Meet Australian Crime Writer
Greg Woodland
Greg Woodland is an author, screenwriter and former film director.
Since 2000 he’s worked as a freelance script developer and script editor through his online script development service Script Central and taught screenwriting at Sydney film schools and universities. His first novel, The Night Whistler, was shortlisted for a 2021 Ned Kelly Award. Its sequel, The Carnival Is Over has just been released.
Why write about New England?
“I spent a large part of my childhood in the 1960s growing up in South Tamworth, where my dad was a commercial traveler and my mum a housewife bringing up five young sons pretty much on her own. Then after a brief stint finishing high school in Sydney and Tweed Heads, I moved to Armidale to study Zoology at University of New England, inexplicably chucking it in halfway through my third year. After another year as a dishwasher, brick-cleaner and guitarist in a punk rock band, I left Armidale for Sydney in 1979, where I’ve lived ever since. I’ve returned many times to the New England area and still have close ties with and friends from Armidale.”
A FEW OF GREG’s FAVOURITE READS
Australian Crime – Rural Crime – Bush Noir
Garry Disher – ‘Under the Cold Bright Lights’, the Hirsch books, ‘Bitter Wash Road’, ‘Peace’, ‘Consolation’ and ‘The Way It Is Now’
Chris Hammer – ‘Scrublands’, ‘Treasure & Dirt’
Christian White (though it’s set mostly in the USA) ‘The Nowhere Child’, ‘Wild Place’
Mark Brandi – ‘Wimmera’
Jane Harper – ‘The Dry’
Dervla McTiernan – ‘The Good Turn’
Peter Temple – ‘In the Evil Day’ – ‘The Broken Shore’, ‘Truth’, ‘Bad Debts’
Adrian McKinty – ‘Falling Glass’ All the Sean Duffy books ‘The Cold, Cold Ground’, ‘Rain Dogs’, ‘Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly…’ ‘The Chain’
Michael Robotham – ‘Life or Death’, ‘Good Girl, Bad Girl’, ‘Lying Beside You’.
Margaret Hickey – ‘Cutters End’
Hayley Scrivenor – ‘Dirt Town’
Malla Nunn – ‘A Beautiful Place to Die’ *set in South Africa
Scandi-Noir
Henning Mankell – ‘The Man who Smiled’, ‘The Man from Beijing’, ‘The Troubled Man’
Stieg Larsson – ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’
Peter Hoeg – ‘Smilla’s Feeling for Snow’
Jo Nesbo – ‘The Snowman’, ‘Redbreast’, ‘Knife’
Hakan Nesser – ‘The Unlucky Lottery’
Arnaldur Indridasun – ‘Jar City’
USA Crime Fiction
James Lee Burke – ‘The Tin Roof Blowdown’, ‘Rain Gods’, ‘Heartwood’, ‘Sunset Limited’ and many, many more
James Ellroy – ‘LA Confidential’, ‘The Big Nowhere’, ‘The Black Dahlia’
Carl Hiaasen – ‘Stormy Weather’
Elmore Leonard – ‘Get Shorty’, ‘Fire in the Hole’, ‘Rum Punch’, ‘Maximum Bob’
Cormac McCarthy – ‘No Country for Old Men’
David Goodis – ‘Shoot the Piano Player’
Jim Thompson – ‘The Grifters’, ‘The Killer Inside Me’
Patricia Highsmith – ‘Strangers on a Train’, ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’, ‘Ripley’s Game’
Dennis Lehane – ‘The Drop’
South African Crime Fiction
Dion Meyer – ‘Blood Safari’
Natalie Conyer – ‘Present Tense’
UK Crime
Kate Atkinson – ‘Case Histories’, ‘When Will There be Good News?’, ‘Started Early, Took my Dog’ and all the Jackson Brodie crime books.
PD James – ‘An Unsuitable Job For a Woman’, ‘The Murder Room’
Ruth Rendell – ‘Portobello’ , ‘The Rottweiler’ as Barbara Vine ‘Grasshopper’
Tana French – ‘The Trespasser’, ‘The Secret Place’
Ian Rankin – ‘The Falls’, ‘The Naming of the Dead’
Val McDermid – ‘1979’
Peter Robinson – ‘Gallows View’
When he’s not writing, editing or in lockdown, Greg fronts two bands on guitar and vocals, with sounds on-theme for a murder mystery.
Goodnight Moon
The Cheating Hearts Band
Greg Woodland vocals and acoustic guitar, Peter Adams electric guitars, Jim Allison bass, Nick Fadeev drums
Video produced by Michael Palmer
Where They Never Know Your Name
The Cheating Hearts Band
Greg Woodland vocals and acoustic guitar, Peter Adams electric guitars, Jim Allison bass, Nick Fadeev drums
Video produced by Michael Palmer
Who’s Been Talking
The Band of Misfits
Greg Woodland vocals, acoustic guitar, Michael Palmer electric guitar, bass, drums, blues harp, producer Michael Palmer
Video produced by Michael Palmer
