Dominick Dunne and the grave of his daughter Dominique at Pierce Brothers cemetery in Los Angeles. Dominique’s tragic murder started Dominick’s second career as a ‘celebrity’ crime reporter and a crime fiction author.
Australia has many fine mid-20th century hard boiled detective fiction writers: Carter Brown (Alan Yates), Marc Brody (Bill Williams), Larry Kent (various), Eric North (Bernard Cronin), Otto Beeby, and Ian Hamilton, to name just a few. But my favourite is Bant Singer (Charles Shaw). His detective, Denis Aloysius ‘Del’ Delaney, is not only the coolest, but also the most typically Australian.
My old buddy Michael Jorgensen (left) had his fourth crime novel Kidnap reviewed in today’s Age (far left). Mick has also published around 20 books, including two by me. A publisher who isn’t deceitful, who isn’t a phony, and who pays his bills in full and on time — INCREDIBLE!
Exhibition curated by Derham Groves.
Television was introduced in Australia in 1956 and remained a ‘novelty’ for about 10 years. Even Australian crime fiction fell under its spell. In The Cold Dark Hours (1958) by A.G. Yates (a.k.a. Carter Brown), an advertising agency executive devises an ad campaign to sell defective TV sets; in the series of pulp novels by W.H. Williams featuring Marc Brody, he starts out as a newspaper crime reporter and ends up as ‘TV’s on-the-spot crime reporter’; in Who Dies for Me? (1962) by S.H. Courtier, people are secretly monitored by means of tiny TV cameras placed inside light globes; and in Make-up for Murder (1966) by June Wright, a popular TV show host is threatened with murder. Does anyone know of others featuring TV?
