Category Archives: Crime fiction

Shilling some new publications

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

CarnivalEvery now and again one has to do a post that is essentially just one big shill. Well, this is one of those posts. I have been meaning to update you for a while now about current and upcoming publications I am involved in. So, here goes.

Crime Scenes Stories


 Crime Scenes storiesI alerted readers a while ago to a new anthology of Australian short crime fiction, published by Sydney based Spineless Wonders, and edited by Zane Lovett, whose debut crime novel The Midnight Promise won best first crime at the 2014 Ned kelly awards.

Last weekend I took part in the Newcastle Writers Festival, at which the anthology, Crime Scenes, was formally launched. I have a story in this collection called ‘Postcard From, Cambodia’, along side pieces by David Whish-Wilson, Leigh Redhead, Carmel Bird, Peter Corris, PM Newton and my partner, Angela savage.

Seriously, anthologies of Australian crime fiction are a rare thing, which makes this anthology something of a special event. You can order Crime Scenes for your Kindle or in paperback from Amazon here or you can buy it directly from the Spineless Wonders site here.

Crime Factory Issue 18

Issue 18 of the award winning magazine Crime Factory, which I co-edit, is out and contains the usual great mix of fiction, features and reviews.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Beat Girls & Love Tribes & Real Cool Cats, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction

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Mike Hodges’ Pulp & mass paperback fiction on the big screen

Posted on March 21, 2016 by Andrew Nette| 13 Comments

Caine in PulpThe opening credits of Mike Hodges’ under appreciated 1972 film, Pulp, are a delight for any fan of cheap pulp paperback fiction. As text roles across the screen (in type writer font, of course), the camera pans between the faces of the three female stenographers transcribing the words of sleazy English expat pulp writer, Mickey King (Michael Caine). As Caine’s nasal voice-over recites his latest novel, The Organ Grinder, we see the different reactions of the women, disgust, shock, and excitement. It’s a reminder that once, before it was reduced to an object of outre fascination for its cover art, pulp fiction elicited strong emotions.

The movie shifts to King, in his cheap white suit and big hair, Jack Carter – the character he played in Hodges’ Get Carter only a year earlier – gone to seed, stepping out of the Italian hotel he lives in to hail a cab. As he sits in the reception area waiting for his completed manuscript, King’s voice-over goes: “The writer’s life would be ideal but for the writing. This was a problem I had to overcome. Then I read the Guinness Book of Records about Earl Stanley Gardner, the world’s fastest novelist who would dictate up to the rate of ten thousand words every day.… Read more

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Posted in 60s American crime films, British crime cinema, Crime fiction, Crime film, Michael Caine, Pulp fiction, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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Mid-summer reading report back

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Total ChaosAs has become my practice, it’s time for my annual mid-summer reading report back – short reviews of some of the books I have read so far over the summer holidays. Without further introduction, in no particular order they are as follows:

Total Chaos, Jean-Claude Izzo

I’d never heard of Jean-Claude Izzo, the founder of the ‘Mediterranean noir movement’, until a friend recommended him to me after the attacks in Paris last November. My friend claimed not only were his books good crime reads, they provided a unique insight into the Islamic community in France. I wasn’t disappointed. Total Chaos, the first of Izzo’s so-called ‘Marseilles trilogy’, combines crime fiction smarts with a fascinating examination of immigrant politics in the French port city.

Fabio Montale grew up on the streets of Marseilles with two close childhood friends, Ugo and Manu. Fabio become a cop whose career is going nowhere as a result of his unfashionable focus on preventing crime rather than just cracking heads. Ugo and Manu became criminals. When his two friends are killed in violent circumstances, Fabio investigates what led to their deaths. He discovers his friends where bound up in a complex web of criminal power plays that involve organised crime, the National Front and veterans of France’s various imperial entanglements abroad.… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Eurocrime, Fawcett Gold Medal Books

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The comfort of crimes past? Why we love period crime procedurals

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

sherlock-holmes

You only have to take a quick look at the television guide or go to the crime section of your nearest bookstore to know that period crime procedurals – crime stories set in the past – are popular.

Showing or having recently aired on free-to-air television have been Foyle’s War, a police procedural show set during or immediately after the Second World War; Dr Blake Mysteries, set in Ballarat in the 1950s; Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, based on the successful books by Melbourne writer Kerry Greenwood set in late-1920s Melbourne; andAquarius, dealing with the murders committed by Charles Manson in 1960s California. These programs feed into a much wider canon of popular period shows – everything from Downton Abbey, to Mad Men and Wolf Hall, the adaption of Hilary Mantel’s 2009 bestselling Booker Prize-winning novel.

Our desire for period crime procedurals is just as big on the printed page. In Australia alone, there are Sulari Gentill’s books featuring the 1930s sleuth, Roland Sinclair, Robert Gott’s police procedurals set in the newly formed homicide squad in 1940s Melbourne, and Geoffrey McGeachin’s award winning Melbourne police detective Charlie Berlin, to name a few.

What is driving this? Is this a symptom of our refusal to come to grips with modern reality?… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian television history, Crime fiction, Crime film, Kerry Greenwood

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My top 10 books of 2015

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Bad Penny BluesIt’s time for my annual top 10 reads for the year. In no particular order they are as follows: 

Bad Penny Blues, Cathi Unsworth

Bad Penny Blues kicks off in London in the early 1960s. A young police constable finds the body of a murdered prostitute. His subsequent investigation into the crime and similar murders, spanning the better part of a decade, propels him into the heart of the city’s Soho vice district. Interspersed with this is the story of a young and up and coming fashion designer, Stella, who is plagued by nightmares about dead women.

The fact I found this book a pinch too long didn’t detract from my enjoyment of it. Bad Penny Blues is a solid piece of noir fiction and a great evocation of sixties London, taking in everything from the occult, teddy boys, bent cops, radical bohemians and debauched upper class aristocrats.

TattooMurderThe Tattoo Murder Case, Akimitsu Takagi

First published, albeit in a slightly different form, in 1948, a young forensic medical student with post-traumatic stress after a stint as a medic in the Philippines begins a passionate affair with a beautiful woman who is covered with strange, sexually alluring traditional Japanese tattoos. Soon after the affair begins, she is murdered, dismembered and her tattooed torso stolen from the scene of the crime.… Read more

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Posted in Australian noir, Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Japan, Crime Fiction and film set in Vietnam, Robert Stone, Science fiction and fantasy

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