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Tag Archives: David Whish-Wilson
Book Review: Australian crime anthology and First Nations science fiction
Is it just me or is there definitely a renewed local interest in short story collections? There seems to be a few more of them being published than is normally the case and I am particularly interested in two that have come across my radar: Dark Deeds Down Under, an anthology of crime fiction edited by Craig Sisterson and This All Come Back Now, a new anthology of first nations speculative fiction, edited by Mykaela Saunders.
First up, Dark Deeds Down Under. The interesting selling point of this book is that it contains 19 crime fiction stories from Australian and New Zealand authors, some well-known, others not so much. As is the case with every anthology not every tale did it for me but there were far more hits than misses, which is unusual. I just want to briefly note the highlights in the collection for me.
Aoife Clifford’s ‘Summer of the Seventeenth Poll’ felt very much in the spirit of TV shows such as In the Thick of It, in its depiction of a political spinner who job sees them stumble across a murder, and the story has a real sting in the tail. No surprises that ‘The Cook’ by possibly my favourite Australian crime writer, David Whish-Wilson, was a terrific yarn about an ex-con speed cook and the troubled relationship he has with his son.… Read more
Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Black pulp fiction, Book Reviews, Crime fiction, David Whish-Wilson, Garry Disher, Horror, Science fiction and fantasy
Tagged Aoife Clifford, Archie Weller, Clandestine Press, Craig Sisterson, Dark Deeds Down Under, David Whish-Wilson, Garry Disher, Lisa Fuller, Mykaela Saunders, Nikki Crutchley, Samuel William Watson, Stephen Ross, This All Come Back Now
Mid-year reading report back: David Whish-Wilson, Simenon takes a train & 1970s Mexico noir
It already half-way through the year, and I thought a quick report on the highlights of my reading so far is in order. This is especially since I have a couple of big writing projects on the go and, as a result, will probably not have the time to do anything of the sort again before the end of the year.
So, let’s get to it.
The Sawdust House, David Whish-Wilson
Regular readers will have seen me talk before on this site about how much I rate David Whish-Wilson. I genuinely believe he is one of the most underrated crime writers working in Australia today and his latest does nothing to disabuse me of this view. The Sawdust House is Whish-Wilson’s second book to explore the lost Australian history of mid-19th century San Francisco. The Coves (2018) told the story of Australian criminals, many of them former convicts, who drifted to the San Francisco in the hopes of making a fortune amidst the gold rush gripping the west coast of the US at the time, and who assumed a major role in the lawless city’s criminal world. The Sawdust House focuses on the life of one of these men, Irish-born James ‘Yankee’ Sullivan, who has been arrested as part of the nativists attempt to root out and crush Australian criminal influence in San Francisco.… Read more
Posted in Book Reviews, Crime fiction, David Whish-Wilson, Derek Raymond, Georges Simenon, Laura Elizabeth Woolett, Neo Noir, Noir fiction, Ted Lewis
Tagged Beautiful Revolutionary, David Whish-Wilson, Derek Raymond, Georges Simenon, He Died with His Eyes Open, How the Dead Live, Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Ted Lewis, The Love of a Bad Man, The Newcomer, The Sawdust House, The Snow Was Dirty, The Train, Velvet was the Night
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
M and my top 10 reads for 2019
It is no exaggeration to say I have been eagerly anticipating Samm Deighan’s monograph of Fritz Lang’s 1931 film. I love the film and I am a big fan of Deighan’s movie writing, so the combination is bound not to disappoint. And it didn’t.
As Deighan puts it in her introduction, M ‘exists in a liminal space between urban social drama, crime thriller, and horror film’. It was arguably the first serial killer film, long before the FBI coined the term in the early 1970s. Anchored by a superb performance by Peter Lorre as the paedophiliac child killer, Hans Beckert, it was certainly the first motion picture in which a serial killer was the central protagonist. Another crucial innovation was the way in which Lang depicted the character of Beckert in a not entirely unsympathetic light. This same sensibility would have a influence on some subsequent serial killer cinema, most notably in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror/thriller, Psycho.
Deighan discusses M’s broader social and political themes, including the film as a critique of modernity and a text for Germany on the brink of totalitarian control, appearing as it did a year before the Nazi’s assumed power and Lang had to flee the country.
Another fascinating aspect of the book is the discussion of how the themes in M would echo in Lang’s subsequent work, particular the threat of the lawless mob violence and what is perhaps the director’s most defining idea, how even the most noble individual is capable of brutal murderous thoughts and actions.… Read more
Posted in 1960s American crime films, Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, Black pulp fiction, Crime fiction and film from Latin and Central America, David Whish-Wilson, Dystopian cinema, Film Noir, Horror, Neo Noir, Noir fiction, Non-crime reviews, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp paperback cover art, Rollerball, Science fiction and fantasy
Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, alse Dawn, Angela Nagle, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, David Whish-Wilson, Fitz Lang, Hannelore Cayre, Holloway House, Ira Levin, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Jeff Sparrow, Kill all Normies, Kinohi Nishkawa, Lawrence Osborne, M (1931), Nada, Nick Riddle, Only to Sleep, Peter Lorre, Psycho (1960), Rosemary’s Baby, Samm Deighan, Serial killer films, Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Undergound, The Damned (1963), The Godmother, Trigger Warning: Political Correctness and the Rise of the Right., True West