Angela Savage Reflects

Angela Savage has managed to overcome the blow of failing to pick up the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Novel with Behind the Night Bazaar. In fact, she has turned things around with a magnificently choreographed piece of basking in the reflected glory of two winners by posing, rose-between-two-thorns-style with Adrian Hyland and Garry Disher. Angela has posted the photo on her blog for all to admire. Very nicely done, Angela.

One wonders what happened to the photos Angela had taken with Michael Robotham and Jaclyn Moriaty, Richard Flanagan and Laurent Boulanger, Barry Maitland and Adrian Hyland, etc, etc.

In an earlier post on her blog, Angela has promised to maintain her blog but will cut back her posts in favour of her next novel. That will be fine Angela because we all want to know what Jayne Keeney has been up to this past year.

Happy Birthday: Peter Corris

Ok, I can't let the 65th birthday of Peter Corris pass by without sending out some best wishes and highlighting the work of Australia's "godfather of Australian crime fiction". With the 31st Cliff Hardy novel to be released next month (titled Appeal Denied and published by Allen & Unwin), he continues to lead the way.

I'm still making a concerted effort to catch up on all the Cliff Hardy books - and having a wonderful time doing so, I might add - with about 8 or 9 books to go. The Cliff Hardy books are relentlessly hardboiled with Cliff going through a gradual change (as one would expect) as the series progresses. His style is still antagonistic, intentionally provoking people in the hopes of getting a reaction, often succeeding and taking the odd knock to the head as a result. Set largely in Sydney, this is a detective series to savour.

With 30 books in the series, it would be pointless trying to list them all here - much easier to point you in the direction of Corris' website.

Of course, I've reviewed a few of his books as can be seen here, here, here and here. Oh yeah, and here.

Corris also has another 3 series out there with the 8 volume Richard Browning series featuring a private investigator set in the 1940s who appears to travel far and wide. Then there's the Ray "Creepy" Crawley series which has more of a spy feel to it with Crawley an Australian Security Agent. This series is 8 strong too. Finally there's the Luke Dunlop series. Dunlop is an ex-cop turned Witness Protection officer. I thought this series had a bit more legs than the 3 volumes that comprise it.

Looks like there's plenty left in the legs of the ole godfather, though. Read a Peter Corris book today.

Happy Birthday: Marele Day

The creator of the Claudia Valentine series, Marele Day celebrates her 60th birthday today so I thought it would be only fitting to have a bit of an examination of possibly Australia's most popular female private eye.

Set in an around the inner-city suburbs of Sydney, Claudia's a hard-nosed investigator and while she's not a physically imposing figure, or particularly well equipped in terms of self-defense skills, she's a risk taker and it's this quality that keeps the pace lively and the action plentiful. She comes up against murderers, Chinese triads and kidnappers - your usual fictional PI fare.

The series began in 1988 and comprises just 4 books but the pace is consistently high, the cases diverse and the Sydney setting used to great effect. If nothing else the extravagent titles should be enough to tempt you to crack the cover of at least one and check out the hardboiled story inside.

The Claudia Valentine series is considered a bit of a classic in the annals of Australian crime fiction sitting at the forefront of the resurgence that the genre experienced in the late 80s and early 90s. Definitely well worth tracking down a copy the series is as follows:

The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender (1988)
The Case of the Chinese Boxes (1990)
The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado (1992)
The Disappearances of Madalena Grimaldi (1994)