Sydney Noir

by Kirsten Tranter, Mandy Sayer, Eleanor Limprecht, John Dale (Editor)

Overview

Australia's largest city "provides fertile ground for dark doings, as these 14 tales demonstrate . . . [a] cavalcade of crime Down Under" (Kirkus Reviews).
 
Includes Kirsten Tranter's Edgar Award-nominated "The Passenger"
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Now, "Sydney Noir brings together 14 compelling short stories by established and emerging Australian authors, each offering a startling glimpse into the dark heart of Sydney and its sprawling suburbs" (Sydney Morning Herald, Australian edition review).
 
This anthology includes brand-new stories by Kirsten Tranter, Mandy Sayer, John Dale, Eleanor Limprecht, Mark Dapin, Leigh Redhead, Julie Koh, Peter Polites, Robert Drewe, Tom Gilling, Gabrielle Lord, Philip McLaren, P.M. Newton, and Peter Doyle.
 
Shortlisted for the Danger Award presented by BAD: Sydney Crime Writers Festival
Included in CrimeReads's Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2019
 
"Akashic delivers another impeccable anthology with Sydney Noir, a deep dive into the mean streets, artistic outlets, and sultry demimonde of Australia's largest (and liveliest) city."—CrimeReads
 
"The 14 uniformly strong selections feature familiar subgenre figures: gangsters, ethically compromised cops, and people bent on revenge for the loss of a loved one . . . Fans of dark crime fiction will want to seek out other works by these contributors, most of whom will be unfamiliar to American readers."—Publishers Weekly
 
"Here is a tough but tender vision of multicultural working-class Australia, with all its wards and anxieties."—Australian Book Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617756887
Publisher:	Akashic Books
Publication date:	01/08/2019
Series:	Akashic Noir Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

JOHN DALE is the author of nine books. His best-selling true-crime biography, Huckstepp, was the winner of a Ned Kelly award, as was the first of his three crime novels, Dark Angel. His other books are a memoir, Wild Life, an investigation into the fatal shooting of his grandfather in 1940s Tasmania, a campus novel Leaving Suzie Pye, translated into Turkish, and a novella Plenty. He has edited three anthologies, Out West, Car Lovers and the recent Sydney Noir(2019). He is currently a Professor of Writing at UTS.

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

City of Change

Sydney has a long and distinguished criminal history. From the arrival of 756 convicts in 1788 through to the postwar waves of ethnic crime gangs, this city of five million people has more unsolved murders than any other Australian city, as well as more drive-by shootings and more jailed politicians. Noir is as much a part of Sydney's character as frangipanis and cockroaches, rusted iron lace and sandstone terraces, torrential rain and potholed roads.

A subgenre of crime fiction, noir is the most democratic of genres in that it includes people from all walks of life and in all kinds of trouble. The protagonists are not private eyes and implausible police detectives from central casting, but ordinary people caught up in crime and violence, the kind of people you pass in the street or sit next to on overcrowded buses and trains.

In the early 1980s, I was working in a rundown bar in Darlinghurst that was a popular watering hole for the notorious 21 Division, a flying squad of the city's hardest detectives. On Friday and Saturday nights, a couple of middle-aged women from the western suburbs would sit out on kitchen chairs on Riley Street soliciting for customers. On the other side of the street was a flea-ridden hostel for alcoholic men, and farther down the road was a tow truck business with criminal connections, while upstairs, the publican, a capable older woman, had shacked up with a Maori biker.

The bar was unlike any I had been to in Hobart, where I grew up. On busy nights cops, bikers, would-be actors, rock-and-rollers, trannies, small-time celebrities, and general riffraff turned up in that Darlinghurst pub to drink to excess and hatch their plans while complying with the unspoken rule that no actual drug exchanges were to be undertaken on the premises.

The 21 Division detectives, chosen specifically for their size, congregated in the doorways so that everyone had to squeeze past them to get served. The old diggers from the hostel drank at the front bar perched on their stools like babies in high chairs. The sex workers were a friendly lot and ordered a sherry or gin and tonic after their shift, waiting in the lounge bar for their partners to pick them up for the long drive home. Sex and drugs and money and booze all came together in this seedy pub situated in the hollow between the central business district and the Cross. That old, rough-neck, Anglo-aboriginal inner Sydney is mostly gone now, modernized and corporatized, but the pub still stands and its clientele park their Audis and BMWs outside while they dine at the rooftop restaurant.

Nothing lasts in Sydney, especially good fortune: lives are upturned, shops are sold, roads dug up, trees and houses knocked down, premiers discarded, and entire communities relocated in the name of that economic mantra — growth and progress. Just when you think the traffic can't get any worse and the screech of the 747s descending over your roof can't get any louder and the pavements can't get any dirtier, along comes a wild electrical storm that batters the buildings and shakes the power lines and washes the garbage off the streets and you stand, sheltered under your broken brolly in the center of Sydney, admiring this big beautiful city.

What never changes, though, is the hustle on the street. My father was a detective in the vice squad shortly after the Second World War, and he told stories of busting SP bookies in Paddington and Surry Hills, collaring cockatoos stationed in the laneways of South Sydney, and arresting sly-groggers. Policing back then was hands-on for the poor and hands-off for the rich. Crime and Sydney have always been inseparable: a deep vein of corruption runs beneath the surface of even its most respectable suburbs.

