Rural Australia: A Perfect Setting For Crime Fiction

The recent exodus from cities to regional areas across the globe since Covid-19 has been well documented. The trend has been apparent for some years in the settings for crime writers. From detective novels to mafia feuds to legal thrillers there has been a movement away from the big-city settings that once characterised the crime genre. 'Rural fiction' has risen from the mangrove swamps, dry deserts and gritty suburbs of small towns across the country. My first novel ‘Murder and Redemption’ (2012) set in Geraldton and the port towns of WA was early in the movement. I have spent much of my life in small coastal towns and there is no shortage of stories.

Rural Australia provides thrilling literary settings awash with ghosts from our past, and stories that will entertain generations to come, and a smorgasbord of interesting characters in tight-knit communities surviving the challenges of life in a small town. I am just finishing my latest novel, The Seduction Of Sunni Sincclair, set in a North Coast mining town where I worked as a 20-year-old. The local pubs, local politics, history and gossip, all add to the suspense of this true-to-life Australian crime story.

The setting creates atmosphere and tension and the constraints of a small community promotes a roller-coaster of emotion. Rural Australia is indeed, a perfect setting for crime fiction.