Book Mutterings - 22-28 February 2008

Michael Robotham

The first few trickles of feedback about Michael Robotham's new novel, Shatter, featuring psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin from The Suspect are beginning to trickle in...and the book won't even be released for another couple of months. Peter Millar of the UK TimesOnline has called Shatter "a gripping journey into the weaknesses and strengths of the human psyche, a story of humanity and inhumanity".

Adrian Hyland

Diamond Dove (aka Moonlight Downs) by Adrian Hyland is still proving to be a hit in the States where bloggers are reading it, enjoying it and telling us all about it. The Literary Feline has read it and said that "Moonlight Downs is a captivating crime novel that brings to life its characters and the land it is set in."

Another blog, this one Mystery Books cautions: "To be sure, this isn't the easiest book to read. The dialog and even much of the narrative (written in first person) are replete with Australian and Aboriginal words and slang." but adds that the book is intricately plotted and at times mesmerizing.

Meanwhile the Boston Globe's Haille Ephron has also read and reviewed Moonlight Downs and begins with glowing praise: "Many crime novels are best consumed at breakneck speed. Australian Adrian Hyland's debut novel, "Moonlight Downs," with its startling turns of phrase, vivid Outback setting, and rich rendering of cultural differences, is best savored slowly."

So is it any wonder that Reviewing the Evidence has devoted one of their "Sixty Seconds with..." interviews with Adrian Hyland.

Peter Temple

While visiting with Reviewing the Evidence they have also doled out a passing mention to Dead Point by Peter Temple which has recently been re-released calling it "an excellent addition to his PI Jack Irish series".

Book Mutterings - 8-14 February 2008

The Moonlight Downs train continues to roll through the US with a review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review the latest stop. Adrian Hyland's Ned Kelly Award winning book is reviewed by Marilyn Stasio who leads off with "In the Australian outback, where Adrian Hyland has set his beguiling first mystery, MOONLIGHT DOWNS (Soho, $24), all the big mineral mines are on Aboriginal lands."

David at Teleport City has reviewed Peepshow by Leigh Redhead. This is the first of the Simone Kirsch series, the stripper turned private detective working in the sleazy Melbourne inner-city. he enjoyed the book but that was due in large part to his knowledge of the local scene and has warned that other readers are unlikely to appreciate thses aspects.

At Matilda, Bernadette Gooden has read and reviewed Skin and Bone, the latest novel by Kathryn Fox and has come away lukewarm, to say the least. She begins her review with an unencouraging "The lacklustre plot was predictable as soon as all the players were introduced" and leaves it with the proclamation that "Kathryn Fox has a lot of potential but is not ready to take her place amongst the Queens of Crime just yet".

Book Mutterings - 1-7 February 2008

The Seattle Mystery Bookshop publishes its Bestsellers (Hardcovers & Paperback) for each month and we can see that Moonlight Downs (Diamond Dove) by Adrian Hyland has come in tied at 9th place for January.

Michael Robotham has recorded a brief video message in which he offers advice to aspiring writers. The video can be viewed at brightcove.tv

With the inaugural upcoming Writers at the Convent festival about to be held in Melbourne from 15-17 February, there's been a little bit of press to cover it. The Age has featured Kathryn Fox, author of Malicious Intent, Without Consent and the recently published Skin and Bone as one of the festival's attendees. Among the many revelations given by Fox, when she's asked how she has managed to build two successful careers (first as a GP, then as a novelist) she simply admits "No, I'm an idiot". Plenty more where that came from.

Book Mutterings - 25-31 January 2008

The word is getting out there, the insidious creep is gaining momentum and the book that has featured in every muttering so far is once again getting a mention. That's right, Moonlight Downs (or Diamond Dove) is starting to garner reader feedback with Lora Bruggeman at Pop Goes Fiction proclaiming that Adrian Hyland "creates a great portrayal of life in the Northern Territory".



The week before last I mentioned that Glenn Harper at International Noir Fiction had read Bad Debts by Peter Temple. Well it appears that he's managed to pick up one of Temple's stand-alone novels, Identity Theory (known in Australia as In the Evil Day) and gives it the going over treatment.

Book Mutterings - 18-24 January 2008

The State Library of Victoria's Summer Reads initiative continues with the guest blogs by the authors involved. This week Adrian Hyland (Diamond Dove) steps up to the plate and knocks down a post or two of great entertainment with the first titled How Dare You Mr Hyland he explains his earlier days working in the Outback and the importance of story telling. He follows this up with his second post Campfire Tales, Take Two in which he tells a story that illustrates the harmony the aboriginal people have with the land. Day 3 has Adrian chatting about The Truth, The Whole Truth and Mr Miller before finishing his stint with a skim over the field of poetry in his essay titled Rainbow Warriors.

