Corris cornered the market on the private eye tradition early on, although today he is far from dominating it. Keith Dewhurst’s McSullivan’s Beach (Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1985) is an amiable nod in this direction while Marele Day’s The Loves of Harry Lavender (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1988) with a female gumshoe, the redoubtable Claudia Valentine, amply demonstrates just how entertaining gender-switching can be in good hands.
Hossana Brown similarly has a female investigator rejoicing in the unlikely name of Frank le Roux. She is an, ‘Investigator Extraordinary. Toast of the governments and big corporations over five continents’. I Spy You Die (London, Gollancz, 1984) is set in England whilst Death Upon A Spear (London, Gollancz, 1986) deals with the prickly subject of Aboriginal race relations. Le Roux, despite a jokesy nature, is a fine creation and traced with an element of absurdity that brings to mind Michael Moorcock’s character Jerry Cornelius.
Hosanna Brown is reputed to be the pseudonym of a Canberra academic. It is interesting to note the attraction the crime genre holds for scholars as both Peter Corris and Bob Brissenden work or have worked as academics.
Nor are the traditional forms completely abandoned. Tom Howard, the pseudonym of Sydney author John Howard Reid, masquerades as author, narrator and central character, a device beloved of such writers as Norman Lee and, perhaps best known, Ellery Queen, all self-published, which have an old-time American police procedural flavour. Howard is a loner hero whose motives and methods have been honed by the little-seen bureaucracy of a big-city police force. In such novels as The Health Farm Murders (Sydney, Rastar, 1985), The Beachfront Murders (Sydney, Rastar, 1985), All Possible Avenues (Sydney, Rastar, 1986) and Howard’s Price (Sydney, Rastar, 1985), Howard has touched on most of the available influences known to the crime writing genre. It is an interesting approach and short circuits the potential deadness of situation and character that could easily befall such a series.
William Leonard Marshall also writes police procedurals. Born in Sydney and educated at the Australian National University, Marshall travelled the world and eventually settled in Ireland. He returned to Australian in 1983. His Yellowthread Street series, set in Hong Kong, are similar to Ed McBain’s (the pseudonym of Evan Hunter) 87th Precinct novels and include Yellowthread Street (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1975), Gelignite (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1976; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1977), Skulduggery (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1975) and Head First (London, Seeker & Warburg 1986).
Another resurgent trend is toward the cosy English-influenced clue puzzle mysteries used in Australia by the likes of the Nevilles and Pat Flower. Publishing identity (and award-winning childrens’ author under the pseudonym of Emily Rodda) Jennifer Rowe began a series highlighting the detecting genius of busy-body Verity ‘Birdie’ Birdwood with Grim Pickings (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987). This book is a gem; a tradition like the clue puzzles still have as much relevance in the 1980s as they did when Miss Marple first appeared.
However it is a form that requires considerable skill and talent. Joan Flanagan’s The Murder Game (Sydney, Hutchinson, 1988) ventures into the same territory, even going as far as adding some Gothic atmosphere for good measure, but the feeling remains that there are far too many potholes in this particular stretch of the road. Flanagan rides her plot a little too hard and has difficulty keeping track of the characters, but she displays an obvious talent and further novels should be well received.
Thrillers have returned to prominence in the 1980s. Morris West has produced some excellent examples, the best being Masterclass (London, Hutchinson, 1988). Yet many thrillers often begin with great ideas which fail in the execution. Colin Mason, formerly a Democrat senator for New South Wales and an author of some note, has produced a thriller, Copperhead Creek (Sydney, Sun Books, 1987). The plot mixes multi-national mining interests, the uranium debate and the kidnap of the Prime Minister’s daughter – potentially assured ingredients for a best-seller. Not so, it appears, for Copperhead Creek is a leaden weight of little interest. Although the political background is first-class, Mason has not exercised the wordcraft necessary to make the novel interesting.
