New Zealand

Suggestions for Where to Start with AustCrime Fiction

Karen — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:52:31 +1000

Where should you start:

Well Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab is the first Australian mystery and it's now available from a number of publishers as well as online.

Peter Corris is the master of the hard-bitten PI style here.

For Police Procedurals Garry Disher, Barry Maitland, Michael Robotham, or Jon Cleary might appeal. (Maitland and Robotham set their series overseas)

If you're into humour then you can't go past Leigh Redhead (think of her as our Liz Evans but with a little more sex). You might also want to try New Zealander Paul Thomas, particularly Dirty Laundry or Chris Niles her Hell's Kitchen is brillant.

If you like Evanovich or her ilk Kirsty Brooks may appeal.

Like Hiassen - try Robert G Barrett or Chris Nyst.

Bit of a fan of hard-boiled J.R. Carroll or Peter Doyle.

Slightly more on the softer, cozier style Brian Kavanagh, Sandy Curtis, Bunty Avieson or Joy Dettman.

Thrillers - Lindy Cameron, David A Rollins, Matthew Reilly, James Phelan or Garry Disher's Wyatt series.

Don't, what ever you do, miss Peter Temple or Shane Maloney - both have series set in Melbourne.

James Bond Australian style? Geoff McGeachin's Alby Murdoch series is hilarious.

For the set elsewhere by Australasians Jane Goodall, J M Calder or P D Martin could be right.

For a current day glimpse of real life try Adrian Hyland or Angela Savage - Hyland is currently set firmly in Australia and Savage's book is set in SE Asia.

For one of the master's of the art of the PI Caroline Shaw or Gabrielle Lord.

For a bit of a switch on the crime scene viewpoint (and the victim's for that matter) Katherine Howell has a second book in the works - and her first Frantic was a great book.

Kerry Greenwood has a very famous historical series as well as a new latter day heroine.

Don't forget Claire McNab, Lindy Cameron or Rose Beecham if you would like to see an Australasian take on a central lesbian character.

Recently New Zealander Paul Cleave has written a slightly different take on the serial killer who likes to explain himself to the reader.

For a general ramble around our up and coming writers you can't go past Scarlet Stiletto - The First Cut

Well basically - check out everybody on this site - you're sure to find somebody who will suit.

What are your Favourite Local Books

Karen — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 15:01:40 +1000

Just for a bit of fun - please have a go in our poll - add your favourite book if it's not on the list so that other's can vote for it as well

Tick your Favourite Local Book

A Case of Art Failure

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:51 +1000

ISBN 0708976360

Format: Paperback

Blurb from the book:

How did you feel about A Case of Art Failure?

Submitted by Karen on Sun, 01/07/2007 - 1:51pm.

A Man Lay Dead

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:52 +1000

ISBN 0006512518

Blurb from the book

Ngaio Marsh's classic first novel, which introduced Inspector Alleyn and set Ngaio Marsh on the path to international recognition. Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house-parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time there is a real corpse, with a real dagger in the back. All seven suspects have had time to concoct skilful alibis -- and it is Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn who has to try and figure out whodunit...

How Did you Feel About A Man Lay Dead?

Submitted by Karen on Mon, 01/10/2007 - 6:08pm.

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Above Suspicion

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:52 +1000

Blurb from the book

Like an eye on the ceiling, ABOVE SUSPICION is watching the detectives. So busy, so serious - if only they could see how funny they look!

Sly, lighthearted, hardheaded, original, ABOVE SUSPICION is an entertainment.

Gaelyn Gordon overhears muddle-class New Zealand talking to itself and laughs.

How Did you Feel About Above Suspicion?

Submitted by Karen on Mon, 17/09/2007 - 5:08pm.

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Actresses, The

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:21:13 +1000

ISBN 075152137X

Blurb from the book

Sometimes successful, often not, the life of an actress is never dull but what happens when you reach fifty? If you're an actor, the work pours in; if you're an actress, suddenly the wrinkles start showing, the boobs sag, that young sprite who's just left college last year is the tops. So it seems, anyhow, to this group of thespians, now all in their fifties, meeting for a drama school reunion.

