Category Archives: David Whish-Wilson

Crime Factory: The First Shift Australian edition cover

I know I’ve been going on a lot on this site about Crime Factory Publications in the lead up to our March 5 launch.

Yes, that’s the one with readings from Edger Award winning author Megan Abbott, acclaimed Irish thriller writer Adrian McKinty, Perth-based crime writer David Whish-Wilson and author of the Simone Kirsch PI series, Leigh Redhead.

Well, I just wanted to give you a sneak peak at the cover for our Australian print only version of the book that came out last year through New Pulp Press in the US, Crime Factory: The First Shift. It includes stories by Ken Bruen (London Boulevard), Roger Smith (Dust Devils), Frank Bill (Crimes in Southern Indiana), Hilary Davidson (The Damage Done) and 23 others. First Shift is a great opportunity for local readers to check out the new wave of noir and hard-boiled writers in the United States who you won’t see much of in Australian bookshops.

We’ll be selling it on the night. It’ll also be available as print on demand from our website www.thecrimefactory.com

Anyway, while Iv’e got your attention, just a quick reminder that the venue on March 5 is Grumpy’s Green, 125 Smith Street, Fitzroy. Kick off is 7pm, with readings starting around 8pm. … Read more

Book review: The Cold Cold Ground

I’ve been an Adrian McKinty fan ever since reading Falling Glass last year and was keen as hell to get his latest, The Cold Cold Ground.

McKinty’s books are the kind of crime fiction I love, sharp, well written, combining political analysis with a hard noir edge.

I’ll be doing a longer review of The Cold Cold Ground in the next issue of Crime Factory. I just wanted to do a short post on it here, partly because it’s such a good book and deserves all the kudos is can garner and partly because it’s another chance for me to spruik the launch of Crime Factory Publications on March 5. McKinty will be one of the authors attending and reading from his work, along with Megan Abbott, David Whish Wilson and Leigh Redhead.

The Cold Cold Ground is set in the spring of 1981. Sean Duffy is a cosmopolitan, well education Catholic cop posted to the fiercely Protestant working class town of Carrickfergus. In other words, a complete fish out of water.

As if it’s not bad enough that Duffy has to start every day checking under his car for IRA bombs, the economy is collapsing and civil war seems imminent following the death of Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands.… Read more

Crime Factory Publications clocks on

Put the night of March 5 in your diaries, people. That’s the launch of Crime Factory Publications, a (very) small publishing company I’ve set up with my two colleagues and friends from Crime Factory magazine, Cameron Ashley and Liam Jose.

A couple of months ago on this blog I mentioned 2012 was going to be a big year for me. In addition to several short stories coming out around the place in the next couple of months, my novel will be out as an e-book around mid-year with Snubnose Press. On top of all this, I’ve now got my own slice of the publishing business (he says, tongue firmly in cheek).

The Crime Factory crew have been discussing taking our work to the next level for a while now. Several factors drove the decision to finally bite the bullet.

First and foremost, nine issues of Crime Factory magazine (of which I’ve been on board for the last four) have given us contacts and access to quality crime fiction from great writers. We don’t always make the most of this and push the great writing we get as much as possible. Starting our own outfit is one way to reverse this situation. We also wanted to raise the profile of the magazine here in Australia where, in comparison to the US, we’re pretty much unknown.… Read more

Roll on 2012

I don’t know about you, but I feel like it’s been a long year.

Pulp Curry is going to be taking a break over the Christmas/New Year period, returning in mind-2012.

It’s shaping up to be a big one for me writing-wise. My manuscript, tentatively titled Cambodia Darkness and Light, will be published as an e-book in the US some time in the second half of 2012, by Snubnose Press.

I also have short fiction appearing in a number of publications. Max Quinlan, an Australian-Vietnamese ex-cop and the main character in Cambodia Darkness and Light, will be making an appearance in issue two of Noir Nation, in a story called ‘Homeland’.

Gary Chance, a tough, ex-Australian army veteran who now makes a living pulling heists for anyone who’ll pay, will appear in The One That Got Away, an anthology of Australian crime fiction by Dark Prints Press, out February.

Chance will also feature in a story by me in Crime Factory: Hard Labour, out in March. Hard Labour is an anthology of crime stories by authors either born in Australia or residing here.

Rather than just complaining about the narrowness of the local crime fiction scene, Melbourne’s Crime Factory crew, myself, Cameron Ashely and Liam Jose, have decided to get active and do something about it.… Read more

Interview: David Whish-Wilson, part 2

Below is part two of the interview with David Whish-Wilson, the WA based author of Line of Sight. Part one of the interview can be viewed here.

Is the history that you based Line of Sight on well known within WA? What was the reaction locally to the book?

The murder of Shirley Finn is probably Perth’s most notorious unsolved murder, notorious because of the persistent (and correct) rumours of police involvement. You might even say that Shirley’s murder has achieved the status of myth – the kind of myth that develops when there’s so little on the public record, and which functions to fill in the gaps left by unanswered questions. As a writer, of course, that frontierland between truth and fiction and myth and legend is an interesting region to explore. The good news is that Line of Sight has been very well received over here, and it’s gratifying to have been contacted on a number of occasions by ex-policemen and ex-prostitutes and others from the period who have expressed their satisfaction that finally this story has been told in a fairly truthful manner, even if it’s a work of fiction.

I did toss up whether to write the murder of Shirley Finn as a work of fiction, or of non-fiction, and in the end decided for a couple of reasons to write it as a novel, primarily because there’s so little on the public record about her murder, and specifically because people are still very afraid to speak on the record.… Read more