Double celebrations and the Dandenong Ranges: an interview with Sandi Wallace

Kia ora and haere mai, welcome to the latest weekly instalment of our 9mm interview series for 2021. This author interview series has now been running for over a decade, and today marks the 222nd overall edition. 

Thanks for reading over the years. I've had tonnes of fun chatting to some amazing writers and bringing their thoughts and stories to you. 

My plan is to to publish 40-50 new author interviews in the 9mm series this year. You can check out the full list of of past interviewees here. Some amazing writers.

If you've got a favourite crime writer who hasn't yet been featured, let me know in the comments or by sending me a message, and I'll look to make that happen for you. Even as things with this blog may evolve moving forward, I'll continue to interview crime writers and review crime novels.

Today I'm very pleased to welcome award-winning Australian crime writer Sandi Wallace to Crime Watch. Sandi became addicted to crime fiction in film and print and started dreaming of being a crime writer at an early age. Her winding path or 'writer’s apprenticeship' towards that dream included stints as banker, paralegal, cabinetmaker, office manager, executive assistant, personal trainer and journalist. She says if she hadn’t turned to writing, she would have been a police detective.

Sandi had already won awards for her crime short stories before her debut crime novel, TELL ME WHY was published. Set in rural Victoria, that book introduced the duo of Melbourne writer Georgie Harvey and rural cop and solo dad John Franklin and went on to win a Davitt Award. There are now four novels in the series (the latest of which is BLACK CLOUD) and Sandi has also published two short story collections. She is currently at work on a psychological thriller. 

But for now, Sandi Wallace becomes the latest crime writer to stare down the barrel of 9mm. 

9MM INTERVIEW WITH SANDI WALLACE

1. Who is your favorite recurring crime fiction hero/detective?

Hmm… I devour many crime fiction series, and a good number of them have me grabbing a copy of the latest instalment as soon as it publishes. I am also reading new (or new-to-me) authors regularly, adding even more to that list. That makes it difficult to single out just one. So, I’ll nominate the protagonist from my latest read, THE REACH, the third book in the Taylor Bridges series by B. Michael Radburn. 

Taylor is an Australian parks ranger with a tragic past that has landed him a reputation with police as a useful consultant in tricky cases in the bush environment. In THE REACH, he’s called in to help them investigate three bodies found in the Dharug National Park, near Sydney. Taylor is a deep character who evokes strong empathy, he’s in tune with the environment, determined, sensitive and yet tough, and I always look forward to his stories.

2. What was the very first book you remember reading and really loving, and why?

It would have been when I graduated from Enid Blyton’s lovely old-fashioned adventure stories to her Famous Five series at about the age of five or six – and I reckon that started my addiction to crime and mystery books, particularly those in series. The Famous Five books were exciting, with great young characters and vivid settings. I particularly enjoyed Georgina, a tomboy and adventurist I could relate to. I think she set up my leaning towards strong female characters, and the series made me crave stories with atmospheric location.

3. Before your debut crime novel, what else had you written (if anything) unpublished manuscripts, short stories, articles?

My dream to be a crime writer started at about the same age that I became hooked on reading crime fiction. Granted, it took me a long while to write my first novel and see my debut published, with lots of life to be experienced in the meantime. For me, there’s no unpublished novel languishing in the bottom drawer – TELL ME WHY was the first full-length work I penned and my first published novel, I just kept at it with draft-after-draft until it was ready – but quite a number of my articles and short stories were picked up, and I was also lucky to place in some short-crime contests, in the years beforehand.

4. Outside of writing and writing-related activities (book events, publicity), what do you really like to do, leisure and activity-wise?

Besides writing and reading or watching crime fiction, I love a mix of lively and sloth stuff: fitness and strength training, canoeing, bike riding, gardening, country drives, and cosying up at home with my husband and our dog and cat.

5. What is one thing that visitors to your hometown should do, that isn't in the tourist brochures, or perhaps they wouldn’t initially consider?

We live in the stunning Dandenong Ranges outside of Melbourne, renowned for natural attractions – our national park, reserves and several formal gardens, including the Botanic Garden with its ornamental lake – equally as chocolate-box villages with craft, clothes and antique shops, and loads of decadent eating or boutique accommodation options.

So, I’d say, find somewhere quiet, away from other tourists, and just wander. Gaze up, at the canopy of vast mountain ash and tree ferns and sky beyond, and around you, at the variety of indigenous and exotic trees and shrubs. Listen and look for the birds – you might catch kookaburra laughter, magpies and currawong calls, cheeky lighter tones of colourful parrots, the cacophony of sulphur-crested cockatoos. While you’re at it, inhale the fresh air. Look to the east of the ridge, at the horizon of hills cloaked in a blue eucalyptus haze, and in their foreground, sprawling farmland. Feel the tension dissolve from your muscles. This is why it’s home for us.

6. If your life was a movie, which actor could you see playing you?

Toni Collette. She’s an amazing Australian actor, puts so much into her performances and always seems to be at the top of her game. Toni is able to play a diverse range of (sometimes strange) characters, slipping into their skins with complete believability. I could see her taking on this somewhat strange writer and making me loads cooler.

7. Of your writings, which is your favorite or a bit special to you for some particular reason, and why?

In my latest rural crime thriller, BLACK CLOUD, there is a scene where John Franklin (one of my two protagonists) rides his Kawasaki Ninja to the home of one of his mates, an old colleague from the small police station in the country town of Daylesford. Out of long habit, he pulls up, goes around the back and clomps into the family room after a cursory knock. This time, it’s like normal, yet dead wrong. What comes next always sets a lump in my throat.

8. What was your initial reaction, and how did you celebrate, when you were first accepted for publication? Or when you first saw your debut story in book form on a bookseller’s shelf?

On the night that I won my first Sisters in Crime Australia Scarlet Stiletto Award for a short story called Silk Versus Sierra, the publisher who had the TELL ME WHY manuscript under consideration sidled up to me and said, “I want your book.” It was already a celebration, surrounded by my tribe of crime writers, our partners and friends, and now it was a double celebration. That moment was the first in what I dubbed the Year of Fabulous Firsts.

9. What is the strangest or most unusual experience you have had at a book signing, author event, or literary festival?

At a book signing, an older gent came up. He gave me an odd look. Said with what seemed like disdain and surprise, “What makes a person like you write crime?” As if a woman shouldn’t write something so…so what? Frightening? Ugly? Demanding? Realistic? Complex? Significant? That wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered such attitude, probably won’t be the last, but you know what? I love writing crime.

Thank you Sandi, we appreciate you chatting to Crime Watch. 

You can read more about Sandi Wallace and her writing here, and follow her on Facebook.