Dave Warner's Blog, page 9
October 7, 2020
September 25, 2020
REVIEWS FOR MY BOOKS
I don’t generally like sticking reviews up on my site even though I am lucky they are normally good. But when a reader takes the trouble to write to me then I think it’s worth sharing. Here is an email I got from Liz West recently.
`Hello Dave.”Exxxpresso” I read this book about 10 years ago. I loved it!It went straight into my “read again” shelf.
Well, sitting here in lockdown I have been reading through the “read again” shelf – and drinking too much coffee!I think I laughed even more the second time around – especially so after actually having driven from Perth to Kalgoorlie in the intervening period of time.
Great book. Thank you for the laugh.
Regards. LIZ.
Exxxpresso is available from Amazon in paperback
It is also available on Apple Books
And on Kindle
As for my Ned Kelly shortlisted River of Salt I was pleased to see that an American George Easter was intending to review as follows.
RIVER OF SALT
by Dave Warner
Fremantle Press, $19.95, 2019
Kindle Edition, $9.99
Rating: A-
I was impressed to read this Australian crime novel by three
things: 1. the author has won the Ned Kelly Award (for BEFORE IT BREAKS)
and I had never read any of his prior novels; 2. a glowing review by
Jeff Popple on his blog, and; 3. an intriguing plot: Blake Saunders is a
young hit man for the Philadelphia mob, who is running for his life from
his bosses. He makes his way to a remote area of Australia, where he
builds a successful life – even though haunted by ghosts from his past.
Events conspire against Blake and he has to resort to skills he hoped
had been firmly put to bed. He also becomes an amateur detective to
save a friend who is falsely accused of a murder. And of course Blake is
not shy about breaking the law to find the killer. There are a number
of surprises that crop up along the way to that goal.
RIVER OF SALT more than lived up to its promise and I found myself
totally immersed in its plot and the lives of its well-defined
characters. Now I have another author to add to my growing list of
admirable Australian crime writers to read. Reader warning: there is a
depiction of a pornographic film in detail that you may want to skip,
which is easy to do.
Published 2019 and shortlisted for Ned Kelly for Best Australian Crime Writing.Order on Booktopia
Out Now!Re Over My Dead Body I’ve seen several reader reviews and they have been excellent but I generally avoid reviews for months. I’m afraid that I found after Rolling Stone gave a bad review to my album This Is My Planet (forty years ago) I got angry and down about it. I was, and remain very proud of the album and the reviewer – who I recall well but won’t mention, was the ultimate poseur. I was especially pissed off that he accused Car Park of ripping off the riff of Summertime Blues, when in fact Bob Searles my guitarist had worked hard to find a riff that evoked Summertime Blues without it being the same. The whole idea of the album was that it should be a back to basics, rock-rockabilly style album in direct contrast to the synth sounds and slick vocals that were dominating the airwaves.
And so I tip-toe around media reviews hoping I don’t tread on glass BUT I LOVE LOVE it when a fan – listener or reader takes the trouble to contact me.
Here’s just one review I got from a reader I’ve never met who got a copy from Better Reading. And no – this wasn’t the best or highest star review (it was 4 stars)
Karen rated it really liked it Wow. What a fun ride this book has been. I love a bit of Sherlock Holmes and this was great. Putting him into modern day and seeing him deal with all the challenges of life in the 21st century was fascinating. He handled it far better than I would have imagined. That is perhaps the only shortcoming of this book – even setting aside a belief in reality, it’s a stretch to some of the events. None of that spoils the fun though. An original, enjoyable read.
September 19, 2020
SHERLOCK RETURNS!
Out soon!
OVER MY DEAD BODY
My tenth novel is out September 29 2020Dr Georgette Watson is frustrated. Her ground-breaking cryonics research has hit a brick wall. She has demonstrated that she can `bring back from the dead’ hamsters snap frozen for up to a month. Now she wants the chance to work with a human subject. That’s why she became interested in this discipline in the first place, to save the lives of people who seemed to have drowned or frozen to death. It’s personal with Georgette. When she was a teenager she plunged through ice on a frozen river and was dead for fourteen minutes before being revived. She never would have survived except for the efforts of her father, an NYPD cop. Now, twenty years on Georgette is a sometime consultant for the NYPD as a specialist in establishing time of death and this helps her make a living while she continues her research. Love hasn’t been too kind to Georgette either, she’s single and gun-shy after the latest relationship debacle.
