Crime novel Sunni Sinclair is Seductive Reading

We interviewed Noel Mealey about crime writing on the verge of release of his third novel.

What sparked your interest in writing crime novels?

My father, a trucking contractor during the Great Depression, transported wool from Muttaburra to the railhead at Hughended. He carried a pistol to defend against wandering vagrants. That caught my imagination, and I laughed when he told me my grandmother confiscated the gun and threw it down the cesspit. During my working career, I met many interesting characters and found that those who tended towards crime often had a good sense of humour. So, my crime books come with a light touch of humour.

Which crime authors have influenced you and how?

Ernest Hemingway was my primary inspiration, but not for crime. Nelson DeMille for his sardonic and often hilarious dialogue. His book Gold Coast is sexual passion laced with humour and characters who are witty, waggish and amusing until, after racking up the tension, the murder comes as a surprise late in the book.

Dennis Lehane is a master of drama, sudden violence, pain, and burning passion. His characters are as close to people as you can get. They have meat on their bones. You can see them and hear them and smell them, and when they die, you are emotionally devastated.

Joseph Kanon for his slow burn build-up of tension and descriptions of historical settings. His plots are complicated and perfectly executed with words that sing long after you close the book.

The Seduction of Sunni Sinclair is based in part on people you’ve met in real life, How did you transpose the real into fictional?

Characters are too complex to be based on only one person, however real they are. But I take personalities to fashion a character into a composite of a real person and maybe someone I’d like them to be. When I use real people for fiction, a mystical thing happens, and the characters come to life and write the book. I can write a page of dialogue and, looking back, wonder where the words came from.

It’s fairly rare to have a female protagonist who’s a crim. How did you get into her fictional head to make her credible?

I first wrote the book with a male protagonist and struggled to make him real. Sunni was in love with life and full of wisecracks, and she reminded me of a cheeky and uninhibited aunt who, according to family mythology, played up with the American soldiers during the war. Sunni broke free on the pages, resisted me, and demanded to right the wrongs and take vigilante justice until I rewrote the first paragraph with her in the leading role. We never looked back. 

Sunni adopts a life of crime in response to what she sees as society’s injustice. How does she rationalise her actions?

Sunni is an emotional character, and rationalising is not her strong suit. What drives her is the need to break free and a deep understanding of society at that time. The power plays and the comradeship. She has her perspective on what is good and what is bad and tests the boundaries until they break.

Most crime novels are set in metropolitan centres. What made you focus on the Newcastle area?

The war changed everything. Australia emerged as a naïve country where everyone was trying to deal with a new life, and Newcastle was a microcosm of the real Australia. The bustling city had big industry, big farming, big mining, a big port and a diversity of larger-than-life characters compressed into a city of 174,000. It offered a journey into the soul of Australia.

Noel’s novel is available in paperback, eBook and soon as an audiobook narrated by celebrated Australian actor Fiona Press.