Contrappasso contributors: Peter Doyle

No, that’s not a mugshot of Australian writer Peter Doyle – they haven’t caught him yet. It’s a still from his most recent book of historic Sydney police photographs, Crooks Like Us (Historic Houses Trust, 2009).

Man of a thousand talents, Peter Doyle is also a crime novelist. His three Billy Glasheen novels – Get Rich Quick (1996), Amaze Your Friends (1998), and The Devil’s Jump (2001) – scope out Sydney’s postwar underworld with dead-accurate period lingo and mean street attitude. It’s the straight dope on the Menzies era brought to life through the shenanigans of hopped-up rock n’ rollers, wild bodgies, pill-popping con artists, and sintime beatniks. The Glasheen trilogy is some of the best Australian historical fiction on the shelves.

Contrappasso is thrilled to present another installment of the Glasheen saga, ‘Cold War, Hot Dogs’, in issue #1. The story will appear here at the website tomorrow.

But first, check out writer Fiona McGregor’s recent career appraisal of Doyle, Peter Doyle’s Sydney: Crooks Like Us.

And this video: