Category Archives: Noir fiction

Updates: Contrappasso, the noir issue, Garry Disher at the Melbourne Crime & Justice Festival

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

cp noir front cover raw

I’ve recently discovered Contrappasso, a great magazine of international writing and poetry edited by a bunch of folks in Sydney, including some one who has recently become a friend, Matthew Asprey Gear.

Pulp Curry readers might be interested to know the latest issue of Contrappasso has a noir theme. There’s a grab bag of excellent material focusing on noir fiction and film, everything from The Maltese Falcon to The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Dashiell Hammett, Charles Willeford and Walter Mosley.

There’s poetry by Barry Gifford and Floyd Salas (whose 1969 book, What Now My Love I reviewed on this site a few weeks ago), amongst others, and a load of great essays, including my piece on the little known Australian noir films, Money Movers and Heatwave.

The issue is available here and will set you back just $9.50. 

And while I’m pulling on your coat, another reminder that I’ll interviewing Australian crime writing legend Garry Disher at the Reader’s Feast Crime & Justice Festival, this coming Sunday, November 17.

If you find yourself at a loose end Sunday morning, do come along. It’ll take place 10am, Sunday, November 17 at the Reader’s Feast Bookstore, 162 Collins Street, Melbourne. My session is just one of many events that will take place over the three days of the Crime & Justice Festival. … Read more

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Posted in Garry Disher, Noir fiction

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Book review: The Cambodian Book of the Dead

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

TheCambodianBookOfTheDead-144dpiI’ve been meaning to read Tom Vator’s debut novel, The Cambodian Book of the Dead for a while now. I’m glad I finally got around to doing the task, because it’s one hell of a ride. Amusing, horrifying, at times frustrating, always perceptive.

The Cambodian Book of the Dead is not for everyone. I was probably predisposed to the book before I’d read the first page, because of my fondness for crime fiction set in Asia generally and Cambodia in particular, a country I’ve spent a lot of time in and the setting of my own debut crime novel, Ghost Money.

As far as I could tell, The Cambodian Book of the Dead takes place in the early part of last decade. The Khmer Rouge insurgency is over. Pol Pot is dead, murdered by his own lieutenants in one last bout of bloodletting. Cambodia hovers between the civil war wracked basket case it was in the nineties and the must-see tourist destination it is now. Investment is starting to flow in, but things are slow. The ruling elite is still in the early stages of organising the wholesale plunder of the country they are carrying out today.

Maier is the Asia specialist for a top flight German private investigations firm, before that an international correspondent.… Read more

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Posted in Asian noir, Book Reviews, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Noir fiction

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Book review: Missing in Rangoon

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Missing in RangoonFor well over twenty years Canadian lawyer turned crime writer Christopher G Moore has chronicled change in Thailand and the surrounding region through the character of Bangkok-based American private investigator, Vincent Calvino.

Moore has penned thirteen Calvino books. Most of them are set in Thailand, although Moore has also taken his character to Vietnam and Cambodia. In the latest instalment, Missing in Rangoon, Calvino heads to Burma or, as it is now officially known, Myanmar.

The opening pages find Calvino standing in the shell of the Lonesome Hawk Bar, one of the establishments that used to form part of Washington Square, a well known and down at heel part of expat Bangkok, recently demolished to make way for yet another of the condominiums that mark the city’s skyline. Calvino suggests to the former owner that he should consider starting over in Rangoon, a city on the make and welcoming all comers, much like Bangkok was decades ago.

Not that Calvino particularly wants to make the journey himself. He’s being pressured to travel to Burma by a disagreeable English brothel owner, who wants to hire him to find his son. The son has disappeared in country’s capital along with his Burmese girlfriend, a real head turner and the lead singer in the band the son plays in.… Read more

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Posted in Asian noir, Book Reviews, Christopher G Moore, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Thailand, Noir fiction

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X-rated reviews: Miami Purity, London Blues

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Miami PurityX-rated reviews?

Now that that title hopefully got your attention, this week I’m reviewing two books, both of which are heavily focused on sex, Miami Purity by US writer Vicki Hendricks and Anthony Frewin’s London Blues.

Some Pulp Curry readers may not have heard of the Miami-based crime writer Vicki Hendricks. That’s a great pity because along with women like Megan Abbott, Christa Faust and others, she is dead set proof a women can knock out a noir tale every bit as feral and fucked up as their male counterparts. I should stress I personally don’t need any proof about this, but I suspect some others do.

Hendrick’s book, Cruel Poetry was reviewed on this site last year. Miami Purity was her debut novel and it’s good. You can tell just from the opening line: “Hank was drunk and he slugged me – it wasn’t the first time – and I picked up the radio and caught him across the forehead with it.”

The character who utters those words is Sheri Parley, a tough as nails stripper in her late thirties, with few life prospects who has come out of a string of terrible relationships, the last one of which led to the death of her last man (Hank) and a terrible alcohol fuelled binge.… Read more

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Posted in Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Noir fiction, Vicki Hendricks

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The books that hooked me on crime fiction

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 15 Comments

The Neon rainDo you remember what books got you into crime fiction?

When it all comes down to it, I have to credit my late father. Dad loved writers like Carter Brown, Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming. He passed on his readings tastes to me, particularly his love of dark, pulp influenced crime fiction.

Here are the five books that began my love affair with crime fiction.

What are yours?

From Russia With Love – Ian Fleming I still have my father’s collection of James Bond novels published by Pan Books in the late fifties and sixties, which I saved from my mother’s frequent op shop culls. Published in 1957, From Russia With Love was the fifth Bond book but the first one I read.

It involves a complex plot by Soviet counter intelligence, SMERSH, to kill Bond and discredit British intelligence, using a beautiful Russian cipher clerk and a secret decoding machine as bait. Lashings of action and intrigue, evocative settings such as Istanbul and the Orient Express, characters including the SMERSH executioner, ‘Red Grant’, and the diabolical Colonel Rosa Klebb.

I can still remember reading this in my late teens and my mind going whoooosh with the possibilities.

The Neon Rain – James Lee Burke

The Neon Rain was another of my father’s books.… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction, Ian Fleming, James Crumley, James Ellroy, Noir fiction, Peter Corris

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