Tag Archives: Crime Factory

Crime Factory 8 is live

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Crime Factory 8 is now out and available here.

Highlights include an interview with the author of De Luxe, Lenny Bartulin, and Tokyo Vice, Jake Adelstein.

There’s short fiction from Seth Harwood, Health Lowrance (whose book, The Bastard Hand, I reviewed on this site recently), and Julia Madeleine.

My column on Asian crime fiction and film, Setting Sun, looks at the 1981 noir Cutter’s Way, and the 1978 film, Who’ll Stop the Rain, both of which dealt with the legacy of the Vietnam War. Cutter’s Way is based on Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburg whose death earlier this year went largely unnoticed. Who’ll Stop the Rain is adapted from Robert Stone’s wonderful 1974 book, Dog Soldiers.

There’s also reviews, the Nerd of Noir, our True Crime Factory column and a whole lot more.

Check it out.

And while I’m on the subject, big things are going down at on the Factory floor. We’e currently re-designing our website and have got a number of other projects on the go. It’s top secret, hush hush and all that, so you’ll have to watch this space as details are slowly revealed over the coming months.

 … Read more

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Posted in Crime Factory, Crime fiction, Noir fiction

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New crime anthologies and Ned Kelly Awards

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

An interesting trend that seems to be occurring parallel with the rise of e-publishing is the growing popularity of short story anthologies.

I’m told by people who know about these things, that anthologies are not popular with mainstream publishers. Well, e-publishing is now allowing small niche publishers to get their product out there.

Exhibits A and B are two upcoming crime anthologies, both of which I have stories in.

In September, the first Crime Factory anthology will be available through US indie crime publisher, New Pulp Press.

Crime Factory: The First Shift contains 28 noir stories from established and emerging authors in the US, UK, South Africa and Australia. There’s names Australian crime readers may be familiar with, including Ken Bruen (author of The White Trilogy and London Boulevard), Adrian McKinty (Falling Glass), and local writer, Leigh Redhead (Thrill City).

First Shift is also a chance for Australian audiences to check out several members of the new wave of noir writers in the United States who are relatively unknown here, including Hilary Davidson, Dave Zeltserman, Scott Wolven and Dennis Tafoya. South African writer, Roger Smith, whose upcoming book Dust Devils is on my to read list, also contributed a story.

You can pre-order Crime Factory: The First Shift here at Barns and Noble and Amazon.… Read more

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Posted in Angela Savage, Australian crime fiction, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Ned Kelly Awards, Neo Noir

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View from the transit lounge

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

I spent ages trying to think of a snappy heading for this post.

In the end I settled on ‘View from the transit lounge’, because as an aspiring author it’s easy to feel like you are always stuck in the transit lounge, feverishly clutching your manuscript like a boarding pass, watching other writers start or continue their literary journeys, while you… well, whatever, you get my general drift.

Moments of doubt aside, 2011 is shaping up to be a good year for me writing-wise.

Exhibit A is this website. If it’s your first visit, welcome. If you’ve been here before, you may notice that I’ve had a bit of work done. Actually, a lot of work.

Thanks to Rowan McKnaught from Studio Skiing for doing such a high quality, reasonably priced job, and for putting up with all my technologically illiterate questions.

I started Pulp Curry in mid-2010 to publicise the manuscript for my unpublished crime novel, Cambodia Darkness and Light. While that’s still a big part of why I’m doing it, the site has taken on a life of its own, getting quite a lot of traffic and giving me the opportunity to sound off on various obsessions about crime film and writing.

Time permitting (I’ve got a day job, you know), hopefully, it’ll go onto bigger and better things.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime Factory

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Top tens and spent casings

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Pulp Curry is going to be taking a break for a couple of weeks over the Christmas/New Year period while the family and I brave the monsoon-like conditions of Queensland.

But before I go, there’s a few spent casings lying around the place I’ve got to clean up.

First up, my list of top ten books for 2010 is up at Day Labor, the official blog of the online magazine, Crime Factory.  No surprises that Garry Disher’s Wyatt is right up there, as is Martin Limon, whose books featuring two military police on the beat in seventies Korea, along with Megan Abbott, are my big finds for this year.

My top ten is part of Day Labour’s Best of Whatever for 2010 series, put together by Keith Rawson. When Keith says whatever, he means whatever. There’s some great posts, not only on books, but comics, film and, well, whatever. Kudos to you, mate, for all your work and thanks to you and your Crime Factory co-editors, Liam Jose and Cameron Ashley, for making me feel so welcome in the Crime Factory family. I really appreciate it.

My recent post Parker and the art of hard-boiled crime writing generated a bit discussion on and off-line. That’s great, because if you haven’t picked up by now, I can talk the leg off a chair about Parker and his creator, legendary crime writer Donald Westlake.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Garry Disher, Parker

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Parker and the art of hard-boiled crime writing

Posted on December 21, 2010 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

December 31 2010 marks the second anniversary of the death at age 75 of one of the masters of hard-boiled crime writing, Donald Westlake.

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Westlake lately and his best known creation, the professional criminal Parker.

Westlake was a prolific writer. While he specialised in crime fiction, he also did science fiction, erotic stories and westerns under a myriad of pseudonyms of which Richard Stark, the name he used for the Parker books, remains the best known. He also worked on a number of screenplays, including the adaption of Jim Thompson’s The Grifters.

Sixteen Parker novels appeared between 1962 and 1974. For reasons I’m not clear about, Westlake took a rest from the character until 1997, then wrote another eight Parker books.

Several of the books were filmed, the best known of which is Point Blank starring Lee Marvin (later remade as Payback with Mel Gibson as the lead, but the less said about it the better).

I recently discovered via The Violent World of Parker website, The Outfit, an excellent 1973 adaption of Westlake’s novel of the same name, is finally getting an outing on DVD. (The details are here).

Robert Duvall does the honours as Parker or Macklin, as the central character in the film is called, alongside Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan and the siren of seventies American B-movies, Karen Black.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Garry Disher, Heist films, Jim Brown, Lee Marvin, Noir fiction, Parker

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