Leigh 0:19

We are back, episode two of the Kill City Podcast, where Australian crime and mystery writing is our MO. My name's Leigh, and I'm joined by my co-host Helen, and we are here today to talk about and share stories on what it is that draws us into the genre and what we most love about Australian crime writing.

Helen 0:40

So, as you said, we're going to talk about what it is that draws us to Australian crime. So, to kick off, I'd really like to hear your story.

Leigh 0:51

Growing up, it was so easy to just see American and British content on TV, film, and books. And I I mean I obviously can't speak for other people, but I remember having that infatuation with all things American when I was younger. Um and I didn't feel the same connection to Australian content because I didn't actually see that much of it. And then you fast forward years and years down the track, and um like it's I'm so much more interested in content created in Australia, on our shores, in our neighbourhoods. So I've once I found it, came to it, it's really stuck. And I loved being able to read stories that are sort of set yeah, just culturally. I just feel so much more sort of connected to stories when I know, you know, locations and sort of context around things. Um I really, really dove into Australian crime fiction. And I remember, I mean, this sort of talks to how much sort of things have changed and how much more content there is now. I remember reading J.R. Carroll's book The Clan, which he wrote a handful of really good Australian crime fiction novels in the 90s. And I remember reading The Clan and being so blown away because one of the scenes was set like 500 metres from my house. So it was like the first time I'd seen something right on my front door, you know, essentially. So those stories just I just couldn't get enough of them. So I just started devouring those. Which and then that was about the same time that Peter Temple wrote Bad Debts, his first book in this mid-ish 90s. Um and so I was really just taken immediately and have been right into it ever since. So what about you? What uh for you to it?

Helen 2:48

Well, that's a good question. Probably quite a different background to you, Leigh. So I didn't grow up in Australia and I being overseas, didn't have as much access to books and novels, but got into from an early early age. Started my love of sort of detective crime through Nancy Drew. I thought she was an amazing heroine, super smart, much smarter than the Hardy Boys, all her boyfriend Ned. Then growing up, kind of branched into immigrated to Australia and discovered a whole range of genres and books and just spent many years just devouring all sorts of genres, but was kind of really interested in crime. And exactly to your point, Leigh, it's that piece around reading books that take you to places you've either been to or you can relate to experiences that are similar, the way the characters speak, the issues that they're going through. Um, there's just something, isn't there, about having the Australian authors telling our Australian stories. So yeah, love it.

Leigh 3:53

Yeah, I think so. I could not agree more. And I will just quickly point out, obviously, you are a very, very big film buff as well. So I did catch at least two film references in there. So I'm just like that's that adds some little bit of additional context as well.

Helen 4:10

And does that mean I have permission to talk about crime-related film and television? Because I've got a few up my sleeve.

Leigh 4:17

Well, I think so. And certainly in our longer-term plan for the podcast, we are going to talk about some of the great adaptations of Australian crime fiction books to TV. Obviously, I've just mentioned Peter Temple's Jack Irish, of which there were the three three books that were turned into ABC um tele-movies, and then three seasons that weren't original Peter Temple books. So, yes, we will talk about that kind of stuff along the way as well. And again, I know we talked about this the other day, but and I'm still in my head every time I think about it. I can't understand why ABC did the first three Jack Irish books, didn't do the fourth one, and then jumped onto sort of writing standalone six-part DV episode or seasons after that. Um that conundrum. And I'll actually along the way, I will um I will reread White Dog and see whether there's any giveaways in that as to why they wouldn't have adapted that one.

Helen 5:18

Um that is going down the barrow Leigh. I love it. I think we definitely need to pick that back up later. That deserves a bit of interrogation, and I'm up for exercising my grey cells on that one as well.

Leigh 5:31

Excellent. Well, I do love going down the down the rabbit hole on um sort of creative endeavours and arts. And I mean I feel the same way about music and and film and all of those those other artistic endeavours as well. So I do, you know, once something sticks, it sticks for good kind of things. It's funny, uh, we've sort of digressed, obviously talking about fiction per se, but Peter Ted, the three ABC Jack Irish telemovie adaptations, they are a bit my like my chicken noodle soup. Whenever I am sick, I don't know what it is. I I must have seen all three of them ten times. And I just sometimes if I'm certainly if I'm unwell and I'm climbed onto the couch or I am bedridden, I will just happily watch all three of them again. And then sometimes if I just can't decide on something new to watch, I'll just watch them again as well. So I yeah, I am such a big fan of you know, of the late Peter Temple's work. Um I think everything he every character in those books is just fantastic. So I do um uh you know, I I am a such a massive fan. So I mean I'm looking forward to being able to talk more about um this legacy that that he has left and because yeah, he's just a remarkable career that didn't actually start till after he was fifty. So but yes, definitely I'm a I'm a big down the rabbit hole kind of person. So that is me.

