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I seriously think it's more likely the UK will become a Republic before Australia!

Exclusive: Chris Hammer, the new master of 'rural noir, on exploring Australia's remote heartlands in his bestselling thrillers, being a ‘pantser, not a plotter'... and why there's no danger Down Under of Aussies ditching the Crown

by Matt Nixson

Luke Arnold, centre, as Martin Scarsden in hit BBC adaptation of Chris Hammer’s Scrublands against b (Image: BBC / Easy Tiger / Getty / AP)

Being a political consultant is a high-risk job. Careers can be short and brutal. But former journalist Chris Hammer might just hold the record for the speediest exit, having spent just three weeks as a special adviser to an upcoming Australian politician.

Happily, a lucrative book and TV contract rather than scandal triggered his departure.

“I quit because I got this wonderful deal and realised it was now or never,” he chuckles. “It was a bit risky but I figured I could make a go of it. My former boss is a reasonably senior minister now and he’s got half the cabinet reading my books!”

Drawing on his experiences as a reporter, Hammer’s debut novel Scrublands – set in a dying, drought-hit town where journalist Martin Scarsden arrives to write about the fatal shooting of five people by their charismatic local priest – subsequently came out in 2018 to critical and commercial acclaim.

It has since been adapted as a four-part drama, currently streaming on BBC iPlayer.

The Aussie crime writer has published six further bestsellers, including his latest, The Broken River, becoming the master of setting.

His multi-layered, inter-generational plots take readers into the heart of rural Australia, exploring the loss of traditional industries like logging and mining, natural calamities such as drought and fire, and, with his political hat, tensions between ‘haves’ – sometimes known as the “squatocracy” because of their historic land holdings – and ‘have-nots’.

It’s all been a bit of a rollercoaster, albeit one he’s happy to ride.

Prior to Scrublands, Hammer had written two non-fiction books about the Australian landscape: The River (2011), exploring the remote heartlands of Australia, and The Coast (2013). While both were well-received (and are now being republished) they didn’t make any money. But after three decades as a leading news reporter and foreign correspondent, as well as time working in politics, they set the stage for his latter career.

And The River, as he explains during a visit to London during the cold-snap, braving freezing UK temperatures and an 11-hour time difference after flying in from his home in the Australian capital Canberra, is providing endless inspiration.

“There were nine chapters on different places and I’ve used about six so far,” he admits. “Both those non-fiction books showed me what I realised I love doing. It’s not because the clock’s ticking or I need the money or anything that I’m now writing a book a year. Really I’m just kind of addicted to it. It’s like you’ve got to have a cup of coffee in the morning, or go to the gym or go jogging. If I don’t do a little bit of writing, I don’t feel quite right.”

He adds: “It’s such a joyful thing to do, especially when a book comes together at the end after all the problems.” By “problems”, Hammer, 64, means tying together his many plot twists.

He describes himself tongue-in-cheek as a “pantser and a pounder, not a plotter” – a “seat-of-his pants” writer – rather than someone who spends a lot of time planning, remarkable given the gloriously engrossing complexity of his work with storylines maturing between books. “I’ve made a rod for my own back, because there’s multiple plot lines and multiple timelines and different points of view,” he shrugs.

“But I still find it impossible to plot the book out and then write it. As a journalist, I’m used to being edited. There’s an expression in Australia, ‘kill your darlings’, meaning if you’ve got a scene you really like but you’ve got to chuck it out in the interests of the book, out it goes.”

No wonder Hammer’s fast becoming one of Australia’s most exciting literary exports.

Having written three Martin Scarsden thrillers, The Broken River is the fourth book featuring New South Wales state detectives Nell Buchanan and Ivan Lucic.

Dispatched to The Valley to investigate the murder of the town’s deputy mayor, they are drawn into a mystery involving a flooded gold mine, anti-logging protests and an historic bullion robbery, in the case of Nell with dramatic personal consequences. It’s classic Hammer territory – dubbed “rural noir” by critics.

Initially, the author was worried that, as “Staties”, he wouldn’t be able to take Nell and Ivan out of New South Wales.

But with the state covering an area of approximately 310,000 square miles – more than three times the size of the UK – with outback, tropical forest and mountains, they’ve plenty to go at.

“I always have the setting first, the plot comes as I write the book,” he explains. “I’m casting a spell, ‘Set your daily stuff aside and come with me’. So the setting is the stage for the characters, it’s going to explain their motivations.

“Broken River is set in this verdant valley near the Pacific coast but the one I’m working on now is based on the Paroo River, way out in the desert, a real Outback sort of place.” Hanmer’s books give UK readers a fascinating glimpse of a country many of us feel historically linked and warmly disposed towards. But for city-based Aussies like Hammer, the country’s vast interior is equally alien.

