Crime In Books

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It was a dark and stormy night. Anzac eve, 1991.
Four women – one using a walking stick - made their way through driving rain and climbed the stairs to an apartment on Fitzroy Street, St Kilda. Strangers to each other, they had arranged to meet for a single purpose: Justice for Australian women writers of crime fiction.

Carmel Shute, the driving force behind Sisters in Crime in Australia, had been asked to present a paper at an international women’s conference in Canada and while she was on that side of the world she took the opportunity to approach her favourite female crime authors with requests for interviews.
A program, based on those interviews, was broadcast on Radio National’s feminist program The Coming Out Show. The response was so great that it led to the formation of Sisters in Crime in Melbourne - a group of crime-fiction and true-crime lovers.
A debate at the Feminist Book Fortnight was organized. Kerry Greenwood turned up and was invited to join - ‘With Carmel, you may as well do as the nice lady says, and then no-one will get hurt’ - and she has remained a member since. Kerry is well-known as the creator of stylish 1920s Melbourne sleuth Phryne Fisher. She is also a legal aid solicitor.
The original Sisters in Crime - formed in the US in 1986 - was the initiative of crime-writer Sara Paretsky, one of Carmel’s favourite crime authors. Sara and six other women worked to raise awareness of women crime writers in the US and to even the balance in an industry that favoured men. Sara says that the imbalance has shifted tremendously but this is a not a reason to think that their work is finished.

‘Right now, as the face of the book industry changes, women are more likely to be published only in paperback rather than in a hard/soft deal and this means that, once again, women’s books are being ignored by reviewers who don’t look at paperback originals.’
Since 1994, Sisters in Crime has run an annual short-story competition - The Scarlet Stiletto Awards - which is open to all Australian women. The inaugural winner was Cate Kennedy, with Everything $2 on this Rack, a tale of spousal murder that throws some acerbic asides to the reader. The next year Kate again took first prize for Habit, which went on to win the Age Short Story Competition in 2000.
Seen through the eyes of a cocaine smuggler, the story quietly illuminates the inequities of drug laws and the axiom that truth lies beneath the surface of things. Cate was working in a regional library when she saw, on the library counter, entry forms for the Scarlet Stiletto competition.
‘I thought I’d give it a go instead of being critical of the crime short stories I was reading. So I wrote one of the stories over a weekend, and it was very, very difficult - like pulling teeth’
In 2006, Cate’s anthology Dark Roots was published and one of the stories - Cold Snap (renamed Black Ice) appeared in the September 11 edition of the New Yorker. It is a story that illustrates Cate’s extraordinary ability to inhabit the skin of a very different other.
Top selling Australian crime author and model Tara Moss also found publishing success after a Scarlet Stiletto win. To date she has had four crime novels published and, perhaps against expectation, constructs a really gripping crime yarn. Tara says that winning the Scarlet Stiletto Young Writer’s Award in 1998 was her first real encouragement for writing as an adult and led to her discovery by literary agent Selwa Anthony and the subsequent publication of her first novel, Fetish, by HarperCollins.
Sisters in Crime has pursued every lead in the search for guest-speakers. Writers, barristers, detectives, forensic specialists and even police-dog trainers have spoken at Sisters in Crime events. Justice Betty King, who presided over the trial of gangland killer Carl Williams, had the audience in thrall when she spoke. Psychic and writer Alison Dubois, an uncredited FBI profiler, had a room that was packed to the rafters.
Sisters in Crime had a long association with poet Dorothy Porter who, sadly, passed away late last year leaving a legacy of critically acclaimed narrative poetry. Dorothy sponsored a Stiletto competition prize - The Dorothy Porter Award for Innovation.
In 2007 this prize was won by former Herald Sun senior journalist Helen Tsitas for Xenos, a dystopian tale of a technology gone mad future. In 2008 she took first prize for Undeceive, a flawless piece of narrative verse that was unanimously embraced by the judges.
The Dorothy Porter Award, established in 2002, was originally for Verse but was changed last year into an award for Innovation because the category had attracted so few entries.

A new blog will soon be created here on Orble for Sisters in Crime Victoria.
For info about Sisinc visit:
Really Long Link

8pm Friday April 3, 2009
Join Sisters in Crime in celebrating the
Life of Dorothy Porter
26 March 26 1954—10 December 2008
Bell’s Hotel, 157 Moray St., South Melbourne (cnr Coventry). Mel 57, G1. Try 112, 55 or St Kilda Road trams. Free on-street parking after 6pm.
$5/$10 (non-members) 10% discount from Chronicles Bookshop stall.
Bookings essential for both dinner (from 6.30pm) and event (8pm):

Jacqui Horwood 0449 703 503 or jacqui.horwood@gmail.com
Or go to Sisters in Crime Victoria on Facebook

