Tag Archives: David Whish-Wilson

Book review: The Cold Cold Ground

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

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

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Book Reviews, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction, David Whish-Wilson, Megan Abbott, Noir fiction

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Roll on 2012

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

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

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Angela Savage, Australian crime fiction, Crime Factory, David Whish-Wilson, Garry Disher

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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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Interview: David Whish-Wilson, part 2

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

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

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Crime fiction, David Whish-Wilson, Interviews, Noir fiction

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Book review: David Whish-Wilson’s Line of Sight

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Andrew Nette| 4 Comments

I am not going to let the fact that I have not read a book stand in the way of publishing a review of it, especially when the book in question sounds as interesting as the second novel by West Australian-based author David Whish-Wilson.

This review was originally appeared on the blog of my partner in crime Angela Savage, whose own book, The Half Child, has recently been released by Text Publishing.

Line of Sight is set in Perth in 1975 and is based on real events surrounding the unsolved murder of South Perth brothel owner Shirley Finn. In Whish-Wilson’s novel, the victim is celebrity brothel madam Ruby Devine whose body is found in her car, abandoned on a Perth golf course. Like Finn, she was shot at close range four times in the back of the head.

Superintendent Frank Swann formed a friendship with Ruby Devine when he worked as a detective in Kalgoorlie some ten years earlier. Though prostitution was illegal, Kalgoorlie was ‘famous for its prostitutes’ and Swann, adopting a harm reduction approach before it was fashionable, took steps to control rather than suppress the industry. However, as he makes clear to the Royal Commission into Matters Surrounding the Administration of the law Relating to Prostitution, which opens as the novel begins:

“It was not my practice to solicit monetary of sexual favours from Ruby Devine, or from anyone else…I am on the record as saying that there has never been a time in the history of this state when prostitution and some of the policemen who controlled it haven’t come to a financial understanding.… Read more

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Posted in Angela Savage, Australian crime fiction, Crime fiction, David Whish-Wilson, Noir fiction

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