Helen 6:53

I don't think we're gonna have a shortage of things to talk about, Leigh. And no, I get your point totally about Peter Temple. Again, somebody I was not familiar with at all until watching Jack Irish on ABC. But you have inspired me to go back and I have just finished his first novel, which I really enjoyed, so and now I know I've got so many more.

Leigh 7:14

I think every book that he wrote, and we will do a we will do a whole episode on Peter Temple, so I'm I'm conscious of keeping my powder dry a little bit for an episode down the track. Uh but he essentially won a large prize for every book that he wrote. Um I think Bad Debts won uh Best Debut in the Ned Kelly Awards. He's the only, I think he was the only writer that had won both Truth won the Miles Franklin, he won the the Duncan Laurie dagger, which I think is the the UK crime writing award. Like he just everything he wrote turned to gold. So it's not surprising that people feel so strongly about him. But it's interesting talking about obviously finding our way to the genre. I remember again, sort of, you know, sort of I will try and pay homage to the Kill City Bookshop um origins uh frequently, but I remember being in there in it must have been in the early maybe the year 2000 from memory. And the wonderful staff member in there, I'd gone in there looking specifically for Australian books, and there actually weren't that many 25 years ago. Now I know I'm gonna forget a few here, but essentially you had um obviously Kerry Greenwood had been writing books. Peter Corris, um, I talked about J.R. Carroll before he, you know, most of his books were written in the late nineties. Peter Temple had only written bad debts, shooting star came out in 2000, so that was probably out. Uh Shane Maloney with the first half of his half a dozen or so books. But and I'm sure and and Robert G. Barrett as well. But there and I know I'll be forgetting that we've somebody that I've not recalled, but there weren't that many Australian crime writers or crime fiction books around at that point. And then you fast forward twenty-five years and I don't know, we talked about this a little bit in the previous episode. They are just everywhere, and every bookstore that you go into um will have there will be something new by an Australian, you know, sort of crime or mystery author, um, coming out every, you know, sort of every sort of week, every month. Like it's such a healthy period of um Australian crime writing that we're in right now. So for somebody that like stuff who has an uh you know, obviously a large appetite to be reading efforts like gold buckets, yeah, it's there's just so much good content around there, but but yeah, 25 years ago there wasn't and and it's funny if I if I just sort of talk about something totally unrelated to crime fiction for a second. It was a bit the same with books on Australian rules football as well. I remember uh it's a teen history buff on my sports, but my football team, who'd been around 150 years, there's very little relating to them and they were stuck to novel club, but then again you fast forward 25 years, and it appears at the moment that every second retiring footballer writes a book these days, which is great. It's great that there's there's an audience for uh um uh there's an audience for people reading books. I'm I'm big on, as I'm sure you are having kids yourself, I'm big on anything that encourages kids to read. So the more books there are across, you know, four genres, that's hugely important. Um but I do like I said I remember that yeah, 25 years ago there was very little Australian crime, there's very little on Australian rules before, and now here we are down the track, and it's just a totally different landscape, which I think is fantastic.

Helen 10:54

It's exactly right, and then lucky us, we're in the we're in the right time reading the right books.

Leigh 10:59

We absolutely are. So it is um I do feel very fortunate right now. So now we're gonna talk about uh a couple of favourites. Why now obviously I've I think I spent a lot of time down the Peter Temple rabbit hole. Is um outside of Peter Temple that we were just talking about, what other uh Australian crime fiction books have you most enjoyed?

Helen 11:18

It's a great question. I am quite character-driven and have come to Australian crime a lot more recently as you saw a lot of those authors that I'm discovering now, ones that you've mentioned, you've been reading their books for a long time. So I thought I was one of the first people to discover, which of course I wasn't, um, Chris Hammer, but absolutely adore his books. And I didn't know of him, the journalist, so because if I think he's worked across the bulletin, dateline, and and you know, and written for all sorts of things. And he actually wrote a book which I read part of, um, which is actually a non-fiction book called The River. That was back in about 2010, and that was really about exploring the impact of um the drought. I think they called it the Millennium Drought back in the um sort of early 2000s, um, on how that impacted our sort of biggest um river system, the Murray Darling. But it wasn't written as a sort of a dry, sort of ecological sort of tale of woe. It was about really weaving in the stories of the people that were impacted. So you're looking at people who worked across irrigation, the farmers, you know, across country towns. That kind of piqued my interest. And then his first novel with um an awesome character who I love, Martin Scarsden, if I could pronounce that properly, was called Scrublands, which was published in 2018. Um and he just hooked me from the start. He just is such a masterful storyteller, leaves those multiple threads across, he kind of pulls in all sort of contemporary issues of the day. And I love the fact that Martin, as sort of a journalist and a true crime writer himself, um, just really well drawn and just seems to um get attracted to whatever dangerous is going on. So yeah, no, he's he's I think I've covered off books and and favourite author at the same time. But the great thing was, other great thing about um Chris Hammer is he's quite prolific, turns out a book a year, which is great. So I think he did in quick succession Silver Trust and Legacy, the sort of the next three um Martin Scarsden books over the next few years. And then um and in between that he actually um had another series with um two other um detectives who I really like as well, which is Ivan Lucic and Nell Buchanan.

