Brett Evans

And then I was thinking about this.

You could even go back to the 70s, even Elmore Leonard, who wrote Mr. Majestic, which is about a very angry watermelon farmer who gets involved with the mob because they're trying to force upon him certain labour.

people to work for him, which he doesn't want.

And the mob, it turns out, bites off more than it can chew because, of course, he is a Vietnam veteran and he begins to fight back.

It's Midsomer Murders in the Bush.

Yeah.

I mean, it works as a storytelling device, which you have a place with a limited number of people who you know are all interreacting.

You don't have to invent their interactions.

Well, the patented Evans method is the first paragraph.

So if you buy a book of short stories, a good way I find is you flick through and you read the first paragraph of all of the stories.

And if they kind of work, if they kind of make you want to read on, then you've probably picked up a good book to read of short stories.

But a novel you might give a bit more time to, but a short story is something they've got to grab you really quick.

And in the book that I've been reading, the Robert Drew book, he's a bit of an expert at that, I think.

Yeah, I wouldn't say I read all of his books.

I think he wrote maybe 30 books, novels, collections of stories.

Well, maybe Cliff Hardy, which is his famous detective.

So I don't think I've read them all and certainly haven't.

But yeah, no, he was an institution, really.

I mean, every year, pretty much through the 80s and 90s, you'd walk into a bookshop and there on the table with the new releases would be the latest Cliff Hardy.

And in Sydney, it was as regular as the jacarandas blooming or the first cicada.