Recently in Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot Category

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot Postscript

Did we miss anyone? Yes, of course we did. And there are many reasons for that; mostly due to a lack of contact details. Though, in some cases, work commitments or travel schedules got in the way so that we weren't able to connect. That was disappointing for the three of us, and, according to some emails we've received, to a number of readers as well.

So we've decided to do a second round of interviews, contacting as many authors as we can who were not covered in this snapshot. We have a fair idea who they are, but we are also open to suggestions. Each of us has a readily accessible email address located somewhere on the relevant weblog. Feel free to contact any of us with the name of an author you'd like to see featured. We're not sure about the actual timing of those interviews as yet. It will probably be a couple of months before they appear, but rest assured we'll announce their imminent arrival in good time. In the meantime, keep reading these three weblogs. You're bound to find a lot of interesting material while you wait.

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Update 7

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Update 6

This is just a listing of all interviews, across the three weblogs, in the Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot. I'll keep updating it each day.

Australian Crime Fiction
P.D. Martin
Matthew Freeman
Jason Nahrung
Leah Giarratino
Goldie Alexander
Felicity Young
Jackie Tritt
Peter Klein
Liz Filleul
Brian Kavanagh
Hazel Edwards
Daniel Hatadi
Alison Goodman
Susan Parisi

Crime Down Under
Adrian Hyland
Geoff McGeachin
Peter Temple
Katherine Howell
Sydney Bauer
David A. Rollins
Alex Palmer
Chris Womersley
Peter Corris
Lindy Cameron
Sandy Curtis
Angela Savage

Matilda
Marshall Browne
Lucy Sussex
Kirsty Brooks
Kerry Greenwood
Sophie Masson
Wendy James
Shane Maloney

The Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot will finish up later today. An announcement regarding the snapshot will be made tomorrow (Wednesday).

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Update 5

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Shane Maloney

1. Your character, Murray Whelan, will always be associated with certain parts of Melbourne, and any survey of the literature of Melbourne will always need to include Whelan in its scope. Do you think he could survive as he does in any other city? Or are the character and the city too closely aligned to tear asunder?

Murray Whelan is very much a product of Melbourne - he grew up there and found his calling in its political sub-culture. He knows the place high and low. His political career is a product of Melbourne at a particular time in its history. Part of the reason I created him was a desire to take a snapshot of the city at a time when I was most familiar with it. It will always be his natural habitat. But Murray's attitudes, values and skills are universal and I suppose that there are Murrays in other places. They just don't happen to be my Murray.

2. What do you have planned for your next publication?

I am currently working on the seventh instalment of Murray's episodic adventures.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

Australian crime fiction has become very diverse and now takes in a variety of sub-genres which are not my cup of tea. What interests me is good writing, new territory, interesting ideas.

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

Perhaps Peter Temple could strangle Dan Brown with a typewriter ribbon at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

I'd like Murray to accompany Alice on her trip to Wonderland. Given his experience in he ALP, he could explain it to her.

Notes: Shane Maloney is the author of the Murray Whelan series of novels,
the most recent of which is Sucked In.
Shane Maloney's website

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Wendy James

1. You won a Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel in 2006 for OUT OF THE SILENCE. Did you write the novel thinking it was going to fit within the crime genre?

Out of the Silence IS at heart a crime novel - if not a who-dunnit, certainly a why-dunnit - but I don't think I consciously approached the work with any particular genre in mind. I was more concerned that the work felt historically 'true' (& yes I know it's an impossibility!); that I came as close as I could to representing the nineteenth century characters with nineteenth century sensibilities & so on. But looking back: at the short stories I've written - in particular a discontinuous narrative that deals with the relationship between an armed robber & his girlfriend; at an unpublished novel - which is an 'imposter' novel along the lines of Martin Guerre and Josephine Tey's marvellous Brat Farrar; and at my reading habits - I'm a huge reader of crime fiction & any sort of thriller, really - well, I guess I really shouldn't have been at all surprised. I suspect, though I'm possibly not the best judge of this, that crime fiction has had a huge influence on my writing - particularly in terms of structure, momentum & plot - even if unconsciously. Oh - and my husband was a copper for 15 years - at Kings Cross & then here in Armidale - so issues of crime & punishment aren't completely abstract, but quite close to home.

