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y separately published work icon Appointment at Amalfi single work   novel   mystery   crime  
Issue Details: First known date: 2003... 2003 Appointment at Amalfi
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A world-famous and wealthy Australian film director, Roderick Lily, lingers on through the unfashionable off-season in beautiful Amalfi near Capri. He has become melancholic. He has left a disquieting mystery behind him in the Gold Coast Studios because he has left his greatest and his final film incomplete. Lily, uncharacteristically, sells an exclusive interview to an illustrated gossip magazine in London for a huge fee. What are his motives? There are scandalous rumours about the bizarre death of his wife on a fashionable Sydney beach decades ago. He now promises that he will reveal the truth about this scandal.

But frustratingly for the young London journo, he first leads her on a tantalizing guessing game through the plots of his major films. He procrastinates, he philosophises. He insists on taking her around historic Herculaneum. In the meantime, the corrupt financiers of Lily’s final film may have hired a hit-man. They will do anything to stop the film being completed and released.

'A near fatal boating accident for Lily and the journo off Sorrento is the trigger for a dramatic crescendo. There is a sudden flashback to the Sydney beach thirty years ago and a horrific scene is re-enacted.

'This is a whodunit with an existential twist in the tail. In the end Callinan creates a drama of illicit love and crippling remorse. Beneath the glittering surface of fame and triumph lurk a fatal error and an unforgiveable sin. There is a justice that is beyond the law and it comes from within.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Epigraph: Women are really much nicer than men: No wonder we like them. : Kinglsy Amis-A Bookshop Idyll

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Fiction Tim Davis , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 19 no. 1 2005; (p. 104-105)

— Review of Appointment at Amalfi Ian Callinan , 2003 single work novel
Crimefile Graeme Blundell , 2004 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 17-18 April 2004; (p. 11)

— Review of The Haha Man Sandy McCutcheon , 2003 single work novel ; Blindside J. R. Carroll , 2004 single work novel ; Appointment at Amalfi Ian Callinan , 2003 single work novel ; Until Death Sandy Curtis , 2004 single work novel
Judge Not the Mystery Kim Sweetman , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 8 November 2003; (p. 7)

— Review of Appointment at Amalfi Ian Callinan , 2003 single work novel
Courting a Career in Whodunits Paul Heinrichs , 2003 single work column
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 2 November 2003; (p. 12)
Judge Not the Mystery Kim Sweetman , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 8 November 2003; (p. 7)

— Review of Appointment at Amalfi Ian Callinan , 2003 single work novel
Crimefile Graeme Blundell , 2004 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 17-18 April 2004; (p. 11)

— Review of The Haha Man Sandy McCutcheon , 2003 single work novel ; Blindside J. R. Carroll , 2004 single work novel ; Appointment at Amalfi Ian Callinan , 2003 single work novel ; Until Death Sandy Curtis , 2004 single work novel
Fiction Tim Davis , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 19 no. 1 2005; (p. 104-105)

— Review of Appointment at Amalfi Ian Callinan , 2003 single work novel
Courting a Career in Whodunits Paul Heinrichs , 2003 single work column
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 2 November 2003; (p. 12)
Last amended 19 Dec 2014 08:33:25
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