When Georgette gets her hands on the journals of her great-great-grandfather John Watson she is suddenly given new hope. The journals reveal that back in 1891 John Watson lost a dear friend, frozen and drowned in a Swiss lake. He secretly kept the body frozen in a cavern and used all the smartest brains of the era to revive his dear friend but by the 1920s he had to give up. The body however, might have remained in situ this whole time speculates Georgette who travels to Switzerland, locates the anonymous friend’s body and brings it into New York City to her lab.
To her own amazement, Georgette revives the man who has lain inert for one hundred and thirty years. But that’s only half the shock. John Watson’s friend is a very special person.
The world’s most famous detective is now the world’s most famous living detective.
The body of a female jogger turns up on Roosevelt Island and Dr Georgette Watson is called upon to help the NYPD establish T.O.D. In the background, Queens where Georgette grew up.Back around 2000 I was writing a string of whodunnit novels featuring Andrew `The Lizard’ Zirk, a prematurely retired rock musician, who was aided and abetted by his chauffeur Fleur. While working up a pitch for a screenplay with these two I wrote something like `They are a modern-day Holmes and Watson, with a hint of URST between the two.’ As soon as I wrote it my brain pinged.
Lizard and Fleur were fun, but how fabulous if I could have Sherlock Holmes with a female Watson solving crime in NYC in the contemporary world (then 2001). And so, charged with this great idea I set out to write a film script that did just that. I did the first draft but thought maybe I should try it as a TV series. When I travelled to Los Angeles in 2005 and 2006 I pitched it a couple of times along with my other screenplays but never heard back from anybody. I was busy with other stuff but around 2010 I decided it was a project I had to do and set about making a concerted effort to get the film produced, only to discover not much later that among the plethora of Sherlock Holmes stories for film and TV was one featuring a female Watson, set in NYC in the current day. I was devastated and sulked for another five years before deciding that mine, now titled OVER MY DEAD BODY was different to all these others and just too good a story to pass up.
When I was about twelve my grandparents gave me a book, a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I read them avidly. Of course, there will be some who will not like me coming within a bull’s roar of this most famous of detectives created by Arthur Conan Doyle but that doesn’t discourage me.
Over My Dead Body is a crime novel but it also seeks to explore our humanity. I note every day how much the world around me has changed, really in just the last fifteen years. To those like me born in the 1950s or before, some things are almost unrecognisable.
So, why not let me try and imagine Sherlock Holmes in this situation and explore the notions of love and death at the same time as laying down a wicked crime for him to solve. One of the climaxes takes place here.
Very grateful to these two gentlemen Chris McMullen of the 79 in Brooklyn and George Pabon of the 73 who gave me genuine feedback on some NYPD protocol. Photo Brooklyn Bridge December 2020 pre the plague.
The famous @TheMysteriousBookshop in Warren St NYC where the revived Sherlock picks up an omnibus collection of Sherlock Holmes stories.
The novel begins with ice and it is only fitting that it concludes with ice. I wrote on spec an ending that took place in Central Park and was overjoyed to see that my imagination was actually supported in the real world.
Georgette lives uptown around Washington Heights.
More uptown vista.
Thanksgiving and ice for Holmes and Watson
Our friend Chris who was extremely generous with his time and help in giving me some New York and U.S. intel.Over My Dead Body is out end of September.
I would be grateful and honoured if you would give it a read. Order from your local bookstore, or a fabulous Australian institution like Abbey’s Books or grab it from Amazon, Booktopia, Bookbub, Apple Books and Kindle.
Or borrow it sometime from that most amazing institution: your local library.
OVER MY DEAD BODYOut soon!My tenth novel is out September...
Out soon!
My tenth novel is out September 29 2020Dr Georgette Watson is frustrated. Her ground-breaking cryonics research has hit a brick wall. She has demonstrated that she can `bring back from the dead’ hamsters snap frozen for up to a month. Now she wants the chance to work with a human subject. That’s why she became interested in this discipline in the first place, to save the lives of people who seemed to have drowned or frozen to death. It’s personal with Georgette. When she was a teenager she plunged through ice on a frozen river and was dead for fourteen minutes before being revived. She never would have survived except for the efforts of her father, an NYPD cop. Now, twenty years on Georgette is a sometime consultant for the NYPD as a specialist in establishing time of death and this helps her make a living while she continues her research. Love hasn’t been too kind to Georgette either, she’s single and gun-shy after the latest relationship debacle.
When Georgette gets her hands on the journals of her great-great-grandfather John Watson she is suddenly given new hope. The journals reveal that back in 1891 John Watson lost a dear friend, frozen and drowned in a Swiss lake. He secretly kept the body frozen in a cavern and used all the smartest brains of the era to revive his dear friend but by the 1920s he had to give up. The body however, might have remained in situ this whole time speculates Georgette who travels to Switzerland, locates the anonymous friend’s body and brings it into New York City to her lab.
To her own amazement, Georgette revives the man who has lain inert for one hundred and thirty years. But that’s only half the shock. John Watson’s friend is a very special person.
The world’s most famous detective is now the world’s most famous living detective.
The body of a female jogger turns up on Roosevelt Island and Dr Georgette Watson is called upon to help the NYPD establish T.O.D. In the background, Queens where Georgette grew up.Back around 2000 I was writing a string of whodunnit novels featuring Andrew `The Lizard’ Zirk, a prematurely retired rock musician, who was aided and abetted by his chauffeur Fleur. While working up a pitch for a screenplay with these two I wrote something like `They are a modern-day Holmes and Watson, with a hint of URST between the two.’ As soon as I wrote it my brain pinged.
Lizard and Fleur were fun, but how fabulous if I could have Sherlock Holmes with a female Watson solving crime in NYC in the contemporary world (then 2001). And so, charged with this great idea I set out to write a film script that did just that. I did the first draft but thought maybe I should try it as a TV series. When I travelled to Los Angeles in 2005 and 2006 I pitched it a couple of times along with my other screenplays but never heard back from anybody. I was busy with other stuff but around 2010 I decided it was a project I had to do and set about making a concerted effort to get the film produced, only to discover not much later that among the plethora of Sherlock Holmes stories for film and TV was one featuring a female Watson, set in NYC in the current day. I was devastated and sulked for another five years before deciding that mine, now titled OVER MY DEAD BODY was different to all these others and just too good a story to pass up.
When I was about twelve my grandparents gave me a book, a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. I read them avidly. Of course, there will be some who will not like me coming within a bull’s roar of this most famous of detectives created by Arthur Conan Doyle but that doesn’t discourage me.
Over My Dead Body is a crime novel but it also seeks to explore our humanity. I note every day how much the world around me has changed, really in just the last fifteen years. To those like me born in the 1950s or before, some things are almost unrecognisable.
So, why not let me try and imagine Sherlock Holmes in this situation and explore the notions of love and death at the same time as laying down a wicked crime for him to solve. One of the climaxes takes place here.
Very grateful to these two gentlemen Chris McMullen of the 79 in Brooklyn and George Pabon of the 73 who gave me genuine feedback on some NYPD protocol. Photo Brooklyn Bridge December 2020 pre the plague.The famous @TheMysteriousBookshop in Warren St NYC where the revived Sherlock picks up an omnibus collection of Sherlock Holmes stories.The novel begins with ice and it is only fitting that it concludes with ice. I wrote on spec an ending that took place in Central Park and was overjoyed to see that my imagination was actually supported in the real world.Georgette lives uptown around Washington Heights.More uptown vista.Thanksgiving and ice for Holmes and WatsonOur friend Chris who was extremely generous with his time and help in giving me some New York and U.S. intel.Over My Dead Body is out end of September.
I would be grateful and honoured if you would give it a read. Order from your local bookstore, or a fabulous Australian institution like Abbey’s Books or grab it from Amazon, Booktopia, Bookbub, Apple Books and Kindle.
Or borrow it sometime from that most amazing institution: your local library.
September 5, 2020
NED KELLY CATCHES A BREAK
It was terrific news to learn that my novel of last year RIVER OF SALT had been shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for best Australian Crime Fiction. When I first started writing crime fiction back in about 1992, starting on City of Light, there was only really Peter Corris blazing a trail in the wilderness. The award was instituted in the year of City of Light’s publication but it wasn’t nominated for a Neddy, although it did go on to win the WA Premier’s Award for best Fiction. Then in 2016 I was rapt to actually be nominated and win the Ned Kelly for Before It Breaks, my return to writing books after more than a decade of screen writing.
Listen to the song I wrote for the scene on p 33 No Good Can Come From This https://spoti.fi/3bsjMNjBut this is particularly exciting because the number and quality of Australian crime fiction novels out there is astounding. I really loved writing River of Salt as it allowed me to journey back to those precious years when I was about ten and the world around me was so clear and distinct. Enamored of the TV series Mad Men and creator Matthew Weiner’s idea of an ensemble series with each episode almost its own short story with a unifying theme, I set about writing a story that would give each of the book’s major characters their turn in the bright Australian sun. While the main through line relates to former Philadelphia hit-man Blake Saunders’ mission to preserve his small piece of Eden by discovering who brutally murdered a young woman, many of the chapters are almost stand-alones. Anyway, it was very satisfying to write and I think it’s one of my best novels. Surf noire!
Vastly different is the new one Over My Dead Body where I turned a 2003 screenplay of mine into a novel. The idea that inspired me was the thought of bringing Sherlock Holmes into the present day and pairing him with a female Watson. I wanted to explore Holmes’ humanity at the same time as he seeks to solve a modern day crime. I had planned originally for it to be the pilot of a TV series but trying to get such high concept ideas up out of Australia is a waste of time. When I saw a US TV series using part of the same ideas (albeit some years after my original conception) I was devastated. But in the end I decided my idea was different enough and good enough to deserve its own life. Originally set down for release in July 2020 it will come out end of this month (September 2020).
Meantime I’m working on a new Dan Clement novel set in the north-west and also recording an audio autobiography with music:Mugs Game a suburban Odyssey. And each month or so I will be releasing an audio short-story. There are three so far, so check them out. My recommended price is $1.99 but various distributors charge varying prices so shop around if the price looks high. So far the stories are: Artspresso – which features some of the characters from my 2000 novel Exxxpresso (it’s a fun crime heist story), Cabin Pressure, a thriller about a plane hi-jack in progress, and most recently Dead Cert, set in the south-west of Western Australia and introducing the character of Magdalena Wray, solicitor and local stipendiary steward who finds herself embroiled in a murder mystery. I do the narration and the talented Tony Cooper adds sound fx, music and high quality production.
Finally, I am able to reveal that I have been working on a biography of Indigenous AFL player Marlion Pickett. It is an amazing story of redemption and will be out with Simon and Schuster later in the year. Marlion has really turned his life around and his story will inspire you.
Stay well and safe, happy reading, dancing, couch-hugging.
June 22, 2020
BALLBURSTER out now!
An album of 50 AFL footy songs by Martin Cilia and me, Ballburster is now available for download and streaming on all services.
