Bush crime, or rural noir if you prefer, is having quite the moment as we all know. The challenges of such extreme geographic isolation in the hostile environment of outback Australia lends itself well to works of crime and dramatic fiction. It’s possible there is going to be no one around to witness the occurrence…
It’s nearly forty years since Sylvester Stallone first shed blood as Rambo, the former Vietnam veteran and special services soldier who ran afoul of a redneck sheriff in the 1982 film First Blood. The character of Rambo was created by author David Morrell in the 1972 novel of the same name. The novel also explored…
Dark Pines, the debut novel for Will Dean, is set in Gavrik, a small town in the county of Värmland in Western Sweden. Tuva Moodyson, the main character, is the chief reporter for its weekly newspaper, the Gavrik Posten. Although she grew up in Sweden Tuva has spent a number of years abroad and has…
Bill Bateman, author of the Vince Hanrahan series, was a rural based GP himself, and that shows. Both in his affection for the town, the people and the depiction of the day to day life of the slightly harried GP, but mostly in the way that some presentations are never quite what they seem and…
It’s more than fitting that the final word from Peter Corris would be curated by his wife, and long-time editor, Jean Bedford. The chosen short stories are perfect examples of his work, and the ‘ABC of Crime Writing’ is every bit as insightful, acerbic, funny and thought-provoking as you’d want it to be. The columns…
How can you stand up to a bully? That’s the question at the centre of the crime drama Dogman. Timid dog groomer Marcello is separated from the mother of his young daughter, whom he adores … and vice versa. He lives in a barren, downtrodden Italian neighbourhood and gets on well with everyone. To make…
Last year Widows took the crime drama genre out of the hands of men and into those of women. The Kitchen tries to do the same thing but fails. We’re in New York City in 1978. The 20 blocks of pawnshops, porn palaces and dive bars between 8th Avenue and the Hudson River owned by…
After waking in what she first thinks is a hospital bed, Abbie’s immediate thoughts are of her husband and young child. Abbie knows that there has been a terrible accident. The memories that Abbie brings forth though are not recent ones, as it has been five years since the car crash which resulted in a…
I’ve been a big fan of the Stella Hardy series (Good Money, Too Easy and now Shoot Through), and I will admit that the setting of this one appealed enormously – what with Stella returning to the family farm in the Wimmera (there’s something going on with lots of books being set in that part…
Even though I don’t have any affinity with Japanese culture as such and mostly ignore Asian films, I couldn’t resist giving The Outsider a chance. Not only because of the fact that Jared Leto is playing in it (a colorful actor who reminds me of Johnny Depp and because of his role as The Joker…
