Category Archives: Crime fiction and film from Cambodia

Pulp Friday: more adventures behind the bamboo screen

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 6 Comments

The Turncoat

One of the most successful pulp fiction related posts to date on this site was a selection of Asian themed pulp fiction paperback covers I put up in 2011, Behind the bamboo screen: Asian pulp covers of the sixties and seventies.

For a while now I’ve been planning a follow up and here it is.

As was the case in the original post, the covers below portray the anti-communist hysteria created by the rise of the so-called ‘red menace’ as well the fate of innocent (and not so innocent) Westerners thrown into chaos and intrigue of the ‘Far east’, a place of intrigue, “notorious pleasure palaces” and “forbidden desire”.

Hong Kong was a popular setting of Asian themed pulp fiction, as evidenced by titles such as A Coffin From Hong Kong (“A seemingly innocent telephone call led him to the murder of a Chinese call-girl who had talked to much and into the teeming, sordid nightlife of colourful Hong Kong”).

Other locales portrayed below include, Korea (The Turncoat), China (Shanghai Incident – “I had two callers my first night in Shanghai – death and a honey blonde”), the “South Seas” (November Reef), India (Men and Angels), Burma (The House of Bamboo – “In a Burmese girl’s warm, seductive beauty he found escape from the flames of forbidden desire”), and Thailand (Port Orient).… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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Ghost Money now available in print

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Ghost Money-1Ghost Money, my crime novel set in nineties Cambodia, is now available in print.

Since Ghost Money came out as an e-book at the end of October last year a number of you have been asking when it will be available as a print publication.

Well that time has come.

The print edition of Ghost Money will set you back $15 plus postage and is available here from Amazon.

For those of you who haven’t picked it up yet and prefer the e-book experience you can still pick up Ghost Money for your Kindle or e-reader for $3.99 .

Either way it’s a bargain for a slice of Asian favoured crime fiction that the prestigious UK site, Crime Fiction Lover called “the Third Man of Asian noir”.

As always if you have read Ghost Money it’d be great if you could leave feedback on Amazon or Goodreads and, most importantly, drop me a line and let me know what you think.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Noir fiction

Fact and fiction in criminal case file 002

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Ieng Sary Hearing 1

Late last week Ieng Sary aka criminal case file 002, former foreign minister for the charnel house known as the Khmer Rouge regime, died in Phnom Penh at the age of eighty seven.

One of five senior members of the Khmer Rouge being investigated by an international tribunal, Sary died denying he had any role in overseeing the death by starvation, torture and murder of approximately 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and early 1979.

Unfortunately, he escaped justice, dying before the tribunal could hand down its findings into his case.

Described in the charge sheet as ‘retired’, he lived peacefully in the former guerilla strong hold of Pailin until 2007, when an ageing Soviet-era chopper swooped down and police arrested and bundled him off to Phnom Penh.

For me, the news of the 87-year-old Sary’s death was very much a case of fact and fiction merging.  Sary’s defection from the Khmer Rouge in 1996 forms the historical backdrop of my crime novel set in Cambodia, Ghost Money.

Normally, I’d feel dreadful using someone’s death as an excuse to plug my book, but I’ll make an exception in Sary’s case.

I was just about to a stint as a journalist with one of the wire services in Phnom Penh, when news of Sary’s defection from the Khmer Rouge broke.… Read more

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Posted in Asian noir, Crime fiction, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Snubnose Press

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This Christmas give the gift of Ghost Money

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

Ghost Money-1Okay, it’s been a long year and like you, as 2012 draws to a close, I’m pretty much over everything.

But before I take a few weeks break from the blog, I wanted to pull on your collective coats one more time about Ghost Money, my crime novel set in nineties Cambodia.

The folks at Snubnose Press have decided that for December only, Ghost Money, as well as all their other titles, will cost just 99 cents. That’s – literally – a steal for some seriously excellent crime fiction.

If you have bought and read Ghost Money, regardless of what you think of it, I’d love it if you could give it a review on your blog, Amazon, Goodreads or whatever.

If you haven’t got the book now there’s no excuse. And you can pick up a couple of titles why you are at it. I’m sure it would make an ideal Christmas present for the discerning noir aficionado in your life.

The book is available on Amazon here:

On Barnes & Noble for Nook readers here.

And in a multitude of formats, including e-pub, on Smashwords here.

For those of you who haven’t heard it, here is the pitch.

Cambodia, 1996, the long-running Khmer Rouge insurgency is fragmenting, competing factions of an unstable coalition government scrambling to gain the upper hand.… Read more

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Posted in Asian noir, Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Noir fiction

Writing noir fiction in Asia

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

Late last week in Phnom Penh a book was launched that I’m very proud to have a story in.

It’s called Phnom Penh Noir, an anthology of 14 noir stories set in Cambodia. Amongst the authors are Roland Joffe, the director whose credits include the 1984 film The Killing Fields, John Burdett, author of the Sonchai Jitpleecheep series and Christopher G Moore, who also edited the book. Interestingly, there’s also stories by Khmer and Thai authors.

If you’re looking for an interesting take on noir fiction, I’d urge you to check this book out.

I’ve noticed a bit of interest lately around the idea of setting noir crime fiction in Asia.

My debut novel Ghost Money is set in Cambodia the mid-nineties, the point at which the long-running Khmer Rouge insurgency started to fragment and the country was torn by political instability. It’s been out for several months now and nearly everyone who has reviewed it has labelled it noir fiction. Which is very fine with me.  As I noted in my last post, some have even dubbed it Asian noir, which sounds even cooler. 

Ghost Money is the story of a disillusioned Vietnamese Australian ex-cop called Max Quinlan, who is hired to find an Australian businessman, Charles Avery, missing in the chaos.… Read more

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Posted in Asian noir, Christopher G Moore, Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Crime fiction and film from China, Crime fiction and film from Thailand, Martin Limon, Noir fiction, Qui Xiaolong

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