Tag Archives: Garry Disher

Interview: Garry Disher

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Garry Disher is a veteran of the Australian crime-writing scene. He is the author a series of books featuring the professional hold-up man known as Wyatt. Disher wrote six Wyatt novels in the nineties and a seventh was recently released by Text and took out the top prize in the 2010 Ned Kelly awards. Disher has also authored a number of books featuring Hal Challis and Ellen Destry, two police working on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsular, about an hour’s drive southeast of Melbourne, where Disher also lives. I talked to him for the issue 5 of Crime Factory about the difference between writing hard-boiled characters and police procedurals, why after over a ten-year break he decided to write another Wyatt book and the state of crime fiction in Australia.

It’s been over 10 years since the last Wyatt book, Fallout in 1997. Why the break and what inspired you to give Wyatt another outing after such a long time?

The break was to try and get established with the new series of police procedurals, the Challis and Destry books, which for me was a completely different way of looking at plot and structure. I wanted a break from Wyatt because there was basically one book a year and I thought I might get stale on them.… Read more

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

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Is Philip Marlowe spinning in his grave?

Posted on September 6, 2010 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

It’s official.

Yesterday my crime novel, Cambodia Darkness and Light, was short listed in the category of best unpublished manuscript by an emerging writer in the 2010 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.

The judges said the following about Cambodia Darkness and Light:

Ex-cop Max Quinlan is working his third missing person’s case, and he’s already out of his depth … He’s in Cambodia, on the trail of disappeared Melbourne gem-trader Charles Avery, hired by his deep-pocketed sister. Avery is the kind of man ‘everyone had met’ but ‘no one knew’ – and he’s deeply enmeshed with the Khmer Rouge. This is a fast-paced, richly atmospheric spin on the Chandler-esque disillusioned gumshoe, keenly informed by the turbulent politics and history of Cambodia.

It’s not everyday you get your work compared to one of the masters of crime fiction, Raymond Chandler. Hopefully, he’s not spinning in his grave too much at the suggestion that my Vietnamese Australian ex-cop turned missing person’s investigator has anything in common with Philip Marlowe.

Best of luck to the other two shortlisted writers in the unpublished manuscript category. Peter Temple’s crime novel Truth is among the books shortlisted for the Vance Palmer fiction prize. Hopefully, its inclusion will continue to push crime fiction, particularly, Australian crime fiction, further into the literary mainstream in this country. … Read more

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Posted in Angela Savage, Australian crime fiction, Garry Disher

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Book review: Wyatt

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

WyattVeteran Australian crime writer Garry Disher has delivered his seventh book featuring the professional criminal and hold-up man, Wyatt, (Wyatt, Text Publishing), and the first since The Fallout in 1997, and it’s fantastic.

In Wyatt the score is a jewel heist, presented by an old colleague who fancies a shot at the big league. There are multiple double crosses courtesy of the cast of characters, including a bent cop, a wannabe gangster, a stone cold French assassin and an unhinged stripper.

There is something about the heist gone wrong genre of crime fiction (and movies) that seldom disappoints and Wyatt is no exception. It’s clear within the first few chapters things will go wrong. You know people are going to get hurt, some fatally, and most, but not all, deserve what’s coming to them. The good part is finding out just how incredible complicated and bad it’s going to get and how the characters react to each twist and turn of the plot.

The aspect of Wyatt that pushes it beyond a simple, albeit, well told heist caper, is the depiction of an old style criminal trying to adapt to a rapidly changing world. In sparse, gritty prose, Disher brilliantly delivers insights into this side of Wyatt’s existence. ‘He was an old style hold-up man: cash, jewellery, paintings.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Garry Disher, Neo Noir, Parker

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