The Outpost - Issue 4 Released

A new issue of The Outpost has been released containing 8 new short stories. The Outpost features crime stories by Australian-based authors and is published quarterly.

Reading Issue 4 could very well leave you a little bit wary of your friends and family with half the stories involving the bumping off of loved ones.

A couple of comic farces help to lighten the mood a little before we experience the horrors of a bump in the wall of the family home. To round things off we visit Malaysia for a spot of drug trafficking.

All in all another edition in which there should be something for everyone.

Here's the rundown:

Wrigley PI and the Height of Fashion by Ken Cotterill
The Valentine Day Massager by Breanda Cross
The Other Woman by Kate-Lyn Therkelsen
Mobiles by Brian Rowell
Postcard From Malaysia by A.G. Bennett
The Best Man by Lee Bemrose
The Bump by Marion Steinmetz
A Natural Remedy by Ross Duffy

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.

Peter Temple Wins the Duncan Lawrie Dagger

The CWA Dagger Awards for 2007 were awarded last night and capping off what has been a stellar couple of years, Peter Temple has taken out the 2007 Duncan Lawrie Dagger for his superb novel The Broken Shore.

This has topped off an impressive run for the book, winning such awards as the Ned Kelly (joint winner) and the Colin Roderick Award and has been nominated for an the Australian Book Industry Award. Chuck in a longlisting for the 2006 Miles Franklin Award for good measure. As well as a nifty looking dagger, the prize also includes a cheque for £20,000 (converted to Aussie dollars - that's a bloody lot of money).

Heartfelt congratulations to Temple for the much deserved recognition and accolades.

Australia's other nominated book was The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham which was nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. That award went to Gillian Flynn for Sharp Objects. Flynn also took out the New Blood Fiction Dagger - another very deserving winner for a book of profound depth of character.

The Duncan Lawrie International Dagger was won by Fred Vargas for Wash the Blood Clean From My Hand (tranlated by Sian Reynolds).

Stuart McBride won the Library Dagger as the author of crime fiction whose work is currently giving the greatest enjoyment to readers.

The Debut Dagger was awarded to Alan Bradley for The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie.

All the details of the fun of the fair can be found at the CWA website.

Reading : Vodka Doesn't Freeze by Leah Giarratano

There possibly isn't a more provocative subject for a psychological thriller than that of paedophilia. It's confronting, it can be difficult to deal with and it can very well turn a large proportion of crime readers away. But this is the subject of Leah Giarratano's debut novel Vodka Doesn't Freeze.

Sergeant Jill Jackson and her partner Scott Hutchinson are called to the scene of a brutal bashing murder in the sandhills above Maroubra Beach. The victim is known to the police as a paedophile and it turns out his is the 3rd death in what looks like a series where the targets are paedophiles.

Mixed emotions begin here. It's the job of the police to find murderers but in this case they're not pushing terribly hard to find the killer before he strikes again. But ultimately, citizens can't take matters into their own hands and so the murders must be stopped.

This is an outstanding debut thriller featuring a "damaged" protagonist whose past is a complex mess that has manifested itself into a ritual of defensive techniques. Starting as a murder case, it inevitably becomes an investigation into an organised paedophilia ring and ultimately a terrifying fight for survival.

There is barely time to draw breath as the action is piled on thick and fast. Thought provoking commentary on the psychological trauma experienced by the victims of child abuse as well as the sobering message that all sorts of depraved souls hunt our streets.

Leah Giarratano writes from a position of vast experience having worked for years as a clinical psychologist specialising in trauma, sex offences and psychopathology. When she takes us into the minds of sexual and violent offenders you can be sure that she is drawing on all of that experience.

I can happily recommend this book highly to fans of psychological thriller readers.

Reading : Gospel by Sydney Bauer

And so I'm coming to the end of Gospel by Sydney Bauer which was released this week. It's the second book by Bauer following Undertow, her debut, and again features Boston attorney David Cavanaugh the rugby playing, icy imported beer-loving defender with the steel-trap mind.

It took me a little while to get into this one as it felt as though I cruised along with a totally predictable plot that was going to flow to a standard ending. But ha-hah, silly me...with a series of killer plot twists that sends us spinning out out control we find ourselves in the middle of the evidentiary hearing to end all hearings.

The is a legal thriller with a myriad pleasing aspects that makes it unique and fresh, personal relationships that are complex, villains that are arse-holes just begging for a good kick in the teeth and an amazing ending.

Quickie plot summary.

The Vice-President of the United States has been murdered by a power-packed gang of 4. The conspirators have taken the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and have set themselves a dual-edged goal of money and power in extreme proportions. Their meticulous planning looks as though at least 1 of them is destined to reach the most powerful position in the country. The man who has been set up to take the fall for the assassination happens to be the husband of David Cavanaugh's ex-wife and she has dropped a massive bombshell by asking him to defend her husband. Now he's got to work out whether he wants to defend the man he has hated for years and how to break it to his girlfriend.

Another July New Release

After a severe mental glitch a couple of days ago, I realise I've left out one of the forthcoming releases for the month of July.

So I shall just set things to right and make this late addition for the new month.

The Butcherbird by Geoffrey Cousins (pub. Allen & Unwin) - Cousins is best known in the business community having held the position of CEO at George Patterson and Optus as well as chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art and The Starlight Foundation. Writing what he knows his debut novel is about the goings on at the top of Australian business and the corruption that undermines all. That all sounds pretty vague, so I'll add the publisher's synopsis to chew on: Geoffrey Cousins has called upon his own insider experience at the highest levels of Australian business to conjure a darkly comic, suspense-filled tale of intrigue peopled by a tantalisingly familiar cast of A-list sharks.

Jack Beaumont, architect turned property developer, is as surprised as the next person when he is approached by insurance tycoon Mac Biddulph to become the new CEO of the largest home-insurer in Australia. Seduced at first by the lure of power, Jack soon finds that beneath the glamorous facade of the Sydney business elite lies a convoluted network of corruption.