2. What do you have planned for your next publication?

My next novel, The Steele Diaries, is due out in May. The only crimes in this novel are emotional: lies, betrayal, abandonment .... Still, I'd say that crime fiction influence is still there - in the structure, the momentum, the plot twists & revelations. The novel I'm working on now, however, does revolve around a crime. Though, like Out of the
Silence
, the emphasis is more on the what, why & how of the crime than the who.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

Not as much as I'd like! I've just got number 4 child off to school, so am hoping that my reading time is going to increase. In the last year or so I've discovered Barry Maitland and Peter Temple. Gabrielle Lord and Peter Corris are old favourites. Heather Rose's The Butterfly Man is fantastic; as is Malcolm Knox's A Private Man. If the ever-expanding list of Australian crime novels that have been recommended to me of late is anything to go by, the Australian Crime fiction scene is looking remarkably healthy.

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

Oh, this is a hard one. For promoting us overseas, I would have said perhaps more government/publisher sponsored & co-ordinated readings and tours and so forth would help - but have heard that the government recently cancelled the grant formerly reserved for just this purpose - so, hell, I don't know. As to promoting Australian writers at home: I've noticed that in New Zealand there's been a huge television campaign encouraging people to read and use public libraries and so on - maybe we could do something similar here, with an emphasis on local writers. And a greater emphasis on us lit at school and at university level - though not at the expense of other literature. Easy to suggest, I know; much harder to implement. An English teacher friend recently onfessed that she's lucky to get the kids to read & study one novel a year.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

These characters have met, but I think I'd like Annie, the fictional mother in The Steele Diaries, to read her daughter Zelda's diary. I really wonder what her response would be - whether she'd feel she'd been completely misunderstood, misrepresented.

Notes: Wendy James is the author of Out of the Silence which won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First novel in 2006
Wendy James's website

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Update 4

This is just a listing of all interviews, across the three weblogs, in the Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot. I'll keep updating it each day.

Australian Crime Fiction
P.D. Martin
Matthew Freeman
Jason Nahrung
Leah Giarratino
Goldie Alexander
Felicity Young
Jackie Tritt
Peter Klein
Liz Filleul
Brian Kavanagh
Hazel Edwards

Crime Down Under
Adrian Hyland
Geoff McGeachin
Peter Temple
Katherine Howell
Sydney Bauer
David A. Rollins

Matilda
Marshall Browne
Lucy Sussex
Kirsty Brooks
Kerry Greenwood
Sophie Masson

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Sophie Masson

1. Your next book, THE CASE OF THE DIAMOND SHADOW, is a YA mystery set in England in the 1930s with Australian characters. You've also started a weblog to promote it. This is rare in Australian literature. What do you see as the benefits of this approach?

As far as the background of the book is concerned, I felt that if I wanted to write a mystery set in the 30's, I'd prefer to set it in England--that whole Christie atmosphere--but with Australian characters and connections(not all the characters are Australian--indeed many are not. Some are English, some French--these are based to some extent on my grandfather and his grandmother--some Dutch, etc). The Australian connection though has that 'fresh eye' feel on what is a very traditional atmosphere for a mystery: rather, in a way, like Christie herself using a Belgian detective rather than an English one--the foreign eye of Poirot (he is an outsider who however knows England well) works really well, I think.

As for the blog, I see it as having several possibilities: obviously, first of all, a direct interaction with readers, both here and overseas; the fun of being able to put up photos, extra associated information, bits and pieces, scraps of research, the kind of thing many readers are interested in but you can't put in a book. Plus, it helps with publicity and general word-of-mouth (I'm planning also to link the weblog later with a little video clip I'm planning to make and upload onto the You Tube channel I have, http://www.youtube.com/sophievmasson ).

2. What do you have planned for your next publication?

I'm hoping to write the sequel to The Case of the Diamond Shadow, which I'm provisionally titling The Deadly Widow of Biarritz--and which starts off with an enigmatic letter...and then a trip on a luxury train to Biarritz, where a young Russian prince in exile has disappeared.The same central characters: Daisy Miller, George Dale, and the detectives they work for--will be in it. Lots of fun! I'd also love to do a sequel to my graphic novel, The Secret Army: Operation Loki, which is an adventure story set in 1936, and based on the occult activities of the Nazis and a group of young psychics who are being trained to fight them..It was published in 2006. But I'm not sure if I'll persuade my publisher--graphic novels are expensive to produce.

