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Tony Smith
Tony Smith is a writer and reviewer who lives in Bathurst, New South Wales.
Some generals in Australia’s ‘culture wars’ have appointed themselves defenders of a mythical identity against the incursions of multiculturalists and ‘black armbanders’. Literary skirmishes over national identity have been more mundane, concerning mainly eligibility for awards. Certainly, three recent crime novels suggest that Australian writing benefits from adoption of a broad definit ... (read more)
Detective Rubens McCauley has recovered almost fully from a gunshot wound suffered while exposing corrupt Melbourne cops: see Head Shot (2005). Colleague Cassie Withers supports McCauley, but his superior officer wishes him elsewhere. His private life teeters on the brink: he has neglected his mother who suffered a stroke; he has unresolved issues with his father; his brother wants him to counsel ... (read more)
Oscar Wilde’s Lady Bracknell famously deplores Ernest’s loss of not one but both parents. The great polymath would approve of Peter Temple’s easy mastery of not just two but three popular literary genres. In the Jack Irish series, Temple created a likeable rogue who approximates a Melbourne private eye, and with The Broken Shore (2005) he won crime writing awards for a disciplined police pro ... (read more)
Stella Sartori and Jack Rogers, both Australians, work for a New York bank. Their boss, Frank Spiteri, sends Stella and her team to Peoria to report on the takeover of Collins Military Systems by the Kradel company. Spiteri’s friend Daniel Cross, now head of Kradel and formerly head of CMS, complains that Stella has stolen an important file. Spiteri promotes Jack from the market floor to the mer ... (read more)
It is ‘Schoolies’ Week’, and Waterloo, on the Mornington Peninsula, hosts a crowd of teenagers who, for various reasons, shun more fashionable parties on the Gold Coast. The police try to ensure that the kids practise safe sex and don’t become victims of their own excesses with drugs and alcohol, nor of the ‘toolies’ who scavenge the festival fringes. Liaison officer Constable Pam Murp ... (read more)
When the Australian government urged older workers to delay retirement, some observers saw this as ‘wedge’ politics. One ageing media personality joked about younger women refusing to have babies sufficient to care for him in his dotage. For electors, the falling birth rate may be a controversial economic issue, but for some couples, and especially women, decisions about procreation are not th ... (read more)