Leigh 13:40

You referenced Scrublands. The end of the first chapter where it just goes pear-shaped. I think when when we have some authors on, and and maybe one day we'll be um fortunate enough to get Chris Hammer on the show, those hooks at the end of first chapters are just we should make sure we're asking questions about how many different how many drafts did you do, how many times did you rewrite the first page, how many times did you rewrite the first chapter. And my guess is uh it will be a lot. But yeah, that that at the end of that at the end of the first chapter was just wow. And yeah, great writer. Really enjoy um really enjoy reading his work. Love the fact that he writes so prolifically and so consistently, uh, because you know the next book is never too far away.

Helen 14:33

Read Legacy Over Christmas, yeah. Add it up your list. I would pop it, pop it closer to the top. And the other thing you said about him in terms of how he with his fantastic hooks and how he must have to write and rewrite, I do remember reading something that he said in an interview once about he doesn't actually he doesn't he doesn't he just follows the story when he first writes. He doesn't necessarily map it all out. So I wonder if that does make his job a lot harder for himself when he goes back and makes sure he hooks the reader.

Leigh 15:04

Absolutely.

Helen 15:05

We will talk about him as well, about adaptations, because Scrub lands, Scrublands Silver, both on Stan TV. I have lots of thoughts on both. And then most excitingly, I think Treasure and Dirt is currently in production for a series on ABC. So that's which is coming out latest this year, which is exciting too.

Leigh 15:26

And I did love that because I do love the sort of the Ivan and Nell characters. They are fantastic. Oh, um, I really like both of them. So that will be that is fantastic news. And it's fantastic that these opportunities for writers to get their books put onto the screen is um um is excellent. I mean, there's and there are countless that we've not even sort of talked about. We haven't mentioned Jane Harper at this point and you know the two films with their own fourth character, um, and then the Survivors being the TV, the TV series as well. My hope is that Exiles being the third of the four characters, it would be excellent if that series with Eric Banner got an adaptation for screen as well. Certainly the dry is I mean it's not quite my chicken noodle soup compared to Jack Irish, but it's getting pretty close because I think I've seen the dry a a a handful of times as well. So um, you know, great book, great adaptation for the screen as well.

Helen 16:25

A um stroke of genius casting Eric Bana in that. That was fantastic. And might I add, a highly successful date night movie for my husband, who was not convinced at all until he watched it in complete comfort after that. So I've been able to take him to to see more Australian crime movies since. It's been great.

Leigh 16:44

I'm just looking, I've I've brought in a pile of books. When I knew we were recording this episode, I just thought I'd just do a quick wander round the um wander around um the bookshelves to sort of find something. I ended up bringing in one, two, three, four, five. I I brought eight in and I probably could have brought in about eighty, so and I have brought in a couple that I've really enjoyed lately. Um I loved Wake, which was Shelley Burr's book. Um and I was thinking we could actually do an episode on debut novels. Scrublands, Bad Deaths, The Dry, Wake. And I've got here The Nowhere Child by Christian White and Wimmera by Mark Brandi. I mean, they as debuts were all phenomenal. So I could talk about any one of those books at length, but they are all exceptional.

Helen 17:35

So I'm totally with you with Christian White. Oh, each of his books something different, but just yeah, keeps you up at night, which is fantastic. Yeah. Um Shelley Burr, haven't read as many of hers as I would like to, so I feel like I need to go back to her back catalogue. And do you just suggest I start at the beginning and work my way up? Or are there any particular ones do you reckon I should pick out?

Leigh 18:01

Um uh um which is about um what really happened to young Evie McCreary. Um great mystery, though the cold case um they just sort of pique my interest, you know, sort of immediately. But yeah, certainly I would start there and you won't go wrong. Because that's certainly the first one in that series, I believe. Obviously, we talked we've been talking a bit about we've both just read um Mark Brandy's latest book, Eden, um Wimmera being his debut. Um for anybody who hasn't read that, it is he's a great writer. He's so economic as well. Like he just is yeah, he's just got a really his style and the way he just creates that atmosphere and tension is remarkable. So anybody who hasn't read Wimmera, certainly jump on that one. That is that was an absolute ripper.

Helen 19:04

I think he really um his ability to be able to carry on with one character in Eden, I just um was uh completely surprised by, which I which was funny in a way, because I I didn't quite figure it. So I thought that was just um a captivating part of his way to make us think differently about a character that we kind of felt so strongly for in Wimmera, and then see them in a new light in Eden. Um, but oh just loved Eden, it was just awesome.

Leigh 19:36

Yes, agree. I just finished that this week actually. I had no idea how it was going to end. I was sort of hanging on every word, and yeah, it uh it really got me. So a great book.

Helen 19:47

So that's it for this episode. We're putting the bookmark back in the book until next time. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and we'd love for you to follow the show by hitting that little cross in the top right hand corner.