And I've got several other projects up my sleeve, including a mystery novel set in Venice in 1600--it's called The Madman of Venice and it's been contracted by a British publisher. I'm in the process of massively rewriting it now.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

I read a lot of crime fiction generally, and quite a bit of Australian crime fiction as well. Two majorly stand out authors for me at present are Michael Robotham and Peter Temple--I know Temple's been around a long time, but he is excellent and is only now getting the recognition he deserves. I love Robotham's novels--they are classy, tight, unexpected and exciting and I'd read everything he writes. I also have been impressed by John Harwood's The Ghost Writer (I know that's really on the edge of crime but it is very much a psychological thriller--and chiller).

I think the current state of the scene is that there isn't much of a one--not really, although there's quite a lot of authors working in isolation. When you compare it to the science fiction/fantasy scene though, with which I've had a lot of contact over the years, it seems rather anaemic. Or is that just an impression? It seemed different in the 80's, when there was such a push on Australian crime fiction--I remember subscribing to Stuart Coupe's excellent magazine, "Mean Streets". Mind you, these days, there are great blogs and sites like yours for crime fiction--so maybe the whole momentum will build up again. But wouldn't it be great to have a big Crime Fiction event--festival, conference--whatever!

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

See above--I'd love the idea of a yearly or probably more realistically biennial Crime Fiction festival like the one in Harrogate, in the hotel Agatha Christie holed up in when she vanished..this might not only attract Australian readers but overseas ones too. Something a bit glam too or unusual anyway.

I think the bloggers are doing a great job promoting books and authors..I just wish there was more of a sense of a "scene"--more regular events at which readers and writers can interact.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

Hercule Poirot! I would love my fictional detective Philip Woodley-Foxe to meet him--it would be a true clash of giant egos! Woodley-Foxe, alas, doesn't have anything like the number of grey cells Hercule has..though I'm sure he'd think he'd have much more and would be quite condescending to the little Belgian, reducing him no doubt to speechless rage..and an appropriate revenge. Hmmm...

Notes:
Sophie Masson is the author of over 40 books for readers of all ages, including The Case of the Diamond Shadow
Sophie Masson's website

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Update 3

This is just a listing of all interviews, across the three weblogs, in the Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot. I'll keep updating it each day.

Australian Crime Fiction
P.D. Martin
Matthew Freeman
Jason Nahrung
Leah Giarratino
Goldie Alexander
Felicity Young
Jackie Tritt
Peter Klein

Crime Down Under
Adrian Hyland
Geoff McGeachin
Peter Temple
Katherine Howell
Sydney Bauer
David A. Rollins

Matilda
Marshall Browne
Lucy Sussex
Kirsty Brooks
Kerry Greenwood

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Kerry Greenwood

1. You've got quite a following for your Phryne Fisher and Corinna Chapman novels, with some webloggers even writing critiques of the recipes you include in the Chapman books. Did you ever think it would come to this?

No, never in my wildest dreams. I was just trying to get published - for four years - and when I finally had a book with my name on I slept with it under my pillow for a week in case I had dreamed it. I was writing the sort of books I like to read, of course. That might have helped. And I always loved cooking, I used to work as a cook, it's lovely to be able to hand out something other than just narrative.

But the thing is, books go in and out of fashion. I have already gone out of fashion once and I expect I will again, which is why I also write historical novels and speculative fiction and kids books.

I just like writing, and now people are PAYING me to do it - amazing.

2. What do you have planned for your next publication?

The next Phryne is already written and edited and with the publisher, Murder on a Midsummer Night, a Phryne, out in November, when I will have a book launch at the Sun Bookshop, Yarraville, all welcome. I have started a new Corinna, which has something to do with donkeys and Christmas, I have chapter one, which usually means the book is safe. And I have a lovely children's book called Princess of Cats up to chapter four, so it's a toss up which one gets my attention. I'll know more when I've met the donkeys. Probably.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

I don't read a lot of modern fiction at all, no insult intended to my sisters in crime. I really liked the latest Gary Disher, I admire Peter Temple, and I loved Lindy Cameron's thriller Redback, that woman has found her niche, she writes a wonderful thriller.

I think the scene is as healthy as it has ever been. More women writing crime, more areas being covered - it's pretty lively and interesting and has some great personalities in it.