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CRIME TIME

February 21st 2009 08:51

LADIES LOVE CRIME FICTION

A shelf count, or a perusal of the front-of-store displays at major bookstores reveals just how popular crime fiction in Australia has become. Nielsen Bookscan figures for crime-fiction sales show an increase of about 25% in the last 4 or so years.
Mary Dalmau of Readers Feast in Melbourne, a bookseller for 30 years, says
‘A lot of crime fiction used to be very pedestrian but more and more good writers have been attracted to the genre and this has changed the profile of what a crime novel is. European and Nordic writers such as Henning Mankell, who has been translated from the Swedish, have broadened the demographic of crime fiction readership to encompass a younger age group and more men.’ But she thinks that the readership is still predominantly women.
Bookseller of 50 years, Peter Milne of Abbey’s Bookshop in Sydney, says that the imbalance may be only slight. He thinks that men are disinclined to read books by female authors, whereas women will read novels written by either sex.
Sue Turnbull, Associate Professor of Media Studies at La-Trobe University, and long time co-convenor with Sisters in Crime in Melbourne, does not believe that women read more crime-fiction than men. Could it simply be that women do more of the buying?
When Abbey’s hosted an event with Janet Evanovich - who writes from the perspective of a smart-talking young woman - the place was filled with teenage boys!
Analyses of the popularity of crime fiction seems to regularly throw-up the idea that reading a fictionalized account of crime allows the reader to defuse fear of violence by experiencing it vicariously and resolving it in a safe manner. This is also meant to explain the appeal of the genre to women.
Sue Turnbull says that there is a stronger argument that crime fiction (and true-crime) is popular because it makes us believe that we have knowledge and understanding of why crimes are committed and therefore we feel more in control and with more power.
People agree that women are more interested in the undercurrents of relationships and in the dark workings of the mind. Crime fiction is certainly the choice platform to explore psychological and socio-political issues. Who better to investigate than a detective?
Crime fiction offers pure escapism and readers relish the detailed plot strands and the structure of beginning middle and end that are conventions of crime fiction. Peter Milne points out that crime novels are often short, which means they appeal to our modern busy world.
Crime-fiction has an endless capacity to spawn sub-genre and character. There’s the serial killer, the forensic investigator, the supernatural mysteries, the cosies, the comical PI, the maverick cop, the wisecracking detective, the jaded, the psychologically wounded … the exploring of ethical values and the musings on human nature and motivation. And that’s just for starters.
Sex-appeal, violence, extremes of emotion and the complexities of the mind - crime fiction has it all.
One sub-genre that has developed with regard to very specific cultural concerns is lesbian crime fiction. The popularity of this genre has been, in part, attributed to identification with the outsider protagonist.
Sexuality is but one aspect of this. Author Lindy Cameron believes that sex is a vital part of the lesbian crime novel because it is integral to lesbian identity. She also thinks, perhaps not surprisingly, that lesbians write the best sex scenes. The sexuality of the protagonist in lesbian crime novels is almost always unobtrusive because it remains incidental to the plot.
The juxtaposition of sex and crime is a cause of some discomfort and debate amongst women. Some readers prefer no sex at although the humorous approach, a la Shane Maloney, has many fans. Crime author Kathryn Fox says that many readers have asked when certain of her characters were going to resolve their sexual tension and actually do it. She gives an unequivocal ‘Never!’
Given the introspective necessity of writing, the ability of so many writers to face an audience with confidence may be somewhat surprising. Authors these days are expected to promote their work and some - like Rebus creator Ian Rankin, who compares authors to travelling salesmen - are gifted raconteurs. Crime fiction writers are being included more and more in literary events.
Last year, the number of crime writers who guested at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival reflected a growing trend. Rosemary Cameron, Director, says
‘I didn’t really get it until I had to interview Minette Walters one day for a Brisbane’s Better Bookshops event and I decided I’d better start reading. Well, that was it, I was hooked.'

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ROUGH JUSTICE TRUE CRIME

January 29th 2009 06:34

I finished Robin Bowles latest book, Rough justice, asking - judge or jury? What would be my choice ? And how many of the people who stumble through our justice system feel vindicated? How many feel cheated? So many things can go wrong. And do go wrong. It doesn’t just happen on television. * Evidence not properly investigated because it doesn’t fit in with police hypotheses. Opportunities lost because police are determined to pursue one particular line of enquiry. Crucial facts disallowed as evidence in court. Judges who clearly lack good sense. And media who run with a story that sells. * Then there are the high-profile cases where the prosecution is under extreme pressure to obtain a conviction. * Rough Justice explores the Falconio case. The incredible inconsistencies, in Joanne Lees’ testimony, which escaped rigorous scrutiny make a mockery of a judicial process which we assume to be thorough and impartial. Lees initial description of the man who attacked her, his vehicle and his dog; all differed markedly from the person she later identified as her attacker - Bradley Murdoch - well after Murdoch’s picture had been plastered all over the internet. * Robin Bowles says: One of the police officers in the court foyer during the trial told me, in the presence of a person employed by the Supreme Court, “We know he wasn’t the shooter but he’s going down for it.” * Rough Justice shows that forensic testing is not infallible, as the public might believe, but is liable to contamination. And expert testimony may also be flawed - in part because the ‘expert’ is limited by the narrowness of the questions being asked. * In the case of 12 year old Leanne Holland, the evidence used to convict Graham Stafford for her brutal murder was tailored to fit the chosen suspect. The jury was told that the house where both lived was awash with Leanne’s blood and that the boot of the Stafford’s car also tested positive for blood. In fact, the blood evidence was easily explained. Leanne’s brother had cut his hand badly a few weeks earlier and had dripped blood through the house. * The particular method used to test the car boot was one which was highly unstable and experts later verified that, had a body been in his boot, more concrete evidence would have been left behind. The fact that Stafford had been sighted by many people within the estimated time of Leanne’s death was completely ignored. * And the costs to launch appeals! They are borne by the defendant who is trying to prove his or her innocence and most people simply cannot afford to go down that road. Many who do, incur financial ruin, while those in the legal profession get paid for their time. Bowles says that an old joke which does the rounds in legal circles is that the client is innocent until proven broke. * Robin Bowles has interviewed close to a thousand people in the past ten years and her close connection to some of the cases which she presents in Rough Justice allows a unique perspective. She is careful to get both sides of the story. As she states in the introduction, she does not promote guilt or innocence; she simply wants to throw a light on the process by which conviction is secured. * She is present throughout Rough Justice as she talks to the accused, their lawyers and their families. Her observations add a new angle to well-publicised cases. She has written books about some of them, including the Jaidyn Leskie murder and the Jenny Tanner killing. * Rough Justice really is a fascinating read for anyone interested in crime and the judicial system because it goes some way towards demystifying processes which most of us can barely comprehend. The British Criminal Cases Review Commission, an organization which assesses applications from those who claim to have been unjustly convicted, estimates the rate of false convictions to be about 5%. If this figure is the same for Australia, it translates to about 1,000 innocent people serving time. * As Robin Bowles says: Not that many – unless you are one of them.

