Words, writers and writing


ONE of the many pleasures gained from reading crime fiction is being plunged deep into places never previously visited. Or, if having been there only superficially as a mere transient, now getting down and dirty with the locals. No longer passing through but going well and truly off piste. The crime novel as a Baedecker. So much so that often the main character is not the sleuth but the location, or locus as many of them pompously refer to it. We thread our way along the calles and canals of Venice with Donna Leon or Michael Dibdin as our guides. Continue reading
I HAVE been renewing acquaintance with an old friend. As always, it was a rewarding and compelling page-turning experience. It was also thought provoking, making me wonder yet again why so few Australian crime writers make it on to the international stage. Rather than becoming household names they are too… Continue reading

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OUR libraries and bookshops offer an intriguing double-whammy for devotees of crime fiction. They can either select a mystery by the enduring and much revered Josephine Tey,   or they can delve into a tale of  much more recent vintage in which the same Josephine Tey is the solver of the crime. To all intents and purposes they are one and the same person. However, one is the real life much revered but long deceased author;  the other is a fictional amateur  solver of mysteries. This unusual double pleasure is the result of author Nicola Upson having boldly “borrowed” Tey… Continue reading