Liz Porter, of "The Age", talks to Garry Disher, Victorian-based author of the Challis and Wyatt series of crime novels.
"Social diversity creates social tension," says the writer, who has just had Blood Moon published, his fifth book in the series featuring crimes that happen on the watch of Detective Inspector Hal Challis of the Waterloo police crime investigation unit.The interview also brings the excellent news that Disher has a new Wyatt novel just about finished. It is due"There are disadvantaged housing estates a couple of kilometres away from wealthy communities. That kind of social tension leads to crime and helps me to find plots. The fallout of poverty and job loss are just as important to me as matters of police procedure.
"I don't want to beat the reader over the head with a message. But crime fiction does give you the room to explore strain in the community. Literary fiction has let us down in that regard." But is there enough crime on the peninsula for a writer whose books are gritty and realistic as Disher's?
"I reckon I have bumped up the murder rate significantly," he says. "But there have been some horrifying crimes on or near the peninsula. Just reading the local paper I get a sense of an undercurrent of small, mean and petty crimes -- muggings, thefts and bashings."
for release next year.