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

Almost anything. More reviews would be good, crime fiction does not get reviewed as often as one would like. I have always wanted a train ad saying something like "Bored? Crushed? Wondering about the intentions of the man behind you? You could be reading a book! Here are some wonderful train books".

The websites are what sell books in the U.S., it appears, some of them like DorothyL have thousands and thousands of contributors and women, particularly, read on recommendation - as I do myself, there are, as someone said, so many books, so little time. Scripta Longa, vita brevis est, in fact. Americans and English alike find Australian books unbearably exotic, and I think that playing up the exotic, wild strange and kangaroo inhabited nature of Australia would sell a lot of books. It has also worked in France, Germany and in Russia with my books, where they are bemused but fascinated. In the long run a book has to sell itself, though a good cover (the Phryne covers are particularly spiffing, Beth Norling is a genius) helps. I have had books come out with covers so drab that they scream "No! No! Put me down, I'm boring!" to anyone who is unwise enough to pick them up. If we are a backwater with a small population compared to, say, America, then we should become a luxury niche market, like very fine Armagnac or camembert. I might also mention that the Australia Council still does not consider crime fiction literature, and they should. A few grants would get a lot of people the time they need to finish their first book. But if it isn't Frank Moorhouse, the establishment does not like it, which sort of tickles my rebellious streak, I admit... and they've never offered me a fellowship despite the fact that I have forty six books in publication and would love to loll around in the Marais. But I am doing well on my own, which makes me feel independent, I suppose.

Email ads would be the way to go, on all those websites. Wouldn't cost much and would bring a new book to the attention of the reading public. My US publishers, Poisoned Pen Press, already do this, and it seems to work.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

I believe that Phryne would get on very badly with Sherlock Holmes and would probably seduce Lord Peter Whimsey. She is a woman very much of her time and I can't see her out of it, so we are looking at 1928-9. Perhaps she could go robbing museums with The Saint. Not Roger Moore, the real one in the books by Leslie Charteris. He was a very good character, clever, sensual and handsome. And he would find Phryne challenging. I might never get her back. What an interesting question, I'll have to think about it. Corinna would love to meet Sweeney Todd if he looks anything Johnny Depp. She could teach him a pie recipe which does not include human. She would not get on with any of the noire girls, I believe. Their private lives are too untidy for her. Anyone who gets up at four every morning has little patience with such people. I think she would like to have tea with that advanced young woman, Lady Whimsey. Or possibly Miss Marple.

Notes:

Kerry Greenwood is the author of the Phryne Fisher and Corrina Chapman series of novels, including A Question of Death and Trick or Treat. Kerry Greenwood's website.

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Update 2

This is just a listing of all interviews, across the three weblogs, in the Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot. I'll keep updating it each day.

Australian Crime Fiction
P.D. Martin
Matthew Freeman
Jason Nahrung
Leah Giarratino
Goldie Alexander

Crime Down Under
Adrian Hyland
Geoff McGeachin
Peter Temple
Katherine Howell

Matilda
Marshall Browne
Lucy Sussex
Kirsty Brooks

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Kirsty Brooks

1. Your books have been described as "Romantic comedy meets noir crime". Does living in Adelaide - sometimes described as the weird crime capital of Australia - have anything to do with your choice of genres? Or is it just the quality of the wine that makes the difference?

Ah, yes. The crime weirdness. I think it's just distilled (check excellent relevant wine reference...) by population and our hysterical tabloid newspaper. I am a keen reader of interstate papers to get some perspective, but yes, if you only read The Advertiser you'd think we were the kinky crime capital of the world (very exciting in theory but not so in real life). In fact, one of the reason the publishers at Hachette (Livre - Hodder headline) were so quick to sign my first three books was because they thought I did a good job of making Adelaide "seem exciting", which is a glimpse at the other side of the opinion coin, that Adelaide is all church spires and hedges. Being a private school girl with a doctor, lawyer and school teacher in the family, I get to explore a lot of the seedy underbelly of our fine city without losing the boring beige posh sensibilities I've been brought up with... It's an interesting parallel to why I think crime fiction makes for such interesting reading - it's danger at a safe distance. So, reading about danger is exhilarating, but I get to do all the dodgy things late at night, but still (hopefully) duck home and drink good red wine until my heart stops leaping about in my chest. As someone who runs like toddler on acid and is prone to a good thumping faint, I am the very model of a crap sleuth, so I base a lot of Cassidy's misadventures on (sadly) real life.

