australian crime fiction
Ghost Money reading, Summer crime work shop & other end of year notices
I know I am not the only one who will be glad to wave goodbye to the end of a long year. Before I head off for a few weeks break, I just want to give you all a quick heads up about a few things that are happening, that you might like to check out.
First up, a big thanks to The Segilola Salami Podcast for having me on to read from my first novel, Ghost Money. Ghost Money originally came out in 2013 and it is still a book that is dear to my heart. The story takes place in Cambodia, 1996, just as the long-running Khmer Rouge insurgency is fragmenting and competing factions of the coalition government scrambling to gain the upper hand. Missing in the chaos is businessman Charles Avery. Hired to find him is Vietnamese Australian ex-cop Max Quinlan. Anyway you can hear me read a couple of chapters, talk about the origins of the book, and why I wrote it here.
If you like what you hear and want to pick up a copy of Ghost Money, you can do so via Amazon.
The good folks at Writers Victoria have asked me to run a day-long class for emerging authors on January 15.… Read more
Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian pulp fiction, Ghost Money, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Gunshine State
Tagged Crime Time Podcast, Crime writing, Down and Out Books, Ghost Money, Girl Gangs Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture 1950 to 1980, Segilola Salami show, Writers Victoria
Cover reveal for the re-release of Gunshine State
Here’s the new cover for the re-lease of my second novel, Gunshine State, which will be dropping from Down and Out Books in February 2018.
I hope you like it as much as I do.
Gunshine State found itself without a home when its original publisher, 280 Steps, closed shop earlier this year. I am eternally grateful to Eric Campbell and the gang at Down and Out for giving the book a second chance.
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 attractive female housemate and part of the lure for Gao.… Read more
Book review: The Student
Regular Pulp Curry readers will know I have a particular fondness for noir fiction. In particular, Australian noir fiction. And, let’s be honest, when all is said and done, there’s not much Australian noir fiction, and I mean really noir fiction, out there. The publication of Iain Ryan’s The Student adds another more book to this rather slender canon of local crime writing.
I reviewed Ryan’s debut novel, Four Days, on this site when it was released in late 2015. A very dark police procedural set in the Queensland cities of Cairns and Brisbane in the 1980s, the plot of Four Days involves a borderline sociopathic cop with a drinking problem who becomes obsessed with the case of a murdered prostitute, in the process coming up against a police hierarchy who are keen to bury any investigation into her death.
Now Melbourne based, Ryan grew up in Queensland – a place that for various I am also very familiar with – and he completely nailed the corruption and picturesque sleaze that typified much of the state in the eighties, a time when its police force was one of the most violent and corrupt in Australia. Ryan cited James Ellroy as a major influence and I was particularly taken with the way he was able to pay homage to legendary crime writer without sinking into pastiche or cliche.… Read more
A new publisher for Gunshine State
Anyone with a knowledge of the history of pulp and popular fiction publishing will know that publishers, particularly small publishers, come and go.
They appear on the scene, often amid a flash of initial excitement and publicity, prosper and become bigger. Or they may do well for a while until economic problems, changes in the publishing industry or the fortunes of the, often few, individuals running them, cause them to falter and close shop. The latter was the unfortunately fate of 280 Steps, the publisher of my second novel, Gunshine State, and the work of many other fine crime writers.
I don’t want to dwell on the reasons behind 280 Steps closure, which took effect at the end of April, except to say that when I signed with them in 2015, they appeared to be very going concern. They had a good business model, had their publicity act together, produced terrific cover art, and where putting together an excellent roster of existing and up and coming crime writers I was happy to number among.
The upshot of the 280 Steps closure is that, for the time being, Gunshine State will no longer be available to purchase either digitally or in hard copy. I say ‘for the time being’ because Gunshine State will be re-released in February 2018 by the US crime publisher Down and Out Books.… Read more