Sand on the Gumshoe: a century of Australian crime writing

Ryan which featured Rod Mullinar screaming around the harbour foreshores in a Valiant Charger, assisted by a then little known blonde actress by the name of Pamela Stevenson. There was also a short lived (1972-73) series based on the Arthur Upfield mysteries, although a New Zealand actor, James Laurenson, was called in to play Bony in blackface. Bony, as the series was called, had the distinction of being the first Australian television show to win top ratings overseas – in Scotland, of all places.

In print, Carter Brown survived with a dwindling readership through the swinging ‘60s to the late 1970s. Arthur Upfield died in 1964 and the sisterly partnership that published under the pen name of Margot Neville was ended by death in 1966. Sidney Courtier passed away in 1975, as did Pat Flower in 1978. The only one of the veterans to continue into the 1980s was Jon Cleary with a rejuvenated Scobie Malone.

Cleary occupies a peripheral position in Australian crime writing. A successful novelist since the late 1940s, many of his suspense adventures encroach upon the crime genre. In terms of straight crime fiction, however, his greatest contribution lies in the creation of Scobie Malone. Malone is a career cop, but his character signals a change in the nature of Australian crime writing. Perhaps it is the fact that Malone is such a superior creation that makes him so radically different to his mass of fictional colleagues.

Malone first appeared in The High Commissioner (London, Collins and New York, Morrow, 1966) when as a C.I.B. detective he is sent to London to arrest Australia ’s senior diplomat for a murder committed some 20 years past. Cleary’s was a fresh approach. Malone is a convincing human being, far more substantial than the conventional mechanical catalyst of a cardboard plot line. Malone made a welcome return in Helga’s Web (London, Collins and New York, Morrow, 1973) but it was then a long time between cases. He didn’t reappear until Dragons at the Party (London, Collins, 1987), a remarkably fine book from one of the world’s great crime writers. The latest Malone novel is Now and Then, Amen (London, Collins, 1988).

It was not until the debut of Peter Corris with The Dying Trade in 1980, that the genre showed signs of a revival along with a new generation of writers.

In the nearly ten years since crime fiction has returned to favour in Australia it has assumed a strong local identity. It is no longer fashionable to produce wildly derivative English potboilers; instead Australian authors present a faithful re-creation of our society in all its colourful aspects. More often than not, some action occurs in the Outback and invariably touches on such topical concerns as Aboriginal relations and American defence installations. Politicians are generally presented as corrupt, reflecting an international tradition that is almost as old as crime fiction itself. The criminals can most often be found in the canyons of big business, straight from the pages of the daily papers. There seems little room for blue-collar crime.

This is not, however, a curiously Australian phenomenon. Australians are merely following the forms already dominant in the preference of book buyers. If there is any discernible trend, it seems that the majority of Australian crime writing in the 1980s follows the American fashion, especially with regard to Californian-flavoured private eyes and with thrillers.

While the market hasn’t entirely become crowded with Australian authors, there has certainly been a growing crop of indigenous crime fiction. As with the earlier years some of the work is great, most less so. An optimist would rejoice at the interest being shown by Australian publishers. A pessimist (or would it be a realist) would reply that no local publishing activity is preferable to dross.

Yet amongst the new generation there are some very good writers indeed. Peter Corris remains the foremost and undoubtedly the most prolific with eight novels and three short story collections in just eight years, and that’s just for Cliff Hardy. Corris has also produced a series of novels about an Australian spy, the first being Pokerface (Melbourne, Penguin, 1985), and a series of Flashman-like adventures of an Australian actor in the United States during the 1920s with Box Office Browning (Melbourne, Penguin, 1987) Beverley Hills Browning (Melbourne, Penguin, 1987).

Another fine local writer is Robert G. Barrett. In a string of short stories he has created one of the greatest ‘characters’ in modern Australian literature. Les Norton is a strapping young man – a big, red-haired ex-meat worker from Queensland – who comes to Sydney in the mid-1970s to work as a bouncer in an illegal casino. Barrett’s stories are enormously funny, chronicling the adventures of Norton as he lives on the edge of Sydney ’s criminal fraternity and constantly falls into trouble.

