Tag Archives: Ghost Money

How I came to write Ghost Money

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

I started writing the book that eventually became my debut novel Ghost Money in 1996 when I worked for several months in Cambodia as a wire service journalist.

I’d first travelled to Cambodia in 1992 while living in neighbouring Laos. It was a desperately poor and traumatised country. The Khmer Rouge, responsible for the deaths by starvation and torture of approximately 1.7 million Cambodians during their brief rule in the seventies, were still fighting from heavily fortified jungle bases. The government was an unstable coalition of two parties who’d been at each other’s throats for the better part of a decade and whose main interests were settling historical scores and making money.

Phnom Penh, the crumbling capital of the former French colony, was crawling with foreigners; peacekeepers sent by the West and its allies to enforce peace between the various factions, and their entourage of drop outs, hustlers, pimps, spies, do-gooders and journalists. The streets teemed with Cambodian men in military fatigues missing legs and arms, victims of the landmines strewn across the country. There was no power most of the time. The possible return of the Khmer Rouge caste a shadow over everything.

When the opportunity arose several years later to fill in with one of the wire services, I jumped at it.… Read more

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Asian noir, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Noir fiction, Snubnose Press

Tagged , , , , ,

Ghost Money cover

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 9 Comments

I’ve been sitting on this for a little while now and figure a lazy Friday afternoon is as good a time as any to put it out there. It’s the draft cover of my first novel, Ghost Money, to be released as a digital book by US crime publisher Snubnose Press soon.

I think it looks great. I hope you do, too.

Here’s the pitch for Ghost Money.

Cambodia, 1996, the long-running Khmer Rouge insurgency is fragmenting, competing factions of an unstable 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. But Avery has made dangerous enemies and Quinlan is not the only one looking. Quinlan’s search takes him from the freewheeling capital Phnom Penh to the battle scarred western borderlands. As the political temperature soars, he is slowly drawn into a mystery that plunges him into the heart of Cambodia’s bloody past.

Ghost Money is a crime novel, but it’s also about Cambodia in the mid-nineties, a broken country, and what happens to people who are trapped in the cracks between two periods of history, locals and foreigners, the choices they make, what they do to survive

The person behind this design and the covers of most of Snubnose Press’s growing number of releases is the incredibly talented Eric Beetner.… Read more

→ 9 Comments

Posted in Australian crime fiction, Snubnose Press

Tagged , , , ,

Interview: Brian Lindenmuth, editor, Snubnose Press

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 6 Comments

Several weeks ago I posted a piece about my upcoming crime novel, Ghost Money and the fact it was being published digitally in the US. 

Given the interest that post generated and the debate in Australia about digital publishing and pricing generally, I asked my publisher, Brian Lindenmuth from Snubnose Press, whether he’d answer a few questions about the first anniversary of Snubnose, the controversy around e-book pricing and what kind of crime fiction he’s looking for.

And a heads up for those reading who are sitting on a crime fiction manuscript, for the first time in 2012, Snubnose are open for submissions. Check out the site for details.

What is Snubnose Press and what kind of crime fiction do you publish?

Snubnose Press is the ebook imprint of Spinetingler Magazine.  Spinetingler has been around since 2005 and we wanted to branch out into new areas.  While we are mainly a crime fiction press we are open to other types of work. For example one of our more recent releases, The Duplicate by Helen Fitzgerald, isn’t a crime fiction novel. The crime fiction that we do publish tends towards the darker side of the spectrum.

Why did you set up as a small digital press? How did you think you could add value in the current publishing climate?… Read more

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Crime fiction, Interviews, Noir fiction, Snubnose Press

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Noir Nation issue 2 is coming

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

The cover for issue 2 of the international crime fiction magazine, Noir Nation, has arrived and I thought Pulp Curry readers might like a sneak peek.

I think it looks pretty good and can’t wait for it to hit the digital shelves in the near future.

Issue 2 is packed with great noir fiction from all over the world, including a story by me, ‘Homeland’. I’m pretty excited about ‘Homeland’ because it features the character of Max Quinlan, the Australian Vietnamese ex-cop and missing persons investigator who is the subject of my first novel to be published by Snubnose Press in the second half of 2012.

And while I’m in a sharing mood, I reckon it’s as good a time as any to tell you that the title of the novel has changed. It’s no longer called Cambodia Darkness and Light. The new title is Ghost Money, for reasons that will become clear when you read it.

There’s a draft cover for Ghost Money floating around, designed by Snubnose Press’s graphic sensei, Eric Beetner, which looks wonderful. But that’s not ready to see the light of day just yet.

Ghost Money is set in the mid-1990s and sees Quinlan travel to Cambodia, at that time still wracked by poverty and civil war, to try locate a missing Australian businessman. … Read more

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Crime fiction, Noir fiction, Snubnose Press

Tagged , , , ,

Crime Factory Publications clocks on

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

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

→ 5 Comments

Posted in Adrian McKinty, Angela Savage, Australian noir, Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction, David Whish-Wilson, Garry Disher, Leigh Redhead, Megan Abbott, Snubnose Press

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,