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DENISE MINA's PADDY MEEHAN SERIES

January 16th 2009 00:14

On the recommendation of fellow Orbler David O’Connell, I borrowed books from my local library by Scottish crime writer Denise Mina. The Field of Blood and The Dead Hour are the first two novels in the Paddy Meehan series. I couldn’t put them down and it wasn’t just because I had to find out who did it. * Denise Mina has a great talent for concise and evocative description and a pleasantly poetic turn of phrase. The people, the streets, even the weather is used to thicken the atmosphere. The characters that Paddy encounters are individuals who inhabit their own worlds and the crime is an adjunct to the main business of living. * When we meet Paddy in 1981, in The Field of Blood, she has been working for a short time as a ‘copyboy’ at the Scottish Daily News in Glasgow. She dreams of being a real journalist, believing she will do better than the fellows she works with - a bunch of drink-sodden cynics that she calls ‘graceless, ruined men’. * Paddy is overweight and self-deprecating – the antithesis of the glamorous, groomed female investigator. She’s poor, she’s dishevelled and she’s gauche. And she’s a faithless Catholic girl in an unquestioningly religious family. She knows the right thing to do and she tries to do it. But sometimes this just isn’t possible. When Paddy takes a step off the pathway of moral rectitude, fuelled by ambition, she recognizes her failure and the inevitability of her actions. The seeds of her independence are sown. * This family has a vicious streak. They treat Paddy to a ‘shunning’ (punitive silent treatment) as a demonstration of their displeasure when she inadvertently shames them and it’s hard to understand how Paddy can fail to be indignant about their behaviour. Even her fiancée participates! *

By 1984 however, in The Dead Hour, Paddy has loosened her shackles and her family is treating her with a bit more consideration. They are by now financially dependant on Paddy’s wage. It’s Thatcher’s Britain. * Paddy has been working in the calls car for a few years, doing the rounds of hospitals and police stations; the graveyard shift that leads to accidents and crime scenes. She has learned to deal with the misogynistic male culture of the Scottish Daily News but now she’s getting bored and wants to move on to the big story. * Both books present Paddy with the moral dilemma of whether or not to reveal what she knows. In The Field of Blood a toddler is murdered. Paddy sees a photo of the accused - two 11 year old boys - and recognizes one of them; but to pursue a connection so close to home would amount to betrayal of her family. * In The Dead Hour a woman is tortured and bashed to death. Paddy is sure that the man who pressed a 50 pound note into her hand is the killer but she fears putting her reputation, and maybe her job, on the line by reporting the bribe to the police. * Both plots are straightforward with only a few twists and this is a good thing. Why spoil an engrossing story with unnecessary distractions. * Certain themes, such as Paddy’s preoccupation with justice, carry over from one book to the next. This gives a nice sense of familiarity and continuity but I hope Paddy isn’t still going on about her weight in the next book. * Slip of the Knife, the third book in the Paddy Meehan series was published last year. I’ll be reading it soon.

