Sunday, March 11, 2018

Peter Temple: R.I.P.

Sad News. Peter Temple, award-winning Australian Crime Writer has died of cancer at the age of 71.

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Peter Temple was also the first Australian writer to win the British Crime Writers’ association major award, the Gold Dagger, which he did for The Broken Shore in 2007. It was Truth, the follow-up to that novel, that won the Miles Franklin in 2010. He won five Ned Kelly awards, the local crime-writing prizes, beginning in 1997 for his first book, Bad Debts.

Temple was perhaps best-known for his Jack Irish novels, which featured his Fitzroy-based solicitor-cum-fixer hero. The Jack Irish books – there were four – had a magnificent stable of recurring characters many of whom drank in a fictional pub, The Prince of Prussia. In total he wrote nine novels.

The Irish books were adapted for television with Guy Pearce as the eponymous lead.

At one festival appearance Temple was asked whether anything was taboo in crime writing. He said it was fine to boil a baby and eat it with truffles, but the real taboo was harming the family pet. He adored dogs and in The Broken Shore gave significant supporting roles to his protagonist Joe Cashin’s black poodles, Temple’s own breed of choice.

Read more here.

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