Thrilling debut novel from the deep north reveals it’s never too late to do the write thing
The Townsville Bulletin‘s former editor Elliot Hannay has finally written the crime novel the octogenarian should have penned 40 years ago – and it takes us into the heart of darkness of the deep north.
At the age of 83 I have just had my debut crime novel published. I should have written it 40 years ago as a courageous piece of investigative journalism, but that did not happen.
A $3 million stopper writ from a Sydney underworld figure and a corrupt senior Queensland police superintendent threatening to “pop” me between the eyes converted me overnight from being a brash young Townsville newspaper editor into a very cautious one.
I’m not sure why it took so long for me to realise that my real-life encounters as a journalist had all the essential elements for a dramatic work of fiction. Sydney gangsters with links to a senior outback police officer, crooks in big hats and victims being fed to a huge saltwater crocodile.
It’s not as if I am a stranger to the craft of fiction, having watched my award-winning novelist wife Barbara Hannay create 63 books in the past 26 years for mainstream publishers in Australia and overseas.
With her urging, I discarded my old journo ethics and started to make things up to fill in the gaps. Novelists are allowed to do that, and it has been a liberating experience.
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Being trained as a cadet journo back in the days of hard copy and hot metal imbued me with the need for accuracy and verification. So, it was a fraught transition five years ago when passages appeared in the draft that were fabricated rather than crafted from fact.
But the angst didn’t last long. I soon discovered that this novelist caper is so much more fun than the demanding and often frustrating process of researching and writing works of non-fiction.
Fiction has also allowed my partner in life to become a closer partner in writing. We certainly share the life of writers, spending a great deal of time at our desks at opposite ends of the house. This includes being each other’s “first reader” during manuscript development.
However, it is important not to interfere with that special “author’s voice”, which has to remain unique to each writer’s work.
In my story, the main character’s commitment to his profession as an investigative journalist has ruined his family life and he is desperate to reconnect with his estranged wife and daughter.
Barb pointed out that more tension could be developed from such an emotionally fraught relationship, and how it would work better as part of the main narrative.
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I tried to tone down the violence, but some of my characters just wouldn’t listen
This, and many other incisive suggestions from her, reinforced my belief that successful women writers excel in creating “emotional punch” and that most male authors struggle when portraying the female voice or character.
Striking this male-female balance in an outback noir murder mystery was a challenge, because I am a fan of Raymond Chandler, who usually has a bad guy bursting through a door with both guns blazing.
So, in my debut novel, Embedded – The Gulf Country Murders, there is still gunfire, knife fights and a rising body count. I tried to tone down the violence, but some of my characters just wouldn’t listen.
The story involves Rex “Frosty” Winter, a jaded Sydney journalist, who believes he’s about to be sacked when he is suddenly offered a lifeline − an “embedded” assignment with a police squad hunting drug runners in Queensland’s Gulf Country. Desperate to reconnect with his wife and estranged daughter Julie, he accepts the lifeline, not knowing just how dangerous the assignment will be.
Faced with the endless twists and turns of attempted kidnappings, contract killings, shocking betrayals and a discovery of a crime syndicate, the body count rises but the real mastermind remains hidden.
Embedded is, I hope, a visceral journey into corruption, vengeance and one man’s fight to reclaim his name and reconnect with the people he loves.
There is also a bloke on the cover carrying a big gun – which, for me as an old traditionalist, is how all good crime novels should be packaged.
Embedded – The Gulf Country Murders by Elliot Hannay, Wilkinson Publishing, $34.99.
wilkinsonpublishing.com.au/product/embedded
Elliot Hannay is an author and journalist. His memoir The Colt With No Regrets was published by Wilkinson in 2020 and he co-wrote a Bob Katter semi-biography in 2018. The former editor of the Townsville Bulletin lives in North Queensland with his award-winning novelist wife Barbara Hannay.