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Semi-clad brunette lounging on a bear skin with armed man in background
Set-up for Scandal;


Pop Culture

The phone rang. I eased the dame’s arm from around my shoulder. ‘Business first’, I said.
–Larry Kent

Pulp Fiction

The 1950s were a golden era for Australian pulp fiction. Import restrictions on US books and magazines in the 1940s and 1950s created a window of opportunity for local publishers to meet a growing demand for American-style fiction.

Sydney publishers such as Horwitz and Cleveland led the way, putting together stables of writers capable of producing books to order. The ever-popular Larry Kent series ran to over 400 titles, including Sweet Danger. The Marc Brody series written by, and featuring, crime reporter Marc Brody included tantalising titles such as Set-up for Scandal, Write off the Redhead, Maid for the Morgue and The Dames in his Death. The Johnny Buchanan series which included The Lady's a Decoy was written by two women, Audrey Armitage and Muriel Watkins under the pseudonym KT McCall. Together they wrote about 20 pulp novels.

At the same time, Alan Yates, writing under the pseudonym Carter Brown, issued some 300 crime novels between 1954 and 1984.

One of the lasting attractions of pulp fiction remains the striking cover art of the books. Despite their local production, the stories themselves were set predominantly amongst the mean streets of America.

With the introduction of television, and the lifting of import restrictions in 1959, the demand for locally produced pulp fiction went into decline. It was a sign of Australia’s growing confidence in itself as a culture that the next generation of gumshoe detectives, like Cliff Hardy and Phryne Fisher, plied their trade in distinctly local settings.

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