A more practiced exercise came from Kit Denton, noted military historian and scholar of the Breaker Morant legend. Fiddler’s Bridge (Sydney, John Ferguson, 1986) concerns the ambitious robbery of an Australian Army payroll by a group of ex-service misfits. Laura Jarman, the daughter of a regular soldier, assembles a team of specialists, all with their own reasons for turning to crime, to carry out the raid in a small country town.
Denton reworks the caper novel for Fiddler’s Bridge. It is married only by his knee- jerk puritanism – after building considerable rapport with the characters, the reader is disappointed to have them nabbed by a police presence that appears virtually out of nowhere. Another author may well have allowed the team to get away with it; it would have been a preferable option.
Another staple component of the thriller is the conspiracy theory, a common device used by such giants of the form as Robert Ludlum, Frederic Forsyth and Jack Higgins. Leon Le Grand abused it but poet and academic Robert Brissenden, like Arthur Mather, has proved the form can be well exploited south of the equator. Brissenden’s Poor Boy (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987) tells the story of Tom Caxton, a foreign correspondent chasing the story of his career in South-East Asia. Caxton, like many heroes of the thriller genre, is an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
A similar exponent of the form is Philip Cornford. The central character in his The Outcast (London, Michael Joseph, 1988) is also a journalist. Paul Mackinnon is the sort of hard-edged character commonly found in the world of thrillers. Set onto a story suited to his talents and reputation, he soon finds himself out of his depth, the expendable tool of the Australian security forces and the KGB. Cornford’s attempt to colour Australia ’s strategic position, particularly the matter of American defence bases in the outback, with international intrigue does not hold the self-conscious hues of many less-talented writers. The Outcast is one of the better thrillers to come from an Australian pen.
Yet another sub-genre exploited in recent times is best illustrated by John Carroll’s Catspaw (Apollo Bay, Pascoe Publishing, 1988). A police informer set up by an unscrupulous cop, Don Bartholomew is above all a survivor. The prison scenes early in the novel are well drawn and set the scene for his anti-hero’s later employment as an enforcer for a Sydney drug-runner. By implication, life is safer inside a cell. Bartholomew remains a stoolie long enough to report on crooked cops and drug deals then engineers his own escape with a girl and suitcase full of cash.
In comparison, Ray Mooney’s A Green Light (Melbourne, Penguin, 1988) is far too realistic and raw a story to dwell satisfactorily within the conventions of crime fiction. Mooney began his writing career while serving time in prison. After several plays, his first novel is a chilling portrait of a sociopath whose addiction to violence is stronger than any drug. Johnny Morgan, the central character, is said to be based on a real-life Australian crime figure. At over 800 pages, it is an extremely long book and Mooney’s downfall as a novelist comes from his success as a playwright. The plot is carried along by enormous slabs of dialogue but it nonetheless stalls. The characters, particularly Morgan, are bleak and dangerous, like guard dogs long abandoned. While dialogue-laden prose can be well utilised (like the novels of American author George V. Higgins), A Green Light diminishes a worthy premise.
It is unfair to expect that all the recent Australian crime titles should be masterpieces. Maybe it is enough that they were published at all, that local publishers noticed the resurgence of the genre and took the chance. As the 1980s draw to a close, opportunities for new writers are booming as never before. Some publishers seem intent on establishing local crime imprints to supplement their overseas lists, while a growing number of American and British houses are taking well-gambled chances on Australian authors. There is one important reason for this renewed growth; there is a market for crime writing by and about Australia.
The sad fact is that for too long Australian crime writing languished in obscurity. Such talents as Waif Wander, Max Afford, Pat Flower, Margot Neville, Sidney Courtier, A.E. Martin and Bant Singer have been out of print for decades and it remains for Australian publishers to discover, as their British and American counterparts have long known, that a lucrative market exists for nostalgia re-releases.
This anthology is an attempt at evaluating Australia ’s past in crime writing and the final choice is as wide- ranging as it is eclectic. Fergus Hume, Arthur Upfield and Carter Brown are musts for such a collection. Each are