Collected into You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (Sydney, Waratah Press, 1985 and Sydney, Pan Books, 1986), The Real Thing (Sydney, Pan Books, 1986) and The Boys From Binjiwunyawunya (Sydney, Pan Books, 1987), Barrett isn’t a crime writer in the accepted sense. It is more a case of Damon Runyon out of Henry Lawson but the characters are drawn from life. Norton’s boss is Price Galese, a thinly veiled reproduction of prominent Sydney racing and gambling identity Perce Galea. Galese’s best mate is Sir Jack Atkins, Premier of New South Wales, who bears a striking resemblance to Sir Robert Askin. Norton and the other inhabitants of the Kelly Club casino can be found within the pages of David Hickie’s The Prince and the Premier; they were the hard men of Sydney ’s underworld. Many died violently. One of their happier legacies has been to people Barrett’s stories with priceless colour.

Another success story is Melbourne author Arthur Mather. It is perhaps a mark of Australian insularity that one of our best selling thriller writers is unknown in his own country. Mather has been writing for some years, beginning with a science fiction effort, The Pawn (Melbourne. Wren, 1975). Soon afterwards he attracted a New York based agent (at one time he was represented by William Morris Agency) and cracked the U.S. market. Most of his subsequent thrillers were set in America, usually New York, and had science fiction backgrounds such as The Mind-Breaker (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1980) and The Duplicate (London, Sphere, 1985).

With Deep Gold (New York, Bantam, 1986) Mather produced one of the best known commercial thrillers written by an Australian. An old man is murdered in a New York hospital and the case is assigned to Ed Zarich, a tough homicide detective. From military records, he finds the victim was reported missing, presumed dead, during World War II and from there pieces together the mystery of an American PT boat that vanished in the Pacific and a cargo of stolen Japanese gold.

Mather’s novel sold extremely well in the United States but took two years to obtain a British and Australian release whilst his next book, The Raid (Sydney, Bantam, 1986), received only moderate attention in Australia. Despite the lack of home-town recognition, Mather has a steadily growing following overseas and appears certain of greater fame.

Another major talent is Perth-based William Warnock. Like Mather, Warnock formerly worked in the advertising industry before turning to literature. His Danziger’s Cut (London, MacDonald, 1986) is set in the California movie colony of Malibu. Danziger is a former policeman turned best-selling author. His creation, a two-fisted detective in the Spillane mould called McKnight, grows more potent with each adventure while Danziger himself becomes softer with success. When Danziger’s ex-girlfriend, an Australian actress, starts mixing with a bad crowd, he seeks revenge by turning himself into McKnight.

Mather and Warnock have found their niche, if not local celebrity, with thrillers. Less appealing has been the writing of Leon de Grand, a former mining tycoon who set out to emulate Robert Ludlum with three novels, The Von Kessel Dossier (Sydney, Fontana, 1985), The Two-Ten Conspiracy (Sydney, Fontana, 1986) and The Whittington Pact (Sydney, Collins, 1988) but proved that a well-tried formula doesn’t necessarily ensure a best-seller.

The fashionable technique of making fiction from actual characters and situations, widely known via Nicholas Meyer’s partnering of Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud in The Seven Per Cent Solution (New York, Dutton, 1974; London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1975), was used by media personality Derryn Hinch and author Nigel Krauth. Hinch’s Death in Newport (Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1987) is a murder mystery set during the 1974 America’s Cup challenge while Krauth’s Matilda, My Darling (Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1983) won the Vogel Prize for his story of nineteenth century private detective Hammond Niall and the help he receives in solving a case from no less than Banjo Patterson.

Successful Australian crime writers exhibit markedly different styles, from the slick professionalism of Arthur Mather and the late 1980s re-emergence of Jon Cleary’s Scobie Malone thrillers to the stylistic integrity of Peter Corris. So plentiful has been the supply of material from new and established writers that they begin to assume the range and variety of a golden age.