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SERIAL KILLER ERIC EDGAR COOKE - ESTELLE BLACKBURN TALKS

January 1st 2009 02:14

'You all know the maxim Life is what happens when you’re making other plans?’ *Estelle Blackburn opened her address to Sisters in Crime with this question and had them riveted 'til the end and still wanting more. Estelle told how a chance remark by a dance partner set her on the track to writing a book and to becoming instrumental in proving the innocence of two men who had been sent to prison in the 1960s for murders committed by serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke. Estelle was working as a press secretary to a WA premier and spending all her spare time dancing when, one night she decided to go somewhere out of her normal track. *‘I saw a very sleazy, ugly, alcoholic fellow eyeing me from across the bar. I had a dance with him and he turned out to be the most magic dancer in the whole wide world. Not only did I overlook his sleaziness and his drunkenness, I danced with him all night and went back to that place every week, a long way out of town, to dance with him. I later discovered that Jim was a former state champion. Not long after I met Jim a strange thing happened. * A friend of mine came out from England for a working holiday and was quite clearly wrongfully charged with an incident and rang me from the lock-up -“Estelle, help get me out of here!” I rang Jim and said “I can’t come dancing tonight. A friend of mine’s been framed by the police” and Jim said “Don’t talk to me about being framed by the police. My brother was framed by the police and did 10 years in prison for a murder that Cooke did”. And that was the start of the story. * Perth in 1963 had a population of about 500,000. We were a very sleepy little big country town where nobody bothered to lock their doors or windows or take their keys out of the ignition of their cars. That was blasted apart on the Australia Day weekend of 1963 when five people were shot overnight. The shooter was a man we got to know as Eric Edgar Cooke. He was dubbed ‘The Nedlands Monster’ because his killings were always in and around the Nedlands area. He held Perth to ransom for seven and a half months. * It was a stifling hot summer, pre air-conditioning but we didn’t dare go out at night and we began to lock our doors and windows which we’d never done before. They had to bring in the big gun police from the eastern states - as we call you guys and we got support from the FBI and Scotland Yard as well but he was only caught, really, thanks to a miracle. * That first night he had used a stolen a rifle which he threw into the river. Then, in August, he stole another rifle but this time he hid it under a Geraldton wax bush and it was found by a 64 year old lady who went for a walk and decided to pick a sprig of Geraldton wax. I found the dear heart, aged 94, in a nursing home and she said she’d never known why she picked a sprig of Geraldton wax that day because she had a whole garden full of it. * Anyway, the police put the rifle back under the bush, tied it with 100lb fishing wire and kept a 24 hour vigil ‘til he came back for it. Cooke was caught and the dreadful era was over. He confessed to the 1963 murders and to other murders going back five years. The police accepted all of his confessions of murder and attempted murder as correct, except for the two where they already had their man. * John Button, a 19 year old, had already been convicted and sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter for running down his girlfriend after an argument. A 19 year old deaf-mute named Darryl Beamish had been sentenced to death - commuted to life imprisonment - for the brutal axe murder of a woman in 1961. When Cooke was caught, John Button and Darryl Beamish were serving time in Freemantle Prison. Their lawyers appealed, on the basis of a new confession but they lost the appeal. In total, John Button and Darryl beamish lost seven appeals in the 1960s. * Cooke was executed in 1964; the last person hanged in Western Australia. On the gallows he took the bible out of the Methodist minister’s hands and said “Once again I swear before Almighty God that I did kill those other two women” * Darryl did 15 years- a life sentence for murder. John Button did five of his 10 years. They always bore the stigma of being murderers. Always bore the weight of injustice. They had to hope that someone, sometime would find fresh evidence. And that was me, 30 years later. If it hadn’t been for those wrongful charges (and we did get them sorted out), I would have danced forever with Jim Button and never have heard about his brother. * Eric Edgar Cooke was born to a 19 year old violent alcoholic father caught in a shotgun marriage. He wasn’t ready to be a husband; wasn’t ready to be a father- especially to a disfigured child. Eric was born with a hare lip/cleft-palate (now called a cleft lip/cleft palate) and in those days it was quite a disfigurement. He beat that child physically and emotionally every day of his life. Beatings with fists, sticks, belts, saying things like “If it wasn’t for you, you ugly little bastard I wouldn’t have had to marry your mother.” And he also copped a terrible time at school. * Eric Edgar Cooke was just written off as evil. I don’t believe in evil birth, I think they are created. Eric Edgar Cooke wanted power over all those people who had laughed at him and made his life hell.' *Cooke married and had seven children and, whilst writing her book, Estelle got to know Sally Cooke very well. *'She really loved Eric and she said she felt that all he needed was the stability of love and a family life. But he turned against her, as psychopaths do, once the first baby was born. When they lose control of their women, that’s when they take it out on them. So only when her first child was born, not that long after the marriage, did she see the other side of him.' *Research for Estelle’s book took all of her time. *‘I was a journo with no legal training but I read every single newspaper article about these cases, every law report, every Hansard, went through old street directories. If I was going to find something new I first had to find out what was already known. Then I had to get into government files. I managed to get every file. I got Cooke’s legal file, prison file, medical file, mental file; and I interviewed two psychiatrists and a psychologist who’d dealt with him. But my biggest break was getting into the police files.' *Estelle arranged an appointment, through a secretary, with the Police Commissioner to discuss historical research. At the meeting she presented him with a full written description of what she intended to do. He responded: “You’re absolutely barking up the wrong alley. My guys never get it wrong. The best judges in the land have backed up my boys and you haven’t got a hope in hell.” *Two weeks later she got the okay to access police files. *‘I’m not allowed to photocopy but I’ve got the best shorthand thanks to journalism training. There were 9 boxes of murder files on Cooke sitting there and a poor old police officer gazing into space. I think they thought I was going to flip through them but I’m hunched over these files taking them down word for word. * I say to this guy - I call him Sarge - “I’m off to the court wine bar” and for some reason I said “I’m hanging out for a glass of red” * “Bring me back one will you, lovey?” says dear old Roy and just for a joke I bought him the biggest red I could find - a cask - and I said “Here, Sarge, have a red on me” He relaxed and wasn’t watching me quite as hawkeyed as he had been. Every day cost me a cask of red and we became the best of friends. Needless to say, I got into the Beamish file.'[the Beamish family later asked Estelle for help] *While Estelle was writing the book Cooke’s son Tony Cooke, who was by then the head of the Trades & Labour Council, was asked to be the subject of an Australian Story. A journalist phoned Estelle for information about Eric Edgar Cooke. This led to an Australian Story being made about Estelle which led to an offer of lawyers to take on John Button’s case, pro-bono. Beamish’s case followed. *‘The DPP fought it bitterly and immorally and unethically. They did not want to admit that they had got it wrong 30 years earlier. John Button was exonerated 39 years after his conviction and Darryl Beamish was exonerated 44 years after he had been convicted.'