50 AFL Footy Songs, stream on Apple, Spotify and most everywhere.There are tracks for every AFL Club. Not all the songs are fan-only songs. There are lots about various champions of the past that I reckon all fans will at least get a smirk out of. Spotify link – https://spoti.fi/3fIWpBy
Artwork by the fabulous Steve Panozzo. Track listing –
CONIGLIO, ARCHER NUMBER ONE DAVID KING NUMBER TWO
BIZZELL BIZELL, BURNSY LOVES WORK
CRAWFORD THE WORKER, JOSH FRANCOU
BEN GRAHAM’S SO COOL, JARMAN THE SHAMAN
JUSTIN LEPPITSCH, ASHLEY McINTOSH, I LOVE McLEOD
WHEN KOUTOUFIDES FLIES, WHERE IS JACKIE MIOCHEK
RICHO, ROOS ROOS ROOS, VOSS IS THE BOSS
GAVIN WANGANEEN, WEST IS THE BEST
GO WOEWODIN, ROBERT HARVEY – JUST A ST KILDA BOY
ADELAIDE ADELAIDE, HERE COMES THE BLUES,
THERE IS ONLY EVER CARLTON, STILL THE MAGPIES PLAY ON
CHEERING IN CARRINGBUSH, DEMON DEMON I LOVE YOU
MIGHTY DEMONS, BOMBERS BELIEVE BELIEVE
ESSENDON PRIMO UNO NUMBER ONE
FREMANTLE IS THE HEART AND SOUL OF FOOTBALL
WE ARE THE DOCKERS, EAGLES AND DOCKERS
GEELONG GEELONG, VERY COOL CATS, GOLD COAST SUNS
BROWN AND GOLD, HAWTHORN TAKE ME HIGHER
KANGAROO HOP, A LOT’S CHANGED DOWN ARDEN ST WAY
WE ARE THE LIONS, PORT: LET US ELECTRIFY YOU
TIGER TIGER, YELLOW AND BLACK DANCE
CHEER CHEER DANCE MIX 1, CHEER CHEER DANCE MIX 2
FLY EAGLE FLY, WE LOVE ST KILDA, BULLDOG BULLDOG
BULLDOG BORN, RED, WHITE & BLACK
April 21, 2020
My Brian Wilson Tribute
The early Beach Boys songs I heard I sort of liked and was irritated by at the same time. There was some “fun” in the likes of Fun Fun Fun and I Get Around but when you heard them with those high harmonies played constantly through the speakers of a tinny transistor they grated – especially when you considered yourself a super-cool 14 year old into The Mothers and Doors and Country Joe. Good Vibrations of course was just sensational, counter culture hip and pop at the same time. Heroes and Villains was cool too. But then in 1971 I read a Melody Maker article by Richard Williams in which he hailed Pet Sounds as a masterpiece. As I respected RW immensely I asked my mum to bring back a copy on her next trip to Bali where records were super cheap. She came back with a bunch. I don’t remember too many of the others, maybe Mathews Southern Comfort and the Fairports but really, one record was all I needed. Wow. It was such a beautiful album. Surfs Up was next with some standouts. From then on Brian Wilson’s songwriting has been an inspiration to me. I’ve written a couple of songs especially, just to say `thanks for your music’. Brian’s Song was written late 70s and California Nights late 80s when he wasn’t doing so well and we all thought we’d never see him again, and maybe never hear from him again. Thank God we have. His State Theatre (Sydney) concert in his comeback tour was the most emotionally intense and joyous I have ever been to. He missed notes, he re-started songs but it only enhanced the experience. Anyway, following in that tradition too here’s a rough version of Brian’s Song. With lyrics following. https://youtu.be/xkRys9FgxeI
BRIAN’S SONG (dave warner)
I didn’t love you first off but gradually I sort of
Realized how nobody else could ever move me like you
I am a coast man – I understand more than most men
Woodies and bunnies and hot clear days
Driving down the coast there’s something about the sun
Good friends a coke, window down and the radio on
Summer is healing, summer is cure
Summer is special and summer is those songs of yours
Brian you talk to me (Brian you talk to me)
Even though I’m half-a-world away
Still your music talks to me
In its very special sort of way
When I’m alone at night (when I’m alone at night)
When the swimming pool is glistening blue
Still your music talks to me
Helps me in things I’m going through
Driving down the coast there’s something about the sun
Good friends a coke window down and radio on
Summer is healing summer is cure
Summer is special and summer is those songs of yours
Brian you talk to me (Brian you talk to me)
Even though I’m half-a-world away
Still your music talks to me
In its very special sort of way
When I’m alone at night (when I’m alone at night)
When the swimming pool is glistening blue
Still your music talks to me
Helps me in things I’m going through
March 11, 2020
ARTSPRESSO – DAVE GOES AUDIO
Given how much people seem to enjoy audio-books and podcasts and how reluctant publishers are to publish short-stories, I thought I would try a brand new idea: each month or so I am going to publish an audio short-story, narrated by myself, that you will be able to download from a bunch of sites for less than a slice of cake. So you can have your coffee and a bit of Warner on the side and keep your weight down. See, healthy too. It is appropriate I mention coffee because my first venture into this new format is ‘Artspresso’ a thirty-minute story that reprises characters Rick Boski and Goose Gordon from my 2000 novel ‘Exxxpresso’.