2. What do you have planned for your next publication?

I'm writing the next in the series, The Tequila Bikini, but publication dates are up in the air at the moment. I get a lot of emails from fans asking where it is, which is very encouraging. I'm glad they have so much faith in me (and my characters). I'm a "seat of the pants" kind of writer, so I tend to paint my characters into a corner and then get hot and cold and have to go lie down when I realise I have to now try to get them out again (and without a deux ex machina or magic wand I have to do it with characters who have very little experience, or skills of any kind. It stretches my imagination at times... I'm also sketching out a YA series, and writing bits of that when I get a chance (I've just bought my first home after decades of share housing, flats, apartments and co-ops - all of which have delivered in terms of storylines - a wonderfully kitsch seventies house with room dividers and excellent drop lamps in classy gold and brown so I'm finally able to build built-in bookshelves and I can finally get a dog (or three) and chickens, to go with the eleven birds I already live with (all but two are "rescue animals" and it's only after they get home that I realise why it's possible no one wanted them... But I love them so much for being, well really badly behaved. Six are reasonably benign handicapped finches who are remarkably brilliant and resourceful, as well as five Machiavellian parrots who all think they are my sidekick and protector and spend much of the days warning me about various Holden Blimps and stray balloons in the sky, and marching about checking down drains and under doors for intruders). My time is pretty limited but I find if I don't write every day I go nuts (the stories just play out in my head until I get them down). I have what my doctor refers to as "an unquiet mind..." I'm totally sure it's a compliment.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

Australian crime fiction is fit right now. Totally spunky and looking great. I'm always jealous of Melbourne based writers who get to attend the excellent Sisters in Crime meetings at Leo's spaghetti bar on a regular basis. I've been invited there a few times and been refreshed and happy for months afterwards, enjoying the company of other writers and readers (although one night when I spoke with the glorious Tara Moss, I had a woman fast asleep in the seats about two feet in front of me, which was off putting until I realised if anyone can sleep in the presence of Ms. Moss, she must be really exhausted and deserve the nap - or be mashed on drugs). I love reading local crime fiction, but I must confess my faves are American - Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton mostly. I even wrote Ms. Grafton a fan letter, and got a reply. It's still in my purse, I was so excited (getting older just can't stop someone being a nerd). I am also a fan of Shane Maloney (who I travelled around Victoria with for a libraries tour, we had a great time, persuading our very patient libraries PR dude to stop at oppshops and various crap historic sites). And Peter Corris, Leigh Redhead and Tara Moss. I find I'm a fan of their work as well as the writers themselves. We are very fortunate to have such great, supportive communities like this. It's the same in SF, I've found. Genre writers are lucky to be able to have little cliques, but also be well received in the general community. (Hmm, that sounds a little like we're on the "special bus"). I probably meant to say that commercial/popular fiction embraces our genres very kindly and we're lucky for it, while still have a little niche of support too.

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

We've had some great news stories of late, so we're lucky to have a lot of interest, both locally and abroad. I think it's always a good news story if writers are doing something different, or unusual, so I got a fair bit of publicity writing about Adelaide, although so many people said I should focus on Sydney (or Paris, London or New York) or I wouldn't get published in this genre. I figured, with all the research I was doing (i.e. Drinking in dodgy bars and strip joints, meeting strippers and trying my hand at pole dancing - I still have a scar on my leg from that. Well, from having to wear stilettos while practising anyway. It's true what they say about stiletto heels...), I would keep one thing true, which was the setting, but then I got all wish-fulfilment and put all the things I WANTED Adelaide to have in there as well, so there are bars where I think they should be (close to where I used to live in the city) and the style I liked, with familiar spots like universities and shops, and my sort of long slow bars tucked in there (a small bit of Melbourne moved to the Adelaide side streets). Oddly, much of those ideas are actually real now, so either I have the ear of the local Licensing and Alcohol Authority or I am just blessed with the many gifts of the psychic (as deeply opposed to psychiatric). Still, we have to compete on an international level, so we have to be as good, if not better than what's already out there. Publicity won't change anything other than maybe bringing some things to a publisher or reader's attention. A keen reader becomes a fan and then becomes someone who relates to you, and I've found writing is a wonderful way to learn that you're 1) not alone in your odd thoughts and 2) able to connect with other like minded people in a useful way.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

Oh, I think Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone could teach Cassidy Blair a thing or ten. At first glance I imagined them together at a shooting range, but actually, Cassidy would just get a lot more out of learning to be as neat and organised and responsible as Kinsey. And patience. Definitely our Cassidy could learn a little of that...