*After the publication of Broken Lives Estelle pitched the idea to her publisher of writing a second book, believing that many people would be very interested in how Broken Lives came to be written. *‘The End of Innocence [the second book], took many drafts. I had to analyse myself and I had to decide how honest I was going to be. In the end I decided I had to be more honest than I would like to be. I’d sold my house, was sitting in a rented flat in the western suburbs writing about a serial killer who operated in the western suburbs of Perth in 1963.' *Estelle’s own life had taken a comparable turn. *‘I was an intelligent woman who had somehow managed to get herself caught in a violent relationship. I was trapped by a psychopath as surely as poor Sally Cooke had got trapped. Although I didn’t live with him, I spent the next three years trying to get out of it safely. Like the typical victim of domestic violence, I didn’t tell a soul. * I was ashamed, I was embarrassed, I was in fear of my life but I was already out there publicly. Had I been honest and taken out a restraining order it would have been very difficult for me to get about my professional work so I kept silent. None of my friends knew. Nobody knew. When I finally managed to escape he stalked me driving a taxi. He was a mechanic and he had a deal with taxi drivers to service their taxis overnight.' *Estelle wondered if her violent boyfriend could possibly be the Claremont killer. *‘In 1996 another serial killer manifested in exactly the same area and his first murder was on Australia Day, 33 years after Cooke and I thought: What an amazing parallel! The Claremont Killer has not been caught. Each of the three girls whom he murdered was drunk and had left a hotel in Claremont to get a taxi. So there was this parallel of the manifestation of another serial killer, the same as Cooke, and a violent fellow within my life and now I’m starting to wonder are they one and the same. I dobbed him in and the taskforce that was looking into the Claremont serial killer came out and interviewed me but they didn’t interview me properly. At that time they considered only that it was this one public servant. * The descriptions of Cooke in Broken Lives are of the guy that I was stuck with. He was very handsome. Very charming. Wonderful until he had trapped his mouse and then the cat played with it. He was very very similar to Cooke and even shared the same birthday.’ *Whether or not Estelle’s former boyfriend is the elusive Claremont killer, it is clear that this relationship provided insight into the workings of a psychopathic mind. Reading her book, it seems that Estelle was called to investigate and to reveal details about Eric Edgar Cooke’s brutal rampage. She spent a decade trying to get justice for John Button. *‘I think it has given hope to other wrongfully convicted people. They know that somewhere somebody might believe them and help them. I also think that tunnel-visioned police officers and over-zealous prosecutors might be aware that someone somewhere down the track- be it 30 or 40 years- might reveal their incompetence.’***

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ROBIN BOWLES INVESTIGATES

November 30th 2008 11:57

True crime writer Robin Bowles ventured into the comparatively tame world of crime fiction when she published her first novel, The Curse of the Golden Yo-Yo in 2007 then followed it up with The Mystery of the Missing Masterpiece in 2008. The heroine of these two comical crime tales is a fearless PI by the name of Cornelia Finnigan, whose escapades in the pursuit of dim-witted criminals bear a remarkable resemblance to the adventures of her creator. After she had completed Justice Denied, her investigation into the disappearance of Moe toddler Jaidyn Leskie and the man accused of his murder, Greg Domaszewicz, Robin spent time working as a private investigator. She was gathering information in Moe and became aware that the Moe police were tailing her. Robin’s husband became concerned for her safety so he hired private investigator Michael to accompany Robin on her trips. Michael was so impressed with Robin’s skill in eliciting information from people that he made the offer of a job which Robin later took up, obtaining her PI’s licence. She says that much of the work is dead boring but it was punctuated with the occasional exciting episode.

One of these involved a married professional man who was being investigated for insurance fraud, after claiming that his house had been burgled. The insurance company employed Michael’s agency to investigate and it was discovered that this man had a secret other life which involved gambling and a lap-dancer girlfriend. The girlfriend was then tailed and Robin paid a visit to her workplace.‘I followed her into this dressing room and introduced myself. I said I was looking into Dimitri’s burglary. I said “Has he mentioned that he was burgled?” “Oh yes, he has. It’s so terrible. You know they took so much stuff.” I said “Yes, well I’m just looking into the insurance side of it because we’re trying to hurry it through to pay him out. What did he tell you about it?” So she’s getting dressed, you see, all this time and being a lap-dancer she didn’t care I was in the room and then she sat down at her dressing table and she reached over and she put this bracelet on and my eyes nearly popped out of my head because that was one of the bits of jewellery that had been stolen. ‘I’m very astute about jewellery and I recognized it straight away. I said to her “Oh I like your bracelet. Where did you get it from?” And she said “Oh, Dimitri gave me this.” And I said “When did he give it to you?” She said “Just after Easter.” (that’s when the burglary happened) “He had to go away with his wife for Easter but he gave it to me as a present because he couldn’t stay with me.” And I said “Well look”…I forget her name now…Amanda or something…one of those names. Anyway, I said to her “Um look, I’m going to have to tell you that I think that bracelet is stolen property. I’ll give you a receipt (this is a total bluff) I’ll give you a receipt but I’m going to have to take it with me.” And she’s just looking at me, you see, and she said “Oh no, why would it be stolen?” And I said “Well, I’m not too sure. You’ll have to ask Dimitri about that.” And I said “Now, what’s your full name?” So I’m already starting to write in my notebook, you see, and so she just took off the bracelet and gave it to me. I mean, there was no reason why she had to. She could have said No and I would have had to have gone back to the office and just said that I thought she was wearing the bracelet and it would have been much harder to prove. But she just handed it to me! She was so gob-smacked, I think.’ The next day Robin and Michael paid the professional man a visit at his place of work. 'He had high-society clients and he used to get really pissed off when I went in there to interview him. I’d been twice before and I’d say to the girls, “I’ll just see him in between patients” and I’d wait. He’d come in really angry. On this particular day I took Michael with me - it’s always bad news when investigators come in pairs - and so I said to him “Now Dimitri, I’m sorry to have to interrupt your day but I met a friend of yours yesterday and she was wearing this.” So I put the bracelet on the table and you should have seen his face. He went grey. I thought he was gonna have a heart attack. And I said “Do you recognize this bracelet at all?” And he said, “Well, it looks like a bracelet I gave a friend of mine.” I said “Well, do you recognize it from these pictures?” Because the insurance company had given us photos, you see, taken only a week or two before he was burgled. He’d had all the stuff photographed for the insurance policy so we had those photos. That’s how I knew what the bracelet looked like. So I said to him “You know, it looks remarkably like this photo here doesn’t it? In fact, it really looks like the same bracelet to me” And he just crumpled. He said “I don’t have to talk to you. I’m going to call my lawyer.” And I said “I think that’d be a really good idea Dimitri. We’ll just put in our report to the insurance company and let the police take it from here.”’

