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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Under close guard, Aaron Shoemaker was sent to Australia to search for commercial mineral deposits, but no one predicted what his discoveries would unleash. He was used to the secrecy and threats of industrial espionage, but was totally unprepared for Aboriginal spirits and traditions. Two elders watch Shoemaker's helicopter land near their sacred sites and turn to their trusted advocate, Jarra Mariba, for help. Jarra understood commercial ploys, but how would he cope with murders, political manoeuvring and mercenaries. As the body count rises, they all wonder if the Lightning Mine will go ahead-and at what cost?' Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
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Dedication: To Roslyn.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Aboriginal Jurisprudence in Philip Mclaren's Lightning Mine
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Mabo’s Cultural Legacy : History, Literature, Film and Cultural Practice in Contemporary Australia 2021; -
Philip McLaren and the Indigenous-Australian Crime Novel
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 20 2016; (p. 22-37) 'This paper locates the postcolonial crime novel as a space for disenfranchised groups to write back to the marginalisation inherent in the process of colonisation, and explores the example of Australia. From its inception in the mid-19th century, Australian crime fiction reflected upon the challenging harshness and otherness of the Australian experience for the free and convict settler, expelled from the metropole. It created a series of popular subgenres derived from the convict narrative proper, while more ‘standard’ modes of crime fiction, popularised in and through British and American crime fiction, were late to develop. Whereas Australian crime fiction has given expression to the white experience of the continent in manifold ways, up until recently it made no room for Indigenous voices – with the exception of the classic Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte series written by the prolific Arthur Upfield in the first half of the 20th century. For the longest time, this absence reflected the dispossession, dispersal and disenfranchisement of the colonised Indigenous peoples at large; there were neither Aboriginal voices nor Aboriginal authors, which made the textual space of the Australian crime novel a discursive terra nullius. This paper will look at the only Indigenous-Australian author to date with a substantial body of work in crime fiction, Philip McLaren, and elucidate how his four crime novels break new ground in Australian crime fiction by embedding themselves within a political framework of Aboriginal resilience and resistance to neo/colonialism. Written as of the 1990s, McLaren’s oeuvre is eclectic in that it does not respond to traditional formats of Australian crime fiction, shifts between generic subtypes and makes incursions into other genres. The paper concludes that McLaren’s oeuvre has not been conceived of as the work of a crime writer per se, but rather that its form and content are deeply informed by the racist violence and oppression that still affects Indigenous-Australian society today, the expression of which the crime novel is particularly well geared to.' (Publication abstract) -
A Private Eye for Life's Detail
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 26 June 1999; (p. 10)
— Review of The Dragon Man 1999 single work novel ; Dry Dock 1999 single work novel ; Lightning Mine 1999 single work novel ; The Chalon Heads 1999 single work novel -
Where the Big Boys Don't Take Prisoners
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-30 May 1999; (p. 14)
— Review of Cat Catcher 1999 single work novel ; Lightning Mine 1999 single work novel ; Black Tide 1999 single work novel
-
Where the Big Boys Don't Take Prisoners
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 29-30 May 1999; (p. 14)
— Review of Cat Catcher 1999 single work novel ; Lightning Mine 1999 single work novel ; Black Tide 1999 single work novel -
A Private Eye for Life's Detail
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 26 June 1999; (p. 10)
— Review of The Dragon Man 1999 single work novel ; Dry Dock 1999 single work novel ; Lightning Mine 1999 single work novel ; The Chalon Heads 1999 single work novel -
Philip McLaren and the Indigenous-Australian Crime Novel
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Coolabah , no. 20 2016; (p. 22-37) 'This paper locates the postcolonial crime novel as a space for disenfranchised groups to write back to the marginalisation inherent in the process of colonisation, and explores the example of Australia. From its inception in the mid-19th century, Australian crime fiction reflected upon the challenging harshness and otherness of the Australian experience for the free and convict settler, expelled from the metropole. It created a series of popular subgenres derived from the convict narrative proper, while more ‘standard’ modes of crime fiction, popularised in and through British and American crime fiction, were late to develop. Whereas Australian crime fiction has given expression to the white experience of the continent in manifold ways, up until recently it made no room for Indigenous voices – with the exception of the classic Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte series written by the prolific Arthur Upfield in the first half of the 20th century. For the longest time, this absence reflected the dispossession, dispersal and disenfranchisement of the colonised Indigenous peoples at large; there were neither Aboriginal voices nor Aboriginal authors, which made the textual space of the Australian crime novel a discursive terra nullius. This paper will look at the only Indigenous-Australian author to date with a substantial body of work in crime fiction, Philip McLaren, and elucidate how his four crime novels break new ground in Australian crime fiction by embedding themselves within a political framework of Aboriginal resilience and resistance to neo/colonialism. Written as of the 1990s, McLaren’s oeuvre is eclectic in that it does not respond to traditional formats of Australian crime fiction, shifts between generic subtypes and makes incursions into other genres. The paper concludes that McLaren’s oeuvre has not been conceived of as the work of a crime writer per se, but rather that its form and content are deeply informed by the racist violence and oppression that still affects Indigenous-Australian society today, the expression of which the crime novel is particularly well geared to.' (Publication abstract) -
Aboriginal Jurisprudence in Philip Mclaren's Lightning Mine
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Mabo’s Cultural Legacy : History, Literature, Film and Cultural Practice in Contemporary Australia 2021;
Last amended 10 Oct 2016 12:36:02
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