Notes:
Kirsty Brooks is the author of the Cassidy Blair series of novels, which include The Happiness Punch, The Vodka Dialogue and The Millionaire Float. Her website can be found here.

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Update 1

This is just a listing of all interviews, across the three weblogs, in the Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot. I'll keep updating it each day.

Australian Crime Fiction
P.D. Martin
Matthew Freeman

Crime Down Under
Adrian Hyland
Geoff McGeachin

Matilda
Marshall Browne
Lucy Sussex

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Lucy Sussex

1. It's been some time now since you wrote a crime novel (THE SCARLET RIDER). Do you see yourself returning to the genre at any time in the future?

I already have -- two short stories, both of them revisiting crime stories from the 1860s. "New Ceres" had an interesting female detective, a French detecting Duchess, and I rewrote an 1866 Mary Fortune story around her, with a different whodunnit. That's "Mist and Murder" at www.newceres.com. The other came about because Paul Collins was putting together an anthology for schools on genre, and I got crime fiction. I again rewrote an 1860s crime story, Andrew Forrester's "The Unknown Weapon", putting it into modern dress. That's forthcoming. All of these are by-products of my research into the history of crime fiction. Currently I'm revising my book on the Mothers of Crime Writing for publication. In my spare time I have a Victorian female detective novel in (slow) progress, which being me involves string theory and werewolves.

2. What do you have planned for your next publication?

Well, we're still negotiating the contract, so I can't talk about it. Non-fiction, I can say that. Travel. Involves my great-grandmother, intrepid traveller & collector of husbands.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

Historical yes--it was genuinely pioneering in the mid-19th, and there's been a lot of interesting stuff since then. I review, so I see a lot of crime fiction. Mostly it's the smaller names from overseas, who tend to be pretty bloody good. I think I got all of the last Golden Dagger shortlist, and have no argument about the winner, Peter Temple. There's various people around who should be better known. Dorothy Johnston, for instance. Diverting into true crime--Stephanie Bennett should have won shitloads of awards with the Gatton Murders, and it's a terrible shame that she didn't. Grahame Hurley's Portsmouth mysteries. Qiu Xiaolong paints a great, Dickensian picture of modern China. You meant Australian? Hmn. I haven't got fannish & excited about anything new & local in the last couple of years, but who knows what will turn up in the review envelope tomorrow?

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

I would like every publisher to spend more money on editing -- it's criminal how books are sent into the world with a hem down, or a bra-strap showing. The standard overseas is super-high and if they're cheap with the editing it'll just hurt the author's reputation in the long run. I'd like to see some more film/tv of Australian crime fiction. Preferably gritty & filthy.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character who would you like it to be and why?

Intertextuality rools, ok? Given the vogue for real characters as detectives I'd like to posit Ellen (Mrs Henry) Wood as detective in a legal thriller. Although known as a formidably respectable Victorian novelist, she was a major developer of the clue-puzzle in long form. She also had an uncanny ability to read a crime in a newspaper & predict whodunnit. Her son quotes her as saying if she had been male she would have been a good lawyer, something impossible for girls in the early C19th. Kerry Greenwood agrees that Mrs Henry Wood for the prosecution is a truly scary thought. I'd like to pit Ellen against Rumpole for the defence and watch the fur fly.

Notes:

Lucy Sussex is the author of The Scarlet Rider. She has also written a number of sf and children's stories.
The Lucy Sussex website

Australian Crime Fiction Snaphot: Marshall Browne

1. You are currently running two crime series (Inspector Anders and Detective Aoki) as well as a series about a one-eyed German banker Franz Schmidt. Do you find these series of novels feed off each other or are you able to keep them completely separate?

I aim to keep DP Anders, Hideo Aoki, and Franz Schmidt in entirely different universes. I find it necessary to keep them - and their worlds - sharply differentiated in my mind. The way I work is to have a couple of novels on the go at any one time. I'll do a version on one, taking say six months, then put it aside and take up the other. For that six months (or whatever) I'm working in a straightjacket - of that series, that character. This is helped by them being of different nationalities, having markedly different personalities and physical characteristics, and living in different countries. Apart from anything else, the variety keeps me interested!