There's Juliet, beautiful, brittle star of the stage, all out for her big screen break; lovely Pauline, a good actress in her own right but often overshadowed by her ebullient actor husband Anthony; blowsy, breezy, sexy soap star Molly; the three wise monkeys Emmy Lou, Franny and dear old Harry; sweet Izzy and gorgeous Terence Blue, Hollywood superstar, heart throb extraordinaire.

But age doesn't wipe out desire, ambition or memory. So when the celebrations culminate in an accusation of rape, the past comes flooding back and the present takes extraordinary and unexpected turns.

How Did you Feel About The Actresses?

Submitted by Karen on Mon, 10/09/2007 - 8:48pm.

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Anyone Can Murder

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:53 +1000

ISBN 0708950582

Blurb from the book

How did you Feel about Anyone Can Murder?

Submitted by Karen on Tue, 21/08/2007 - 1:51pm.

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Arrested Development

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:53 +1000

ISBN 1865082864

Blurb from the book

At 8 he was smuggling heroin out of the house when his parents were raided. At 15 he was using heroin every day. At 17 he was earning $1200 a week selling cocaine. At 18 he was sentenced to life in Penang Prison plus six strokes of the cane for drug trafficking. At 29 he was pardoned ... and his life began.

The Aaron Cohen case made international headlines. But his personal story is revealed here for the first time. The son of Kings Cross drug dealers, he was well fed, well clothed and loved, but he was also tormented and terrified by his family's lifestyle. Only in a Malaysian jail did the teenager learn the hard way how to look after himself while corrupt guards and administrators allowed him to feed his crippling addiction.

On his release in 1996, Aaron Cohen began a long adjustment to a life he had never known. This book dispels many myths about his story, while providing a rare insight into a dangerous and often misunderstood world.

How Did you Feel About Arrested Development?

Submitted by Karen on Thu, 20/09/2007 - 4:04pm.

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Artists in Crime

Karen — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:20:53 +1000

ISBN 0006512569

Blurb from the book

One of Ngaio Marsh's most famous murder mysteries, which introduces Inspector Alleyn to his future wife, the irrepressible Agatha Troy. It started as a student exercise, the knife under the drape, the model's pose chalked in place. But before Agatha Troy, artist and instructor, returns to the class, the pose has been re-enacted in earnest: the model is dead, fixed for ever in one of the most dramatic poses Troy has ever seen. It's a difficult case for Chief Detective Inspector Alleyn. How can he believe that the woman he loves is a murderess? And yet no one can be above suspicion...

How Did you Feel About Artists in Crime?

Submitted by Karen on Mon, 01/10/2007 - 6:11pm.

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Auckland, New Zealand Writers Festival

Karen — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:34:38 +1100

Start: 15/05/2008 - 8:00am

End: 18/05/2008 - 10:59pm

Timezone:

This year's Auckland Festival has a great lineup planned

"Stepping onto the Auckland stage in May are: Man Booker Prize winners Anne Enright (The Gathering) and JM Coetzee (Diary of a Bad Year), Italian terrorism and economics expert Loretta Napoleoni (Terror Incorporated, Insurgent Iraq, Rogue Economics), food guru Michael Pollan (In Defence of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Dominican-American Junot Diaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), hot-shot Lonely Planet scribe Thomas Kohnstamm (Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?), French writer Philippe Claudel (Grey Souls), from Australia Luke Davies (author of cult bestseller Candy), Gold Dagger winning crime fiction writer Peter Temple (The Broken Shore) and Derek Hansen (Remember Me), Canadians Ryan Knighton (Cockeyed) and Heather O’Neill (Lullabies for Little Criminals), Scottish poet and novelist John Burnside, British writers Sarah Hall (The Carhullan Army, Haweswater and Electric Michelangelo), ‘the most important living philosopher’ John Gray (Black Mass: Apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia and Straw Dogs), crime writer Mo Hayder (Ritual, Pig Island), eminent biographer Hermione Lee (Edith Wharton), historian and novelist Simon Montefiore (Sashenka, Young Stalin), and one of Granta’s ‘Best Young British Novelists’ Peter Ho Davies (The Welsh Girl)."

Wander over to: http://www.writersfestival.co.nz/