Football Season's Over, Bring On Summer

Well, now that the footie season is over we can anticipate the start of the local cricket season. And while I was disappointed to watch Collingwood go down by less than a goal to the Cats in the Qualifying Final, at least we can hold our heads high, proud in the knowledge that we put in for the entire 4 quarters. I mean, we could have been absolutely humiliated by, say, 119 points or something. Congratulations to Geelong who thoroughly deserved to win the 2007 AFL premiership.

Anyhow, my wandering attention can now return to the upkeep of the Crime Down Under blog and website which has been drifting like a Russell Robertson kick.

So what's coming up at Crime Down Under? Buggered if I know, but here's a dot-pointed list of my grand plans over the next week or so.

• I have begun re-reading Peter Corris' Cliff Hardy series and will be posting a series that will lay each of his books absolutely bare under a barrage of microsopic examination. Naturally, I'll be starting with The Dying Trade which, I notice, I haven't reviewed yet - but that will change mark my words.
• The new issue of The Outpost is nearing completion and will be released in a matter of days - if you haven't read Issue 4, now's your chance.
• I'm also preparing my report on the October New Releases, but if you want a sneak peek you can find them on the What's New page of my website.
• I have just posted my review of Maelstrom by Michael MacConnell. In a shameful display of cross-pollination I will be posting it here next weekend.
• I have recently discovered a couple of newly released books that I somehow missed in my travels through the www. I shall now proceed to name them and will expand upon them later...ready? The Dog Trap by Jame McLean (Little Lantana Productions) and The Lost Dog by Michelle De Kretser (Allen & Unwin).

So hang onto your hats, we're on the downhill run to Christmas, the sledging has already begun in India and I can't guarantee there won't be some words of "friendly advice" handed out around here too.

I See You on the Streets of Australia

You’ve got to hand it to some publishers who are going out of their way to come up with bold new marketing techniques to put their new releases in the hands of readers.

On September 3 Hachette Livre unleashed I See You by Gregg Hurwitz (titled The Crime Writer in the US) on Australia using Bookcrossing.com to “spread the word” of the new release. Hachette have issued an announcement saying that they would spread 200 copies of the book which have been registered with their own unique identification number and left in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart.

The concept of Bookcrossing.com is to provide a means of sharing the enjoyment of reading through its members by leaving books for others to find. The books are adorned with bright Post-It notes urging people to pick them up and instructions that invite the finder to make a journal entry at http://www.bookcrossing.com/. It’s then possible to track how far the book has travelled as well as what the readers thought of it.

Will the concept be successful? Is there any way to measure success?

Checking out the bookcrossing site, I found that only 73 releases for I See You have been logged by LittleBrown (out of the advertised 200) and 5 of those have had finders report back. I suppose one argument is that there are 5 people who may not have otherwise picked up the book but after 2 weeks it seems that the response has been a little quiet.

Still and all, the campaign is only 2 weeks old at this stage so it may still be about to take off as more of the books are registered.

Be on the lookout for I See You by Gregg Hurwitz.

Around the Traps #6

Karen over at Aust Crime Fiction has given the thumbs up to Amongst the Dead by Robert Gott, revelling in the obnoxious failings of the books main character, William Power.

Over at the Page 99 Test, Appeal Denied by Peter Corris has been placed under the microscope.


Barry Maitland's Spider Trap is given a bit of a touch up at Euro Crime ahead of the US release next month.

Around the Traps #5

As mentioned earlier today, Peter Temple has won the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger for his novel The Broken Shore and has consequently been mentioned by crime blogs from all over the shop.

The NY Times has made brief mention of The Broken Shore by Peter Temple with Marilyn Stasio opining that it offers some provocative and painful views of Australia’s inner landscape.

Michael Robotham has been interviewed by Christopher Bantick in Brisbane's Courier Mail this week. The article covers Robotham's ghost-writing past, his popularity with overseas audiences, the fear (in retrospect) that Robotham has over the prospect of writing from the point of view of a woman and his dislike of the process of plotting a story.

Tim Rutten at the LA Times believes that The Night Ferry is an altogether superior thriller. I reckon I'd pay that.

Around the Traps #4

Maxine at Petrona has told us what she thinks about Adrian Hyland's debut novel Diamond Dove. Great timing for the buzz to be stirred up again because Text Publishing are about to re-release the book in its B format.

Bookboy has recently read Sucked In by Shane Maloney and has given it a glowing report discribing the series as "funny and clever and the political setting provides for a crime story with a difference."


Patrick Anderson at the Washington Post talks glowingly about the brutal style and eloquence shown in The Broken Shore by Peter Temple. He goes on to say that "The plot is not exceptional, but the novel Temple builds around it is"

Jenny Anderson at Light Reading has also commented on the Post article and goes on to add her praise to Temple's writing, defying anyone not to read his books. So there's a challenge you shouldn't defy.

Perry at Matilda discusses the Art of Reviewing and some of the cliched phrases used by reviewers themselves that are "giving him the pip". He uses a review of Inspector Anders and the Blood Vendetta and the use of the character description "two-dimensional" as an example, making an outstanding argument. You can then check Perry's own review of the book.

Around the Traps #3

The Adelaide Advertiser's Patrick Allington caught up with Matt Rubinstein to discuss his newly released A Little Rain on Thursday.

Sarah Weinman she of the Confessions of an Indosyncratic Mind blog is the latest to have read and reviewed The Broken Shore by Peter Temple in the Baltimore Sun and has found that it "takes his work to a richer, darker place". Meanwhile, kimbofo has been swept into a time vortex when she made the fortunate mistake of opening The Broken Shore and losing the morning.

Another of Peter Temple's early novels - in fact his earliest, An Iron Rose has been reviewed in the Sunday Business Post and posted for our perusal on the Alex Meehan's Echos From A Distant Mountain blog. Alex rates it a stylish thriller and sums up by saying that the book features well drawn characters in atypical settings that challenge the genre well.

Across the Atlantic to The Times we go and John Dugdale compares the beginning of The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan very favourably with John Le Carre before expressing disappointment with the second half of the book.

But that hasn't deterred Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks studio from buying the film rights to The Unknown Terrorist. According to Susan Wyndham at the SMH blog - Entertainment, everyone from George Clooney to Angelina Jolie is reading it.

But quite frankly, it's a Flanagan-a-thon as the book is being covered across the US with David Masiel of the Washington Post casting his eye over the book concluding with the glowing summation that it provides "stark realism revealing underlying sickness."

Around the Traps #2

Another Nutter attended the Sydney Writers Festival last weekend and gives her report remarking on what a great couple of days she had.


Also last weekend, Sue Turnbull reviewed The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham in the Sydney Morning Herald describing it as a big and complex crime novel.


Over to the US and The Unknown Terrorist is still garnering the reviews, this time Richard Flanagan's latest has been held up for close examination in The Philadelphia Inquirer for its borrowing plot elements from The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Boll.

Salon.com has included Ned Kelly Award winning and now, CWA Dagger nominated The Broken Shore by Peter Temple as one of their Summer Reads recommendations. Although it's recommeded, for every glowing tribute given there is a caveat to consider e.g. (Temple) writes so beautifully that even the most ludicrous scenes can win you over

There's all sorts of a hoo-haa, fuss, whatever you want to call it about Debi Marshall's new True Crime book titled The Devil's Garden: The Claremont Serial Killings with Gary Hughes posing the question: Has a serial killer blogged here? on The Australian blog. It's certainly got everyone commenting and maybe one or two of those are a sandwich short of a picnic.

And sometimes, crime doesn't pay while other times crime really doesn't pay.