At the risk of making this an all-Adrian Hyland all the time Muttering, we can't let this week's post go by without pointing out that Sarah Weinman has reviewed Moonlight Downs (as Diamond Dove is known over there) in the Baltimore Sun. Now that's gotta be good.

Lucinda Schmidt of The Age has done a profile on Garry Disher who will be celebrating 20 years as a full-time author this year. It's a very interesting interview revealing the possible title to his Ned Kelly Award winning Chain of Evidence as well as some valuable advice to budding authors.

Book Mutterings : 11-17 January 2008

This week we start our tour of the hereabouts with a review and we can find it by checking out Glenn Harper at the International Noir Fiction blog. Glenn has sampled Bad Debts by Peter Temple explaining that he appreciates the complex nature of the first of the Jack Irish books. He also points out that "the Australian setting is vividly drawn". Boy, wait until he read The Broken Shore.

Moving on, we find that the social community site Crimespace is absolutely chock-a-block with members now. In fact, membership has grown to over 1,000 and to celebrate, owner Daniel Hatadi has announced the inaugural Crimespace short story competition - actually it was announced back in October last year - but it's now entering the final few weeks with the deadline of 31st January fast approaching. There is a topic that all stories must adhere to in some small (or large) way and in true patriotic style, Daniel has chosen the theme of 'Australia'. Entries are to be no more than 2,500 words. All the gory details including competition prizes and small print can be found here.

A couple of interviews have come to my notice too, the first is a tad on the old side. Mungo MacCallum has conducted a two-part interview with Shane Maloney which can be viewed by visiting The Monthly website. In the interview they discuss the recent Australian federal election and John Howard's defeat. View Part I & Part II, Maloney's always good value when it comes to interview-fodder.

The second interview comes hard on the heels of the release of Fivefold by Nathan Burrage which has been well publicised already. I'm keen to get my hands on a copy of the book myself. You can catch an interview with Nathan on HorrorScope. Nathan covers a lot of territory from how Fivefold was born to the use of the Kabbalah in the book and has some advice for authors trying to get published before finishing with details of future projects.

Book Mutterings - 4 - 10 January 08

There's been some reading, some reviewing, some rating and some discussing going on about the odd Australian crime book. here's what they've been saying over the last week or so.

• Paula Weston at Great Stories has read Golden Serpent by Mark Abernethy and has classed it as one of the best spy thrillers she has read. She gives a big thumbs up to the main character Alan 'Mac' McQueen, approving of his tough-guy fallability.


• In The Australian, Graeme Blundell casts his eye over three recently released books. First he looks at Maelstrom by Michael MacConnell with mixed feelings before turning his attention to Dorothy Johnston's latest, Eden which is the 3rd book in her series featuring Sandra Mahoney which he finds is part of a series that is improving as it goes along. Finally he, too, looks at Golden Serpent by Mark Abernethy, a book which he devotes many more inches of space to in his column and he manages to make comparisons to Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy and Lee Child.
  
• Karen at Aust Crime Fiction has finished her list of Favourites for 2007 breaking them up into her favourite local (Australian) books and favourites from other locations.


• Kerrie at Mysteries in paradise reports that the fair folk at the Oz Mystery Readers forum have put their heads together to compile a list of their best reads for 2007 with Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland heading the list. It should be noted that the books in the list are books that were read in 2007, not necessarily books that were published in 2007. She has followed that post up with her review of Diamond Dove. By the way, there has been a lot of discussion about this book here in Australia and it will be released by Soho Press in the US in February under the name Moonlight Downs.


• Rod Lott at Bookgasm has gotten his hands on a copy of The 6 Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly and has revelled in its over-the-toppedness correctly pointing out that the extreme unbelievability factor is exactly what Reilly is aiming for.

Genre Flash

I picked this up from Angela Savage's blog the other day, but the credit goes to Lindy Cameron for her outstanding initiative and the creation of a very snazzy looking catalogue of genre fiction.

Lindy says that Genre Flash is: "a small, simple but elegant pdf catalogue of any genre fiction or related SinC books, that have been published by Sisters in Crime members - or their Australian women writer friends - in the past 2 years."

Not only does it give a quick review of recently published books, along with publication details and author's websites, there are also previews of some forthcoming releases too. Certainly worth checking out and printing out as you are trying to decide on some worthy summer holiday reading when stocking up the bookshelves.

In an industry that is jam-packed with contenders looking for a brief moment in the spotlight and with the window of opportunity getting seemingly smaller and smaller, authors are looking for ways to get their product out into the attention of the population of readers. Genre Flash is an enterprising idea and deserves a little fanfare, even if it's only through my blog and website.

The initial plan is to produce Genre Flash twice a year but the option to increase that will depend on the traffic it enjoys and on the number of new releases that have been published at the time. I'm pretty sure that when other authors learn of this new opportunity to showcase their work they'll be beating down Lindy's door to be included in future editions.

I reckon it's such a great idea I've put the link over on the right hand border.

