Category Archives: Crime Factory

A sit down with the Godfather: an interview with Peter Corris

Posted on September 1, 2018 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

As promised in my recent piece to mark the passing of Australian crime writer, Peter Corris, it gives me great pleasure to post a terrific, in-depth interview with the author that appeared in issue 14 of  the now defunct online journal, Crime Factory, in September 2013.The interview was conducted by avid crime reader and regular Crime Factory contributor, Andrew Prentice.

Crime Factory: Your pre-writing career was academia and journalism, wasn’t it?

Peter Corris: Yes

Where did the shift take place into writing novels?

I was working at the National Times when the first of the Hardy books came out, in 1980. I was the literary editor, sending the books out, doing the reviews, and also doing some interviewing pieces, sports people, politicians…and the first book was a success, very well reviewed.

That was The Dying Trade?

That’s the one. And I’d already finished the second one because I enjoyed doing the first one so much, and had started a third one, and well, the ball just got rolling, even though it took about 5 years for the first one to get published. I gave up the journalism and was bringing in enough from the books and writing short stories to get going. I should add I had a working wife as well, which was helpful.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Australian television history, Bryan Brown, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, James Ellroy, Peter Corris

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‘The novel is about making believe your world is real’: an interview with Peter Temple

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

The death of Peter Temple at the age 71 has robbed Australia of what is undeniably one of its most influential crime writers. His Jack Irish novels were made into a popular television show by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Broken Shore, which won the coveted British Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger award in 2007 – the first Australian author to do so – and Truth, awarded the Miles Franklin in 2010, were significant works of local crime fiction that, arguably, helped usher in the popularity of literary crime fiction in Australia.

David Honeybone, former editor of the influential hard copy magazine, Crime Factory [the precursor to the on-line magazine which I helped edit for a number of years until it recently ceased production], and a fan of Temple’s work, interviewed the author for issue 2 of the magazine in 2010. As a tribute, Honeybone generously shared his interview, in which Temple recalls his national service in the South African Defence Force, his literary influences, the challenges of translating his uniquely Australian dialogue into other languages, and what degree of realism a crime author should be aspiring to in their work.

Peter Temple is a South African by birth and an Australian by choice. A former journalist, he is one of Australia’s most successful crime writers, having five times won the Crime Writers’ Association of Australia’s Ned Kelly Award.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian television history, Crime Factory, Crime fiction, George V Higgins

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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

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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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