Chris Hammer will be in conversation with Michael Brissenden on Chris’s latest book, Treasure and Dirt, an engrossing, standalone, outback noir thriller from the award-winning author of the international bestsellers Scrublands, Silver and Trust.
In the desolate outback town of Finnigans Gap, police struggle to maintain law and order. Thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable young people and billionaires do as they please. Then an opal miner is found crucified and left to rot down his mine. Nothing about the miner’s death is straightforward, not even who found the body. Sydney homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to investigate, assisted by inexperienced young investigator Nell Buchanan.
Chris Hammer was a journalist for more than thirty years, including chief political correspondent for The Bulletin, current affairs correspondent for SBS TV and a senior political journalist for The Age. His crime fiction novels, Scrublands (2018), Silver (2019) and Trust (2020), featuring troubled journalist Martin Scarsden and his partner Mandalay Blonde, which have won multiple awards in Australia and overseas, constitute a powerful, compelling and original trilogy.
Double Walkley award winner, Michael Brissenden has worked in Canberra for many years in various roles From 2017 to 2021 he was a reporter with the ABC’s investigative television documentary program – 4Corners. His debut political crime thriller, The List was published in 2018. His second, Dead Letters, was published in February 2021 featured as the first meet the author event of 2021
Jeff Popple, who reviewed crime fiction for the Canberra Times for many years and is now reviewer for the Canberra Weekly , will give the vote of thanks.