Category Archives: Australian crime film

Damned to literary obscurity: June Wright and Murder In the Telephone Exchange

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

JUNE_WRIGHT-author-picAs a seasoned habitué of second hand bookshops, and what is known in some quarters as ‘an early career author’, I often ponder the reality of literary obscurity.

It takes stern stuff (or huge sales) to go into a large second hand bookshop and not feel humbled by the sight of shelf upon shelf of old books. All those hours, days, weeks, years of literary labour selling cheap, if they sell at all.

What makes a particular book or author famous, while the majority are forgotten – the vagaries of history or the market, luck or accident? Equally fascinating is the process by which some authors are plucked from historical obscurity and given a second chance.

I thought about this most recently while reading Murder in The Telephone Exchange, a murder mystery set in late forties Melbourne by June Wright, recently re-released by US-based publisher, Verse Chorus Press.

You can read the rest of this piece here on the Overland Magazine blog.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime film, Australian popular culture, Forgotten Melbourne

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My year in books: David Whish-Wilson

Posted on December 10, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

ZeroThe next guest in the ‘my year in books’ series is Perth-based crime writer David Whish-Wilson.

David’s Zero At the Bone (the sequel to his 2010 book, Line of Sight) was one of my favourite crime reads of 2013. I reviewed the book on this site a couple of months ago.

Also hot off the presses and getting rave reviews is David’s book about his home town, Perth, part of the New South Books city series. You can find the book here.

Dave’s got some interesting choices. The first of the Laidlaw series is on my radar to try soon.

Welcome David.

My top 5 books of this Year, in no particular order are:

The Dying Beach, Angela Savage

I’ve spent most of the year working on a non-fiction book, and my reading has been pretty much limited to municipal histories and the like. One thing I notice about this year’s favourite novels, unlike in previous years, is that 4 of the 5 are Australian, and three of the four are West Australian, which I think is terrific. One of the greatest joys this year was reading Angela Savage’s latest crime novel, The Dying Beach. From the first pages I was there with Jayne Keeney and her idiosyncratic but always fully-realised side-kick, Rajiv.… Read more

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Posted in Angela Savage, Australian crime film, David Whish-Wilson, Tartan Noir

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Book review: Zero At the Bone

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

ZeroA couple of months ago I wrote an piece for the Guardian Australia’s Oz Culture Blog on why I think the most exciting crime fiction in Australia at the moment is coming out of the West.

It has something to do with the fact that the people are tough, the climate is harsh, and the mining boom has amplified everything and has given local writers a wealth of material and creative inspiration, as well as a real sense of vitality and realism.

If you want proof, look no further than Zero At the Bone, the latest book by Perth based crime writer, David Whish-Wilson.

Zero At the Bone is a sequel to Whish-Wilson’s 2010 book, Line of Sight, which established him firmly in my mind as the president of the, albeit very small, club of Australian writers who do noir fiction and do it well.

Based on real events, Line of Sight opens in 1975, six months after the murder of Perth brothel madam Ruby Devine, shot four times in the back of the head with a .22 the day before she was scheduled to give evidence to the tax office that would have implicated the senior police she bribed to stay open and certain high profile ‘secret investors’ in her operation.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime film, Australian noir, Book Reviews, David Whish-Wilson

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Pulp Curry added to National Library of Australia’s web archive

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

FUCK UR BLOG

In a sign of just how much Australia’s culture is on the skids, this site, Pulp Curry, is to be added in the National Library of Australia’s PANDORA Archive.

PANDORA is the National Library e-archive dedicated to enabling the long term preservation of online publications to ensure Australians have access to their documentary heritage now and in the future.

It’s a wonderful honour for my site to be included on the PANDORA Archive. I also get a thrill out of the fact that future generations will be able to check out my musings on Australian and international crime fiction and film, obscure pulp novels and associated topics.

For some reason, it reminds me of that scene from one of my favourite seventies dystopian science fiction films, Rollerball, when Jonathan E visits the super computer Zero to try and find out more about the corporations running the planet.

This is what he finds:

Photo credit: Angela Savage… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian pulp fiction

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Blood Money and other Australian crime films you’ve probably never heard of

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 21 Comments

MaloneIf you haven’t heard of the 1980 Australian film Bloody Money, don’t worry, you’d be in good company. Clocking in at just over 62 minutes, it’s an unpolished little gem of a heist film and almost completely unavailable.

John Flaus plays Pete Shields, an aging Sydney criminal who experiences an emotional epiphany after a diamond robbery he’s involved in goes violently wrong and his doctor informs him he’s got terminal cancer.

Shields returns to Melbourne, his hometown, where he has family, a little brother Brian (Aussie icon Bryan Brown), having trouble going straight, and Brian’s wife, Jeannie. There’s a lot of unfinished emotional business between them, including Shields’s affair with Jeannie years ago that may mean he is father of her and Brian’s daughter.

Pete also has unfinished criminal business with a gang run by Mister Curtis (Peter Stratford). To make sure his brother doesn’t fall back into their clutches, Pete takes Curtis’s gang apart man by man then kidnaps the crime boss’s daughter for a $50,000 ransom.

Blood Money has a definite Get Carter vibe, including the ending where Shields, having exchanged the daughter for the cash, is gunned in a remote quarry.

It’s not the greatest local crime film ever made, but Director John Ruane (who went on to do Death in Brunswick) gives it a grainy realism that draws the viewer in.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime film, Bryan Brown, Heist films, Peter Corris

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