Available as an E-Book on Amazon Kindle and I books`Artspresso’ picks up Rick and Goose twenty years down the track where we left them. Both are now successful in their own way and have escaped their small-time criminal past. Or at least, had escaped it. A couple of bikers who were jailbirds with them have put the hard word on Goose to help them steal a valuable painting from a private home. Goose turns to Rick for help and Rick comes up with a plan that sounds sensible. But of course the best laid plans of mice and men …
`Artspresso’ is available through a number of e-distributors but the price varies. Google Play has it on offer for a couple of bucks. You can find here.
Tony Copper produced it for me and the story is light crime, a bit of fun in the style of Carl Hiaasen. It goes for 30 minutes.
Later this month I will be releasing my second audio-story `Cabin Pressure.’
This is more of a thriller. So stay tuned. Happy listening and reading.
Next Short Story – there’s a bomb on a plane and fifteen minutes to find it.By the way, if you would like to download `Exxxpresso’ that 2000 novel you can find it here.
December 9, 2019
Reflection on Andrew `Greedy’ Smith.
I first met Greedy in 1978 at the Civic Hotel. Mentals
were supporting us and I was trying to get set-up but all this garrulous guy
wanted to do was compare the size and capability of our organs, mine Tiesco,
his Farfisa.
We connected instantly.
The guitarists were the sex magnets of a band, strutting around with
their phallic symbols. Greedy and I
were Billy Bunters stuck behind the shop counter, the guys who played third
eighteen and got sent to long on in the hope that nobody would be able to hit a
ball that far because we‘d likely drop it.
It wasn’t unusual for Greedy and I to be mistaken for one another –
well, for me to be mistaken for Greedy, anyway. One time I had this
particularly long conversation with a young woman who was complimenting me on
my songs and performance – I should have smelled a rat immediately because
women didn’t tend to like Girls Wank and Hot Crotch all that much – but I was
basking in her admiration until she started to ask about Martin and Reg and how
were they doing. Only then the penny dropped. I never told her who was who.
Tony Durant and Greedy 2016 Fundraiser for bushfire victims. WACA.The Mentals and Suburbs got on really well and we would
tour the Hume Highway often passing one another in some glamourous location
like Holbrook, or sharing cheap beds at Macy’s Hotel. Separate beds.
I took a break from touring for about ten years. My first
trip back on the Hume Highway, who did I see passing the other way but the
Mentals. They hadn’t stopped. I doubt
anybody in the world has played more gigs than Greedy over these last forty-two
years. I mean that.
Fremantle 2017Of course, I can’t believe he’s gone, and it’s only the
fact it’s free entry here today that convinces me he wasn’t just boosting
numbers.
People sometimes ask me what’s the best gig you’ve been
to: and Brian Wilson and Elton John are up there, but so is the night 6 of us
crammed into Rod Gillett’s blue Zephyr and went to the Revesby Workers Club to
watch Mentals play hit after hit. It was
staggering just how successful they had been. I thought it was hard getting one
it. They had about nineteen.
Never was anybody less appropriately named than `Greedy’. He should have been named `Generous’ because
that’s what he was. He always gave. On my last album WHEN, he started off doing
backing vocals, then added harmonica, and even did some art for the track Lonely
Sailor.
Greedy’s art for Lonely Sailor.Serious critics of art, including popular music, always sing
the praises of the angst ridden, layered metaphoric artist, and elevate them
ahead of seemingly lighter material. But the truth is that it’s often the
modest, incidental, delicate and seemingly trivial that offer the greatest
insights and truths into our humanity.
It’s just as difficult, maybe more difficult, to make somebody laugh as
to make them cry. This is where the Mentals excel.
Greedy was without peer in making us feel good, about
ourselves and each other. That is the rarest gift of all. That is true genius. His most famous song, Live It Up, is
fundamentally about trust. About how even though we’re vulnerable, we need to
trust someone they can make our lives better.
Greedy, Nicole and me Perth 2017. Greedy and I favoured similar wardrobe.Everybody here today trusted Greedy to make us feel
better. And he never once let us down.