“Most people live in cities and towns and something like 90% of people live within about 50km of the coast. Everyone knows about rural Australia, and they feel this very strong connection to it, but they don’t spend a lot of time there,” he says.

“Right now it’s January and everyone’s at the beach. They’re not going to be in the Outback because it’s too bloody hot.

“If you want to go to the Outback, you go in winter to places like Alice Springs and Uluru [formerly Ayers Rock].

“So even for Australians, it’s exotic, and these small country towns are a closed environment. My books typically have two or three plotlines so the reader is guessing, ‘Are they connected? How are they connected?’

“It’s a lot easier to do in a small town. I guess it goes back to Agatha Christie and those grand country house murders.”

Water, either too little or too much, flows like a common theme through many of Hammer’s books, as do tensions between “greenies” and developers. “Drought is a hugely contentious issue,” he admits. “And, of course, there are fears that climate change is going to accelerate that. That said, in recent years we’ve had flooding in Queensland and New South Wales.

But that’s the story of Australia – either droughts and bushfires or floods, and seldom nicely in the middle.”

We’re talking as California wildfires have devastated huge swathes of LA and Michael Connelly, whose iconic Harry Bosch novels are set in the city, pondered on social media earlier this week: “Will we need to face the possibility of nature turning against us again and again in these extreme ways?

“Are we now to pay the price for building a city in a desert so long ago?”

It’s a concern Hammer relates to as an Aussie. “What’s driving this is two systems called El Niño and La Niña based in the Pacific,” he tells me.

“It’s like a pendulum so, when we’re in drought, California and South America are getting rain. But for the last three or four years, we’ve had rain and they’ve had drought. The scary thing is that these fires in LA are in winter. We share assets and normally those big aircraft that drop the fire retardant would be in Australia helping fight our bush fires. Equally, we can’t send our own because we need them at home.”

I’ve got to ask Hammer about the recent controversy over celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s children’s book, Billy and the Big Escape, which was withdrawn from sale Down Under amid a furore because it featured an Aboriginal girl with spiritual powers abducted from her foster home.

Oliver’s publisher claimed consultation with Indigenous Australians – known as First Nations people – had not happened due to an “editorial oversight”.

Hammer shakes his head: “Everyone in publishing in Australia would have gone, ‘What the f***?, why weren’t they told that? Why don’t they know this? You can’t do that?’” Even for local writers, indigenous issues remain sensitive. “The topsoil of Australian history is very shallow, just 200-250 years and then you hit a bedrock of 60-80,000 years of indigenous history,” he explains.

“When you start doing point-of-view indigenous characters there’s an issue.

His own previous book, Cover the Bones, featured an Indigenous character which he admits was “pushing the envelope”. “If you write several rural-set books like me, you have to have Indigenous characters but they are there for a reason, not just diversity,” he continues. “I thought I might get some blowback but there’s been nothing.”

With his previous career as a political observer and operator in mind, I wonder if he feels ongoing grumbles over the country’s status as a constitutional monarchy, with King Charles as a head of state, will ever explode into full-blown republicanism?

The state visit in October saw a headline-grabbing protest by an Indigenous Australian Senator who heckled the King after he had addressed Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra. Is that a sign of a looming republic? Hammer thinks not.

“No one’s gonna propose a referendum on republicanism,” he says. “I seriously think it’s more likely that Britain becomes a republic before Australia. That story clearly played bigger in the UK than it did in Australia.”

Some Aussies had predicted the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign might see a sea change because, while Her Majesty was “highly respected”, other royals were less popular.

But as Hammer explains: “Then she died kind of suddenly and everyone’s moved on.”

He points to the decisive defeat, also in October, of a national referendum to amend the country’s constitution to give greater political rights to Indigenous people.

All six states voted against recognising First Nations people and creating a body for them to advise ministers. Hammer adds: “The government burned through all its political capital on that vote and lost badly. There’s no chance of another referendum now.”

With the first series of Scrublands having been a hit, the second Martin Scarsden book, Silver, has been adapted for TV and there are plans for an Ivan and Nell series in the works.

“What streaming services judge is not overall ratings but completion rate,” Hammer explains. “Scrublands had a really high completion rate so they’re very happy.”

Despite the darkness his books explore, I wonder if Hammer feels optimistic for the future of his relatively young country?

“Yeah, I do, it’s got a lot going for it,” he adds.

“The natural environment is very good here – clean air, clean water – and it’s a very inclusive society in many ways, very much a migrant country. Essentially, if you’re not Indigenous, you’re a migrant of some sort.

“So I am optimistic, especially if you look at a place like, say the US, and see the advantages they have but what a mess it is.”

Source: Express UK

#luke arnold #scrublands #chris hammer #interview

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