Robin Bowles has been dubbed Australia’s true-crime Queen. She had worked for years as a nursing sister and had gone on to run a highly successful PR company when she decided to write a book. She was still mulling over what to actually write about when the Sunday Age published a story by journalist Andrew Rule about Jennifer Tanner, whose death by shooting in 1984 had been deemed a suicide - a finding that stretched the bounds of credulity. ‘For some reason this bloody story wouldn’t leave my head alone. It was a long weekend so I thought about it all Sunday and then we had a dinner party that night because it was a holiday the next day. We had friends over - six or eight people - so I raised the subject at the dinner table and everyone had read the story so we were all talking about it and speculating. A couple of days later I was on my way home and I drove past the Vic Market. Now I’d driven past the Vic Market I can’t tell you how many times in the ten years I’d been living in Melbourne and I’d never ever seen a gun shop there before but there was this gun shop and there was a parking space right outside the doorway so I 'whzzip right into this parking space. So in I went in my black crepe suit…I was a lot skinnier then…and I had long legs and very high heels and pearls and a silk shirt and…you know…I was running a PR company. I had to wear the PR uniform every day. ‘Anyway, I said to this guy “Do you sell BRN 0.2 rifles?” And he said “We do” and I said “Do you think I could have a look at one please? I’ve got a son in the army (which was true) and I thought I might buy him one for Christmas” Which was bullshit but, anyway, he brought this gun out and I was amazed it was so long. It was about 1100cm long. It was huge. I’d never handled a rifle like that. She was shorter than I am, Jenny, so I tried all this stuff, trying to see if she could have pulled the trigger with her big toe and of course the guy’s hand is hovering over the telephone because that was the same year as the Port Arthur Massacre and he must have thought I was a fuitloop ‘cos I had taken my shoes off and was standing there with this gun. Anyway, in the end I told him what I was trying to do. So I got home and I said to Clive “I think I’m going to write a book about that Jenny Tanner story” and he said to me “Look you better ask the journalist. He’s probably going to do it, it’s that good a story, and he’s done all the research already.” So I rang him up and he said he wasn’t going to do it. He said “I’m too busy and it’s too dangerous.” I said “What do you mean too dangerous?” And he said “Well I’ve had a lot of threats since I ran the story. I’ve had hang-up phone calls, I’ve had my car damaged in my drive, I’ve had my front windows smashed since that article came out. I’ve got my kids to think about and I don’t want to do it. I’ve got a full time job anyway.”’

Robin completed Blind Justice, followed By four more true crime books then, along with the rest of Australia, she became enthralled with the disappearance of British backpacker Peter Falconio. Naturally loquacious, Robin has spoken to scores of people while researching for her books. She is the only person whom Bradley Murdoch, convicted of the murder of Peter Falconio, has granted an interview. She tells me that she has had a number of episodes of extraordinary good luck while on the trail of a story. Robin and her husband Clive were returning home, after having traced the fateful route taken by Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees, and were staying at a hotel in Daly River in the Northern Territory. 'It’s an old pub way out in the middle of nowhere. The Daly River Hotel - it’s quite famous. We knew no-one and it was the rugby world cup, I think. I can’t watch the rugby but I knew Clive would want to stay up in the lounge area and watch it so I went and plonked myself down on a chair and a table towards the front and saved this seat for him. I wanted to make sure I got him the front stalls. Anyway this young girl sat down next to me and we started talking. I knew she was a Pom straight away, with her accent and I said “What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere? You’re a long way from home.” And she said “I am. Unfortunately, I’ve got to go back at the end of the week. I’ve been here for 3 months and I really don’t want to go. My boyfriend’s Australian and he’s still thinking about whether he’ll come with me but I can’t get my permit extended any longer.” She was working as a housemaid at the hotel and her boyfriend was behind the bar. So we had these long conversations. I said to her “Whereabouts in England are you from?” and she said “Oh I’m from a little place you would never have heard of. I’m from Huddersfield.” And I said “I’ve heard of Huddersfield. As a matter of fact I’m doing a book on Peter Falconio and Joanne Lees. They both came from Huddersfield.” and she said “Oh, go on! You know what? My dad worked for 20 years with Peter Falconio’s father” And I said “You are kidding me? At the post office? You are joking.” I said “Does he know him well?” And she said “Of course he knows him well he worked with him for 20 years” So I said “Have you got his phone number?” So I got the Falconio’s family phone number from this girl in the middle of the bush in Daly River. I could tell you a hundred stories like that. I mean, it’s amazing.’

Robin Bowles’ latest book is Rough Justice, subtitled: unanswered questions from the Australian courts. It retraces some crimes about which Robin has already written but, no doubt, it is full of the interesting bits of background information that she has the uncanny knack of uncovering.
I’m looking forward to reading it.

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CRIME WRITER LOUISE WELSH TALKS

November 13th 2008 12:11

In 2007 Scottish writer Louise Welsh spoke at a Sisters in Crime event in Melbourne. She talked about writing, about the joy of being published and about falling in love with your protagonist. The softly-spoken lesbian also gave her audience the pleasure of hearing her read an excerpt from her most recent book The Bullet Trick. Louise is introduced with the recitation of the couplet which opens her first book – The Cutting Room. It is from John Keats ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ – that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know The narrative which follows this couplet is in sharp contrast to the poetic beginning; as the narrator, a homosexual auctioneer, draws the reader tightly into his seedy Glasgow world. Asked who the ‘voice’ is, Louise has this to say: The voice belongs to Rilke, who is his own man. In some ways, although he’s not a detective, he is like a traditional detective in that he has a quest. He knows the city very well. He knows particular people in the city very well. But he has a quest that he must go through alone and at times, when I was writing it, I was consciously thinking about the detective genre. And part of the reason that he’s cold is because of detectives like Marlowe and Spenser. But perhaps part of what is not traditional about Rilke - and I know there are many gay detective protagonists - is that he is a gay protagonist who is not the murderer, not the killer. He doesn’t jump out of the closet with a knife and stab somebody. Rilke is very much out of the closet and very happy with where he is.'