These brand-new stories from some of Australia's best writers deal with men and women who work in finance or serve in Liquorland, drive cabs or beat-up utes; they might be architects or struggling students, athletes or aboriginal liaison officers, retired coppers or contract laborers, patternmakers or photographers, philosophy lecturers or drug dealers. Some are desperate for revenge or money and fame; others are simply caught up in circumstances beyond their control or in a sexual relationship gone wrong. These fourteen stories take us from Kings Cross to La Perouse, from Balmain to Parramatta, Redfern to Maroubra, Clovelly to Bankstown, Sydney Harbour to Edgecliff, Newtown to Ashfield, and Lavender Bay to Mosman. There are no safe spaces in this collection. What Sydney Noir does best is to provide a window onto the street.

So sit back and enjoy the view.

John Dale Sydney, Australia November 2018

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Sydney Noir"
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Copyright © 2019 Akashic Books.
Excerpted by permission of Akashic Books.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction, 11,
PART I: FAMILY MATTERS,
Kirsten Tranter Balmain The Passenger, 17,
Mandy Sayer Kings Cross The Birthday Present, 38,
John Dale Newtown Good Boy, Bad Girl, 48,
Eleanor Limprecht Maroubra In the Dunes, 65,
Mark Dapin La Perouse In the Court of the Lion King, 75,
PART II: SEX AND THE CITY,
Leigh Redhead Parramatta The Transmutation of Sex, 99,
Julie Koh Ashfield The Patternmaker, 119,
Peter Polites Bankstown Toxic Nostalgia, 132,
Robert Drewe Lavender Bay The Razor, 148,
PART III: CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
Tom Gilling Sydney Harbour Rip-Off, 171,
Gabrielle Lord Clovelly Slow Burn, 185,
Philip McLaren Redfern Black Cul-De-Sac, 203,
P.M. Newton Mosman Chinaman's Beach, 218,
Peter Doyle Edgecliff Good Bloke, 229,
Acknowledgments, 245,
About the Contributors, 246,

Editorial Reviews

"The writing is fantastic across the board. It’s evocative and engaging . . . If you have any interest in noir, crime novels, or just excellent writing, you can’t go wrong with this collection."

Tails from the Dog-Side

"Overall I really enjoyed this collection . . . I’ve definitely got the taste for more Australian crime fiction this year."

Col’s Criminal Library

"This long-time fan of the series breathed a sigh of relief upon discovering that not only is Sydney Noir very good indeed, it is one of the best in Akashic’s canon for some time . . . As a snapshot of contemporary Australia, this collection delivers in ways that most middlebrow literary fiction cannot seem to get its head around, even though much literary fiction flirts with the noir genre without fully committing. Here is a touch but tender vision of multicultural working-class Australia, with all its warts and anxieties."

Australian Book Review

"Sydney is a good choice for Akashic's first noir anthology set in Australia...The 14 uniformly strong selections feature familiar subgenre figures: gangsters, ethically compromised cops, and people bent on revenge for the loss of a loved one...Fans of dark crime fiction will want to seek out other works by these contributors, most of whom will be unfamiliar to American readers."
—Publishers Weekly

"The former British penal colony provides fertile ground for dark doings, as these 14 tales demonstrate...The stories [Dale's] assembled offer ample variety in this cavalcade of crime Down Under."
—Kirkus Reviews

"In The Court of the Lion King" by Mark Dapin and "The Passenger" by Kirsten Tranter have been selected as two of the Best Mystery Stories of 2019 by Robert Lopresti of SleuthSayers

"In The Court of the Lion King" by Mark Dapin and "The Passenger" by Kirsten Tranter selected as Robert Lopresti's Best Mystery Story of the Week

From the Publisher

2018-10-15

The former British penal colony provides fertile ground for dark doings, as these 14 tales demonstrate.

These stories tend to focus on actual crimes rather than on the poverty, misfortune, and deprivation that are often noir staples. Of course, Dale showcases some peeks at the low life. There's a smattering of drug capers like Peter Doyle's "Good Bloke" and Tom Gilling's "Rip-Off," and Leigh Redhead shows an exotic dancer taking a lap dance a little too far in "The Transmutation of Sex." But even folks from Sydney's upper crust can get into the act, as Kristen Tranter shows in "The Passenger." Talent is no proof against bad acts and actors, as a nationally ranked swimmer learns in Robert Drewe's "The Razor," an acclaimed architect finds out in Mark Dapin's "In the Court of the Lion King," and a budding designer discovers in Julie Koh's "The Patternmaker." In addition, any number of ordinary folks blunder their ways into wrongdoing. In Eleanor Limprecht's "In the Dunes," a single dad's struggle to raise a teenage girl ends badly. And in editor Dale's "Good Boy, Bad Girl," a young woman with aspirations finds a sinister way to take care of her aging grandmother. The emphasis on crime stories lays the groundwork for some pretty neat surprises. Mandy Sayer's "The Birthday Present" and P.M. Newton's "Chinaman's Beach" both pack a wallop in the crime-with-a-twist department.

Although Dale's approach is traditional, the stories he's assembled offer ample variety in this cavalcade of crime Down Under.

Kirkus Reviews