2. What do you have planned for your next publication?

My next will be "The Iron Heart" the second outing for Franz Schmidt. It's a historical thriller set in Berlin in early 1939 and follows on from his late 1938 anti-Nazi escapades in southern Germany. In October, I spent nine days in Berlin doing top-up research and have since done a final revision. A fourth Inspector Anders is drafted, set in Prague where I researched in 2006, and I'll work more on that this year.

3. Do you read much Australian crime fiction? Can you give us a few standouts that you've read recently? What do you think of the current state of the Australian crime fiction scene?

I've been reading Gary Disher of late - "The Dragon Man" - with much enjoyment, and intend to move on to his acclaimed "Chain of Evidence". I admire Gary's professionalism - I was on a panel with him at the Perth Writers" Festival last year and will be again at the forthcoming Adelaide Writers' Festival (also with Gabrielle Lord). Unfortunately, with limited time available I don't read a lot of fiction, and tend to focus on the Europeans. A large part of my working life as a banker was spent in Europe and Asia and my ideas have come in those areas. Henning Mankell and Michael Dibdin have given me good reads as has Ken Bruen - the minamilist Irishman, whom I've met. Recently I see he's quoted from one of mine in his black-humoured police procedural "Blitz". However, I could claim a fourth series in my Melburnian Trilogy - three historical mysteries set in my birthplace, spanning 1888-1900. In each, a private detective, name of Otto Rudd, works around the main characters on the mystery at the heart of each novel - all of which climax in a sensational court-case. This year I'm planning to start on a fourth - Melbourne 1905 - so I'll be busy.

4. What do you think could be done to better promote Australian authors either at home or abroad (or both)?

The biggest boost an Australian crime-writer could get, in my opinion, is to have his character appear in a feature film (internationally or locally produced) - or a long-running TV series (like Rebus). Shane Moloney had some success with TV. Obviously this is hard to achieve. I've had numerous approaches over the years from film producers overseas and in Australia but all fizzled out - funding seemed the central problem. More gatherings of crime writers and readers, in Australia, promoting Aussie writers would get the tick from me. Mary Dalmau's recent initiative - introducing an annual Reader's Feast Crime and Justice Festival - the first to be held in Melbourne July 18-20 2008 is an exciting development of this type. It's to be under the patronage of Ian Rankin and Kerry Greenwood.

5. If your fictional character could meet any fictional character, who would you like it to be and why?

DP Anders and Aurelio Zen working on a case together? This has actually been suggested by a couple of critics! Of course, both detectives are essentially loners, and I'm sure would drive each other crazy. It would certainly have that effect on Anders' sidekick, Matucci.

Notes:

Marshall Browne is the author of, most recently, Rendezvous at Kamkura Inn, and Inspector Anders and the Blood Vendetta. He won a Best First Novel Ned Kelly Award in 2000 for The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders. You can read a review of Inspector Anders and the Blood Vendetta.
Marshall Browne's publisher website.

Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot: Introduction

Back in April 2005 Ben Peek, on his weblog The Urban Sprawl Project, undertook to interview as many Australian speculative fiction writers as he could and to publish those interviews over the course of a week. Each interview was only short, some five questions in all, and was aimed primarily at getting a brief look at the author's latest work, what they were currently working on, and what they thought of the then current state of the speculative fiction field in Australia. He called it the "2005 Snapshot". In August 2007, the ASif! (Australian SpecFic in focus) crew, along with a guest or two, decided to follow Peek's lead and came up with their own 2007 Snapshot. They finished up interviewing 83 authors, up from the 43 in Peek's original.

At the end of 2007, Karen Chisholm (of the Aust Crime Fiction weblog), Damien Gay (of Crime DownUnder) and Perry Middlemiss (of Matilda) decided a similar snapshot of Australian crime fiction was required. Over the past couple of months these three have conducted a number of small, five-question interviews with a wide variety of Australian crime fiction writers and will begin publishing them across the three weblogs, starting Monday March 3, 2008.

If you are at all interested in the current state of Australian crime fiction, you'll find this series very entertaining and, hopefully, illuminating.

About this Archive

This page is an archive of recent entries in the Australian Crime Fiction Snapshot category.

Articles by Australians is the previous category.

Australian LitBlog Snapshot is the next category.

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