Category Archives: Crime Factory Publications

Shilling some new publications

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Andrew Nette| 5 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, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction

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Toshiro Mifune, Lee Marvin & Hell In the Pacific

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 8 Comments

MifuneIf he was still alive, Legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune would have been 95 years old this week. He was born on April 1, 1920. I was idly looking on the Internet for images of the imposing Mifune, when I found the fantastic picture above. I don’t know exactly when and where it was taken, but in all likelihood, it was London, sometime in 1967.

Mifune and Lee Marvin worked once together, on John Boorman’s 1968 strange, hallucinogenic war film, Hell In the Pacific. The film was a pet project of Marvin’s and he was reportedly devastated by the fact it did not do well critically or at the box office.

For those of you who are not familiar with the film, Mifune and Marvin played a Japanese navy captain and a US air force pilot, respectively, who are marooned on a remote island in the Pacific and continue to engage in version of the larger war raging around them. In some respects, the film mirrored the real lives of both men. Marvin had served in the war and been wounded in action during the battle for Saipan, while Mifune had served in the Japanese imperial army.

Mifune had approached Marvin with an eye to working with US actor. Despite being somewhat hostile towards Mifune, Marvin agreed to meet.… Read more

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Posted in Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Lee Marvin

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Crime Factory Publications launches new novella, Freight

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

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A quick heads up that Crime Factory Publications, Melbourne’s only dedicated crime fiction publisher, will launch its latest ‘Single Shot’ novella, Freight, by Ed Kurtz, at Loop Bar, 23 Meyers Place, Melbourne, Monday October 13, from 8pm

Freight a hardboiled heist story set in early seventies Texas.

To Enoch and Doc, two down and out men working as railway brakemen in an impoverished Texas town, it seemed like a simple enough heist: steal the copper wire off a train in the middle of the night.

But the carriage contains more than metal. Soon lives are at stake and an unfathomable evil has to be dealt with. And there is no one in Blackwood, Texas for the job but a no-account ex-con.

Think Jim Thompson meets Sam Pekinpah and you’re getting warm.

We will also be celebrating the launch of issue 16 of our award winning magazine, Crime Factory. Plus it’s your chance to stock up on all our other publications, including our last novella, Saint Homicide, and hard copies of our super sexy adults only special issue, Pink Factory.

In addition, you’ll get the advance word about our exciting upcoming projects, including our first novel and our first locally authored novella, both scheduled for publication in early 2015.… Read more

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Posted in Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction

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The death of a bookshop: a tribute to Melbourne’s Kill City Books

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 26 Comments

KC 4

I love poking around in second-hand bookshops. The more disorganised and dishevelled, the better. I can’t remember the last time I found one with a curtained off section where they stashed the adult stuff, the pulp fiction and true crime, but those ones were best of all.

It’s always sad to hear about the closure of a second handbook shop and they’ve been closing with alarming frequency in Melbourne over the last few years.

The latest casualty is Flinders Books, which had operated out of the basement at 119 Swanston Street, for 18 years. Before that it had reportedly been a trading card shop, and going back even further, a rest and recreation area for military personnel after World War II.

Basement Books, located at 342 Flinders Street is, as far as I know, the last second-hand bookshop in the Melbourne CBD.

The reasons behind the closure are nothing new: changing book buying habits, including the rise of e-books, coupled with a massive rent increase, all of which, according to the owner, made the business impossible to sustain at its current location.

As if the end of a good second-hand bookstore is not sad enough, the passing of Flinders Books has a wider historical significance. For the last eight years of its existence it also hosted the remnants of Kill City Books, once Melbourne’s premier bookshop specialising in crime fiction and true crime.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Chester Himes, Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction, Forgotten Melbourne, James Ellroy

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LEE, an anthology inspired by Lee Marvin, now available as e-book

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

Lee-Marvin-Gloria-Graham-and-Glenn-Ford-in-The-Big-Heat-1953Just a quick heads up to let you all know that Crime Factory Publication’s latest publication, LEE, an anthology of short fiction inspired by iconic US actor Lee Marvin is now available as an e-book for Kindle.

You can purchase LEE for your Kindle here for $2.99. The dead tree book is also available from the Crime Factory site for $15.00.

Regular readers will have heard me go on about the LEE anthology a few times on this site. I helped edit LEE, along with my fellow Crime Factory editor Cameron Ashley and founder of the original Crime Factory Magazine, Dave Honeybone, and I’m particularly proud of it.

It features seventeen crime writers, including established pros and newbies such as myself, riffing on various aspects of the fictional life of one of our favourite cultural icons, Lee Marvin.

There’s what Lee got up to off the set of the little known 1955 film, Shack Out on 101, Lee dealing with Apartheid during the filming of Shout at the Devil, Lee at the 1966 Oscars where he won a gong for Cat Bellou, fishing form marlin off the coast of Queensland, lending a helping hand to the props man on the classic Point Blank, coming off second best from an encounter with Andy Warhol at Studio 54.… Read more

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Posted in Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Lee Marvin

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