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Category Archives: Asian noir
Postcard From Cambodia

Back in 2016, I contributed a story to an anthology of crime fiction published by Spineless Wonders, called Crime Scenes. The story, a piece of noir writing called ‘Postcard From Cambodia’, was set in Australia and Cambodia, and I have always thought it was one of my better short fiction efforts. An abridged version of ‘Postcard From Cambodia’ was performed live a couple of years back at a bar in Sydney and was broadcast a couple of days ago on community radio 2RPH as part of ‘Little Fictions On Air’ program along with a brief commentary. For those who are interested, you can listen to the story being read by the show’s presented, Kate Liston-Mills, here.
It is certainly an experience listening to one of your stories being performed on radio, but I’ll let you be the just of whether it works or not. If you do enjoy the story I would encourage you to pick up a copy of Crimes Scenes. It is available in hardcopy from the Spineless Wonders site, and for your Kindle here. It has some terrific Australian crime stories, including work from the late Peter Corris, Tony Birch, Leigh Redhead, Angela Savage and David Whish-Wilson, among others. … Read more
Posted in Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, David Whish-Wilson, Leigh Redhead, Peter Corris
Tagged Asian noir, crime fiction in Cambodia, David Whish-Wilson, Leigh Redhead, Little fictions, Peter Corris, Postcard from Cambodia, Short fiction, Tony Birch
Blowback: late 1960s and 1970s pulp and popular fiction about the Vietnam War
If you are still on the fence about purchasing a copy of my new book, Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and the Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980, the site CrimeReads is running a couple of extracts from the book. The first is my piece, ‘Blowback: late 1960s and 1970s pulp and popular fiction about the Vietnam War’.
The conflict in Vietnam cast a long shadow over pulp and popular fiction in the late 1960s and the 1970s. Vietnam veterans were hunted by small town redneck police in David Morrell’s 1972 novel, First Blood, dealt drugs in Vern E Smith’s The Jones Men, and staged an abortive bank heist in Dog Day Afternoon, both published in 1974. In the Lone Wolf series ex-New York cop and Vietnam veteran, Burt Wulff mounted a fourteen-book battle from 1973 to 1975 against the drug dealing criminal organisation, ‘The Network’, in which he treated the streets of America’s major cities as an extension of jungles of Southeast Asia. Vietnam was the training ground for many of the characters that populated men’s adventure and crime pulp in the 1970s. More broadly, Vietnam’s traumatic impact on American society would become a cypher through which pulp and popular fiction name checked cultural fragmentation, growing disillusionment with the American dream, dishonest and unaccountable government and corporations, and the power of the military industrial complex.… Read more
Posted in 70s American crime films, 80s American crime films, Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Belmont Tower Books, Black pulp fiction, Blaxsploitation, Book cover design, Crime Fiction and film set in Vietnam, Crime film, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp paperback cover art, Robert Stone, Sticking it the the Man Revolution and Counter Culture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950 1980
Tagged CrimeReads, David Morrell, Dog Day Afternoon, First Blood (1972), Pulp and popular fiction about Vietnam, Pulp fiction in Asia, Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and the Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950 to 1980, Vietnam War
Continental Crime: A YouTube reading
In late 2017, LA based author, Eric Beetner and I discussed doing a crime reading reading on YouTube to mark the release of novels we both had coming out earlier this year through the same publisher, Down and Out Books. The idea sort of grew from there to encompass an author either based in or who had written fiction from at least one country in continent on the earth (with the exception of Antartica).
In addition to myself reading from Gunshine State and Eric reading from his novel, Rum Runners, the list includes Matthew Iden, Steph Broadribb, Mike Nicol, Elka Ray and Claudia Piñeiro.
For reasons which are obvious in retrospect, but didn’t seem so at the time, putting this together was not as easy as we thought it would be and took a long longer than we planned. In particularly, my take home lesson is crime fiction from Latin and South American is really underexposed outside that region.
Anyway we decided to call our YouTube reading Continental Crime. Hopefully you find a new voice you like and get exposed to the wonderful world of reading books from different cultures. A big thanks to Eric’s editing skills for pulling the final product together.
Enjoy.
Posted in 90s American crime films, Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Africa, Crime Fiction and film set in Vietnam, Eurocrime, Gunshine State, Neo Noir, Noir fiction
Tagged Claudia Piñeiro, Continental Crime, Down and Out Books, Elka Ray, Eric Beetner, Gunshine State, Matthew Iden, Mike Nicol, Rum Runners, Steph Broadribb
Nothing but one big shill
Okay, you best all be warned, the following post is one giant shill, mostly on behalf of yours truly.
I am flat out at the moment with the third year of my PhD, so I am finding it hard to make the time to post as much as I would like on my various cultural obsessions, film noir, crime fiction and pulp. That said I still have a lot going on.
First up, this coming Friday, May 4, from 7pm, I’ll be taking part in the first of what will be a series of free events run by my local bookstore, the wonderful Brunswick Bound, in which authors will be reading from the opening chapter of the their current work. This one has a crime theme and there’ll be four of us reading, including me doing a section from Gunshine State, which was re-released earlier this year by Down and Out Books. So, if you are inner Melbourne north way this Friday and feel like hearing some words and drinking some wine, drop on down, 361 Sydney Road Brunswick.
The second incarnation of Gunshine State has been getting a bit of love recently, the best of which is this review of the site of Canberra based blogger and writer, Tim Nappertime.… Read more
Posted in Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Gunshine State, Noir fiction, Pulp fiction, Pulp paperback cover art
Tagged 1950-1980, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, Brunswick Bound, Dancing Home, Down and Out Books, Girl Gangs, Gunshine State, Jock Serong, Paul Collis, The Rules of Backyard Cricket, Tim Nappertime
Cover reveal: Gunshine State
I’m thrilled to be able to show you the cover for my second novel, Gunshine State, out this September from the wonderful folks at 280 Steps.
Gunshine State is a heist thriller set in Melbourne, Queensland and Thailand. Think Richard Stark’s Parker, Garry Disher’s Wyatt, and Wallace Stroby’s Crissa Stone. Add a touch of Surfers Paradise sleaze and a very dangerous stopover in Asia.
Here’s the elevator pitch:
Gary Chance is a former Australian army driver, ex-bouncer and thief. His latest job sees him in Queensland working for Dennis Curry, an aging Surfers Paradise standover man. Curry runs off-site, non-casino poker games, and wants to rob one of his best customers, a high roller called Frederick ‘Freddie’ Gao.
While the job may seem straightforward, Curry’s crew is anything but. Frank Dormer is a secretive former Australian soldier turned private security contractor. Sophia Lekakis is a highly-strung receptionist at the hotel where Gao stays when he visits Surfers. Amber is Curry’s attractive female housemate and part of the lure for Gao. Chance knows he can’t trust anyone, but nothing prepares him for what unfolds when Curry’s plan goes wrong.
The novel has already had some good advance praise from authors I admire with, I hope more to come:
“A tense, fast-moving, vividly-drawn thriller.”… Read more