Reviews and opinions

Erica at Creative Dabbling has shared her thoughts on Appeal Denied by Peter Corris. As she points out Cliff Hardy is the quintessential Sydney bloke who has had a particularly tough time of it over the years. She gives us an insightful short review of the 31st Cliff Hardy detective novel.


Perry at Matilda has found that All Those Bright Crosses by Ross Duncan has fit neatly between the frenetic page-turning pace of a thriller and the slow introspective journey that examines life. He points out that the book is: Flint's journey towards an inner sense of peace as he comes to terms with himself.

Meanwhile, Susanna Yager at the Telegraph in England has read Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland and has proclaimed it an "amazingly accomplished first novel with a memorable heroine". She goes on to say that Hyland's hard-hitting prose has conjured up not only the atmosphere but the spirit of this remote little community and its colourful inhabitants. He is definitely a writer to watch.

Not to mention an interesting review of Marele Day's first Claudia Valentine mystery The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender.

Around the Traps

Elisabeth Vincentelli at The Determined Dilettante talks about her recent chat with Peter Temple commending him on his ability to write good dialogue, also mentioning that he has managed to give police procedurals a fresh feel with The Broken Shore. You can burrow even further to the Time Out New York site to read her interview with Temple.

Meanwhile Sally at Books and Musings From Down Under has reviewed Cherry Pie by Leigh Redhead rating it as enjoyable and summing it up with "PEEPSHOW is a good read, full of black humour, hot sex and violence. None of it gratuitous; and all of it appropriate for the setting."

And finally, if you're missing your plug and you need to take a bath, don't use a sink plunger.

Favourite Comic Crime Novels

Recently over on Detectives Beyond Borders, Peter cited a few examples of some of his favourite comic crime stories, listing Joe Gores (I second that), Donald Westlake's Dortmunder series (second that too), Norbert Davis (yup, yup, agree, agree). He then asked for a few of our own so, reaching for the spectrum of Australian novels, allow me to name a few from around these parts...

Max Barry - Company. This was released earlier this year and is a wickedly funny corporate satire that will appeal to anyone who has ever sat in a 5 foot x 5 foot cubicle. The ridiculousness of the petty office squabbles, accusations of who ate the last donut and the fear that the Personnel Department can strike into the rest of the organisation just rings extraordinarily truly.

Robert Gott - The Will Power novels surprised me with their great appeal, particularly when I was all set for a more serious detective mystery when I picked up the first book, Good Murder. Will Power is a man who is quick to point out the faults of others while remaining completely oblivious to his own glarin shortcomings. The farcical nature of the detective-work undertaken by Power is matched by his ability to completely and utterly piss people off within minutes of meeting him. Read Good Murder, A Thing of Blood and Amongst the Dead.

Shane Maloney - The Murray Whelan series is hugely popular in Australia thanks to the biting political satire that saturates it. Through his main character Maloney wryly comments on some of the most outlandish aspects of Australian politics and big business and while you're laughing at the comic situation, you're struck by the fact that this kind of thing has happened in real life.

Geoff McGeachin - Geoff's latest book, Sensitive New Age Spy, is the second Alby Murdoch comic spy thriller. This follows his outrageously titled Fat, Fifty & F***ed which spears wildly into madcap encounters with offbeat characters up and down Australia's Eastern seaboard. McGeachin delights in flirting with the ridiculous while retaining a tenuously sober grip on his plots delivering a more serious Hiaasen-like message. The humour is dry and his characters laconic and unmistakably Australian.

Robert G. Barrett - Speaking of unmistakably Australian, bloody hell, meet Les Norton, the knockabout Aussie larrikin brawler from Queensland who came down to Sydney to play football before a busted knee sent him to the door of an illegal casino as a bouncer. Occasionally the humour has a tendency to degenerate to the juvenile level but the series provides plenty of "brain in neutral" reading.

Scott Bywater - Published by the independent Equilibrium Books, Bywater's comic detective series features Sam Chauvel is pure satire reveling in the ineptitude and inexperience of the lead character, much like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series does.

Chris Nyst - I'm going to throw in Nyst's legal thrillers Gone and Crook As Rookwood due to the sparkling wit and wry observations on Australia's political and legal fraternities. That's for starters but what has my mouth watering in anticipation of his next book is the prospect of once again meeting up with his obnoxious defense attorney Eddie Moran who quite simply steals every scene.

I'm sure Peter will be keen to hear from anyone else with their own favourite humorous crime authors they'd like to offer.

Thumbs Up for Leigh Redhead

be_zen8 over at Tea and Tattered Pages has been pleasantly surprised by Leigh Redhead's Peepshow and Cherry Pie. having a little trouble getting past the whole stripper thing she has pronounced Cherry Pie a "great and fun read". I concur.

I have the feeling that reading Cherry Pie - which is the 3rd book in the Simone Kirsch series - first was fortuitous because it's in this book that the more serious character development begins to take place.