Murder mystery

Posted on May 8, 2008 at 5:43pm | 9 comments

I feel quite drained at the end of this working day. A lot of my time was spent dealing with the investigation into a suspicious death.

A tradesman on a remote job was taking a leak in the bush when he discovered human remains concealed beneath a pile of wood near Menzies in the northern Goldfields.

He came into our office today and provided photos of the grisly find.

Earlier, one of my staff had called me aside to say he suspected whose body it might be. (more…)

Newspaper novels: The truth will make you fret

Posted on October 29, 2007 at 12:18pm | 1 comment

There aren’t many novels about newspapers. Stories involving print journalists are far fewer than those about lawyers, soldiers and police for example.

That’s a little surprising when you consider that journalists are writers. But when you think about it, we are craftsmen while novelists are artists. We ply a trade while they follow their creative spirits. We have responsibilities, they don’t.

Three good books about newspapers come readily to mind. PG Wodehouse wrote Psmith, Journalist in 1915; Evelyn Waugh wrote Scoop in 1938 and Terry Pratchett published The Truth in 2000.

In Wodehouse’s classic, Psmith arrives in New York on a cricket tour and becomes involved with the home entertainment weekly “Cosy Moments” which he transforms into a hard-hitting investigative journal. He rides the bumps of organised crime and American politics along the way.

In Waugh’s story, scribe William Boot is mistaken by the publisher of the Daily Beast for a war correspondent. He is uprooted from writing country garden features to covering the civil war in Ishmaelia. Both novels are cleverly satirical.

Pratchett’s The Truth is a typically fantastic work from the author of the Discworld series. The hero in this case is William de Worde, who teams up with dwarfs to print the first newspaper in Ankh-Morpork.

As usual, Pratchett offers some tremendous insights into human nature. His observations of the newspaper profession are also very sharp, suggesting excellent research or personal knowledge. For instance, he offers a rare literary tribute to the unsung work of sub-editors.

I’ve just finished reading The Truth for the second time. I found the focus on hired assassins to be distracting and kept wanting the story to get back to the trials and tribulations of The Times.

There are some great one liners, like when the dwarfs make a typesetting error with the newspaper’s logo, which becomes: “The truth will make you fret”.

I related personally to the serial pest who kept coming into the office with remarkable vegetables. Anyone who has worked on a country newspaper will know there are people in most towns who like to show off their giant tomatoes or funny-shaped parsnips.

I admit it’s one of my long-term ambitions to write a satirical novel about newspapers. I started taking notes of strange but true incidents last year, like when one of my reporters disappeared while on the trail of visiting Mongolian detectives.

I have heaps of material; just need the time to write it.

The world is going mad #2

Posted on March 10, 2007 at 4:04pm | 1 comment

Karyn writes about a practice called “happy slapping” which happily I’ve not heard of before. She defines it this way:

Originally, the idea was to walk up to some random stranger and slap them, while friends recorded the event on their mobile phones. Hilarious, I don’t think! Whatever endorphins that act released obviously became very attractive, because it has now become de rigeur to commit acts of minor violence upon random strangers even when there is nobody there to record the event.

I hope this bizarre behaviour doesn’t travel past England’s shores in popularity but I won’t be surprised if it does, or if indeed it’s already happening in Australian cities.

At the age of 40 it’s tempting to moralise about the lack of values in today’s society. I won’t though. I’ll look for other explanations instead.

The “happy slapping” attack on Karyn’s 13-year-old son struck a chord with me because this week we reported a random act of violence in the Kalgoorlie Miner. A group of five white males bashed and kicked an elderly Aboriginal man who asked them for a cigarette outside a Boulder hotel. (more…)

The Fifth Woman

Posted on January 19, 2006 at 8:43pm | 0 comments

The Fifth Woman is the first novel that I’ve read by Swedish crime writer Henning Mankel. I saw a positive review of his work in The Age last year and purchased the book while in Melbourne between Christmas and New Year.

His main character, Inspector Kurt Willander, is a thoughtful introspective man who reflects on societal change while solving murder mysteries.

This particular book was different to anything I’ve read by British or American authors. There wasn’t a build up of suspense, but more an unravelling of why certain things had to be.

Willander gradually comes to understand that three brutal murders were committed by a woman seeking revenge against men who abuse women. (more…)

Keep perspective on execution

Posted on December 1, 2005 at 6:47am | 6 comments

I’m sorry that Nguyen Tuong Van will be executed today. I don’t support capital punishment. I wouldn’t care if a mass murderer was executed, but I do care that a young man who made some mistakes is paying for them with his life.

It’s important to keep some perspective though. The candlelight vigils and apparent national obsession with this case is over the top.

The Singapore High Commissioner made some telling comments yesterday about the lives that Nguyen would have harmed if the heroin he was carrying had reached its destination. Some 26,000 hits was the amount that he held.

Drugs are evil and Nguyen was part of an evil system. The penalty doesn’t fit the crime, but we shouldn’t portray him as a victim.

The media interest is just because he’s Australian. Think of all the people executed each week in China, the United States and elsewhere. Some of them may be innocent. I weep more for them.

New citizens asked tough questions

Posted on November 15, 2005 at 5:00am | 2 comments

I filled out Juliet’s citizenship application form yesterday. Two of the questions stumped me, not for their difficulty, but their inclusion.

Have you ever committed any war crimes? Are you a terrorist? They’re not the exact words, but they may as well be.

I can just picture Osama Bin Laden sitting in his cave thinking he can trick the Australian Government into giving him citizenship by answering "no" to both questions.

Obviously, terrorists will attempt to deceive. I suppose that if the deceipt is discovered the government can deport them for telling fibs on the application. That’s the only reason I can see for asking such questions.

Comment on idealists

Posted on October 24, 2005 at 10:40pm | 1 comment

I’ve been reading a lot lately. So much that I haven’t had time to write any book reviews here! I’ll get around to commenting soon on Scottish author Christopher Brookmyre. He’s an interesting character.

I’m currently reading “In the Moon of Red Ponies” by James Lee Burke. The Daily Mail described Burke as the “most literary” of modern crime writers, and I have to agree.

It’s not often a single line in a book stands out in my mind. I came across this gem tonight:

But Johnny was also an idealist, and it’s the idealists who, given the chance, will incinerate half the world to save the other half.

Harsh but true!

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