The physical description of Rilke is compared, by Louise's interviewer, to Nick Cave and she is asked about the gothic sensibilities of this book.‘I’d been thinking about the Gothic at the time of writing this. I’d run a second-hand bookshop for many years. As we do, I’d come to a point where I wanted to change what I was doing but I didn’t want to re-train. And I thought “well I’ll teach some classes at Adult Education. They’ll let me in there.” And in the way of night school teachers, I was always just one week ahead of the class. But I became more and more interested in the Gothic and I think a lot of those conventions were very fresh in my mind when I started to write this book. Rilke is not quite your Byronic hero – he’s maybe more of an anti-hero. I really like him. I have an awful lot of affection for him. He’s almost a real person to me.’ Asked to comment on a rumour that, during the staging of The Cutting Room, she had been unable to look at the actor (also responsible for the adaptation) who was playing the part of Rilke Louise admits that this actor so resembled her character that when he came on stage she had to shield her eyes. ‘It was too strange. It was too weird. I don’t know how people feel that have had things adapted for film but it was just a bit too much for me and also, strangely, I really fancied him which is something I don’t normally do.' This admission causes a burst of laughter in the audience. Louise confesses that she was worried that, while watching the performance, she might actually start saying the lines and run onstage. Asked about the themes of sex, violence and women which is contained in this novel, Louise says that she was influenced by a book she was reading which explored images of women as the dead female form.'We see this image reproduced over and over and over again in advertising and fashion shoots. It’s an image that is used quite cheaply. If we look we can see all these billboards of very beautiful, very passive women that could be dead and I guess that informs this novel to some extent. As a writer, I want the reader to be shocked. I want the reader to know why Rilke feels compelled to search out the origins of this photo. That was part of the difficulty of this book. To make people see this image, to make them feel it yet not be doing what it is I disliked.’ On the subject of the labelling of her writing, Louise says that although she was aware of using gothic rather than crime conventions, her main concern was would anybody read this, rather than where it would be placed on the bookshelf. ‘I wasn’t really sure if it fitted into the crime novel genre and I think that’s fine because definitions and categorizations are something, perhaps, that writers shouldn’t think too much about. If you start thinking about that then you’ll start bending what you have to say to fit. When you start to think about the market you’re doomed really.’When the subject of the literary/crime divide is later raised Louise responds ‘I did an event with Ian Rankin and we were talking about this. He was, perhaps quite rightly, getting agitated and I was saying I don’t really feel that way. Maybe I should get more agitated about it but I do feel that the divide is getting less. Michael Collins, the crime -writer is a fantastic writer, full-stop and he’s been on the Booker shortlist twice so I think the idea that crime-fiction is not regarded highly is probably still true but I think the division is getting less.‘I think there are some very bad literary novels out there and perhaps if we start to think of literary fiction - whatever that means - as a genre then that may put things in perspective. But I think we name things in order to be able to talk about them.Louise’s second book, a novella, Tamburlaine Must Die charts the last days of playwright Christopher Marlowe, contemporary of Shakespeare and subject of deep fascination and speculation. Praised for its evocation of time and place and criticised for its brevity, the work is a totally believable imagining of another era. About the language used in this book, Louise says ‘Obviously people in the 16th century did not speak as we speak. I read a lot of literature of the period. I read a lot of historical dictionaries and made up vocabulary lists. And I tried to think about the way in which they’d speak.’Louise was asked to contribute to a series on dead novelists but was required to sell the idea back to the publisher. To do this she used the image of beautiful velvet being dragged through the mud.

‘I think that is a lot of what the Elizabethan Age was like. They have this fine art, this music, science is at its height for the period, navigation, exploration, politics, courtly love and then…MUD. Mud and shit and smells and stinks and piggish behaviour. So this contrast was very attractive to me, but also the parallels this time has with our own age because for me there wasn’t much point in writing a historical fiction unless it somehow pertained to our time as well.’Louise elaborates on the structure of her third book, The Bullet Trick, which she claims was fun to write, by giving a visual demonstration of the intersection of two narrative strands causing an explosion.‘The protagonist, William Wilson, is a conjurer. He’s Glaswegian but has lived in London for a long time. Part of it is set now, in Glasgow, and William is telling us what happened to him a year ago in London and Berlin.’As to the source of her inspiration for The Bullet Trick, Louise tells us that it began with a request to write a travel article which was to include a stay in the city of her choice - within reason. ‘It was the anniversary of the movie, Cabaret, so I said: Can I go to Berlin and check out the cabaret scene? See if it’s still going? Me and my partner went and we had a ball, and I think this stayed with me - these images and these ideas - and they were just kind of in there for a couple of years.’ It is suggested to Louise that William, like her other two male protagonists, is on a path to redemption and reveals himself by what he does and not by what he says. Louise responds'I did want to bring William down to the very bottom. Down to the point where he really has to decide well, is he going to pull himself up or is he just gonna sink? Is that the end? And part of what I thought about William was that he’s like a lot of us. He’s a lot better than he thinks he is. William has a very poor opinion of himself and part of his whole trouble comes from his inability to believe in himself. We talk about this a lot; this lack of confidence that I think was instilled into a lot of us through the educational system which tells us to shut-up and keep quiet.’After some talk about the writing courses that she teaches, Louise is asked: can you teach someone to write?‘No of course you can’t teach anyone to write. I think that a lot of it is giving people confidence, giving people some time, giving them the right environment and some tools of the trade. You can show them that wanting to be a writer is not a silly thing.’

