Tag Archives: The Digger’s Rest Hotel

Book review: Black Wattle Creek

Black Wattle Creek is the second book by Geoffrey McGeachin to feature Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin, a cop on the beat in fifties Melbourne. The first, The Diggers Rest Hotel, won the Ned Kelly award for best first crime fiction in 2011,

The second instalment is set in 1957. There’s hardly a mean street to be found. Melbourne slumbers, as does the rest of the country in a period of post-war peace and prosperity (the fifties are referred to by some as Australia’s ‘lost decade’). Or so it appears, as dark shadows are on the horizon, the threat of communism and growing political instability in South East Asia.

Berlin has a week’s leave owed him but any plans he has to take it easy are derailed when his wife asks him to look into the matter of a dead serviceman, the husband of a friend of hers, who turned up to his own funeral missing a leg and no one knows why.

His off the books investigation leads to a dodgy funeral parlour and to Black Wattle Creek, a former asylum for the criminally insane. When his off sider on the force is beaten and left for dead and Berlin is warned off his inquiries by a couple of thuggish Special Branch cops, we assume it is connected to whatever is going on at Black Wattle.… Read more

New crime anthologies and Ned Kelly Awards

An interesting trend that seems to be occurring parallel with the rise of e-publishing is the growing popularity of short story anthologies.

I’m told by people who know about these things, that anthologies are not popular with mainstream publishers. Well, e-publishing is now allowing small niche publishers to get their product out there.

Exhibits A and B are two upcoming crime anthologies, both of which I have stories in.

In September, the first Crime Factory anthology will be available through US indie crime publisher, New Pulp Press.

Crime Factory: The First Shift contains 28 noir stories from established and emerging authors in the US, UK, South Africa and Australia. There’s names Australian crime readers may be familiar with, including Ken Bruen (author of The White Trilogy and London Boulevard), Adrian McKinty (Falling Glass), and local writer, Leigh Redhead (Thrill City).

First Shift is also a chance for Australian audiences to check out several members of the new wave of noir writers in the United States who are relatively unknown here, including Hilary Davidson, Dave Zeltserman, Scott Wolven and Dennis Tafoya. South African writer, Roger Smith, whose upcoming book Dust Devils is on my to read list, also contributed a story.

You can pre-order Crime Factory: The First Shift here at Barns and Noble and Amazon.… Read more