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RITUAL - MO HAYDER

November 8th 2008 05:53

REVIEW

Phoebe “Flea” Marley, a police diver, recovers a severed human hand from the Bristol harbour and forensic testing shows that the amputation took place while the victim was still alive. The search for the body, dead or alive, leads Flea into dark corners of the world of African muti (traditional medicine) where human body parts are valued for their supposedly magical properties. *Before long, DI Jack Caffery arrives on the scene. He has transferred from London, lugging a load of emotional baggage and Flea is instantly attracted to the dark-haired loner; as he is to her. She is still grappling with grief and her own guilt over the deaths of her parents and Caffery carries the burden of memory, of the long- ago disappearance of his brother whom he believes was abducted by a paedophile. *The hands (a second is discovered) are identified as belonging to a young drug-addicted male prostitute named Mossy and the search for both victim and perpetrator connects to Flea’s world in more ways than one. *Ritual held my interest from start to finish (I took it with me on a long walk because I didn’t want to stop reading). Mo Hayder has constructed a plot that proceeds at a natural pace, easily accommodates uncensored descriptions of bloody violence and neatly intersects several threads of action. The characters are all distinguishable and individual so, even though Flea Marley comes across as a bit of a drip - in spite of her expertise - she’s a likeable and believable drip. Jack Caffery, on the other hand, has undeniable charm. In her notes at the end of the novel, Mo Hayder has this to say about her creation: 'Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is my poster boy. My beau, my BF, my petit copain. In him I was writing myself a fantasy lover…I was intrigued by a man who illustrated the dichotomy in a world where law and order increasingly tread a hazy line, where the protector can be the aggressor, the public servant the criminal. Jack Caffery is constantly challenged to define himself as good or bad.’ *She elaborates on the appeal of this character and describes how many readers have approached her to tell her how much they fancy Jack Caffery. What greater acknowledgement of a creation of real substance could an author ask for? *My one criticism of Ritual is that the character of Walking Man seems extraneous. This wise tramp has the obvious function of revealing Jack’s history and his pre-occupations, but still he seems unnecessary. *The media release for Ritual calls it the ‘terrifying opening novel in the Walking Man series’ so presumably this character, based on a real-life tramp that Mo Hayder encountered, is to be further explored. Perhaps his relationship with Jack Caffery will develop more satisfactorily in the next novel.

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SAY GOODBYE

November 6th 2008 09:20

REVIEW: SAY GOODBYE by LISA GARDNER

Say Goodbye is ‘thriller’ number 10 by Lisa Gardner, an established writer of romance who successfully morphed into a crime fiction author. *This story opens with a not half bad sex scene that is followed by the musings of an unnamed abuse victim (which intersperses the narrative) then moves on to the main players. It begins to read like a collection of impressions that never form a cohesive body; scribblings that have been forced into a single plot, with misshapen results. *Number one player, FBI Special Agent Kimberley Quincy, is the ‘total package’ we are told –‘beautiful, brainy and pedigreed’. The daughter of a retired agent, she has something to prove to her childhood-absent father. Her mother (and possibly her sister) have been murdered - although this is never fully explained - and she is suffering the obligatory personal conflict: Her husband is harassing her to ease up on her workload now that she is pregnant. We first meet Kimberley Quincy working a crime scene. Gardner has done her homework and it shows – with every clunky technical/statistical/explana tory exchange that she has with fellow officers. Kimberley is led into the pursuit of a serial killer who is targetting prostitutes and the reader is made aware that the killer is also a paedophile who has abducted pre-pubescent boys and subjected them to a life of dominance, control and abuse. Or death. *Gradually it transpires that that the paedophilic prostitute-killer and the soliloquising abuse victim are one and the same. What is intended to be a sharply drawn observation of the cyclical nature of sexual abuse is just confusing. There is too much switching between past and present, victim and perpetrator. And the lack of naming, in order to facilitate the surprise factor, makes it even harder to follow. *The killer calls himself Dinchara (spell it backwards!) and the spider motif is relentless. A vaguely interesting snippet of information about spiders heads each chapter but casting this web across the story does nothing to unify its components. Gardner builds towards a climax that has everyone on Dinchara’s trail, including Kimberley’s visiting father (and his girlfriend) to whom she reveals details about the case which are, presumably, confidential. *When she is not displaying her knowledge of investigative procedures, the author is good with the natural flow of talk between people even when what they are saying is inane – and it often is. Most other characters are used as sounding boards for Kimberley’s intelligent, wise or deeply felt speeches or to bolster the impossible leaps she makes towards the workable theories that drive the plot. Gardner conveys something of the horror that the abuse victim must endure but the fetid canals of the perpetrator’s psyche remain unexplored. *The character of Dinchara doesn’t ring true. A paedophile, who cruelly abuses very young boys and is who is also the hunter and torturer of young women? An individual who exerts total control over victims who are free to escape? Particularly unbelievable is his relationship with Ginny, a street-smart and conniving young prostitute who maintains her connection with him rather than help the police. The author offers a weak explanation, using a brief exchange between Kimberley and Sal, her partner on the case, in which they allude to Stockholm syndrome. It is unconvincing but by this stage, having persevered with the book, the reader will have surrendered any reasonable expectation.

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