Elephant Page Publishing is excited about their upcoming release of Phil Silvester’s crime novel, The Clouds Return, which is set between the end of WWI and the lead up to WWII. We have tracked down some other crime novels set in the interwar years to add to your reading list while you wait for The Clouds Return to be published in early 2027.
Readers are familiar with Australian novels exploring the achievements, failures and heroism of Australian service men and women. However, in the last 30 years, there have been very few contemporary crime authors who have set their stories between WWI and WWII. The following are some that we think are worth chasing down.
Chris Wormersley’s underworld-flavoured 2010 book, Bereft, is similar to The Clouds Return as a veteran is accused of a crime and goes into hiding. Quinn Walker returns to Australia after WWI, when the Spanish Flu has effectively locked down Australia; train travel is heavily restricted and troops guard state borders. After fleeing an accusation of an unspeakable crime ten years earlier, Quinn returns to the NSW town of Flint where his family will likely lynch him. He flees into the hills surrounding the town and finds a young orphan girl, Sadie, who knows too much about the crime he may have committed. As with The Clouds Return, Bereft is set in regional Australia with the protagonist as a returning WWI veteran who is accused of committing serious crimes.
Also from 2010, we have the Roland Sinclair series by Sulari Gentill, a former corporate lawyer with 31 books to her credit. The series follows Roland, the youngest son and black sheep of the respectable and affluent Sinclair family. The first book of the series, A Few Right-Thinking Men, has Roland sheltered by wealth and affluence from Australia’s 1930’s Great Depression. He has a talent for scandal as his family’s fortune allows him to indulge his artistic passion with like-minded friends. Australia is on the brink of political revolution at the height of the Great Depression. Previously indifferent to the country’s politics, Roland becomes embroiled with anti-opposition and anti-communist interests after a traitorous murder. Instead of a veteran protagonist, we have a bohemian being dragged into the politics of the day during a time of high poverty and economic upheaval.
Robert Gott, with 33 books and the comic strip The Naked Man, authored the first book in The Holiday Murders series in 2013. This series, which includes The Port Fairy Murders and The Autumn Murders, is set in late 1943 Australia and has some inter-war influences. The series introduces Constable Helen Lord who tries to make her mark, but is seen as a novelty in a police force riddled with toxic masculinity. Lord works with Detective Joe Sable, who is forced to face his family’s Jewish heritage in the height of WWII. They investigate multiple murders linked to local Nazi sympathisers being hunted by a fascist psychopath who is determined to rule them. Robert Gott is also the author of the William Power crime trilogy, also set in WWII Australia.
Cocaine Blues is the first book of 23 in the popular crime series, The Phryne Fisher Mysteries by Kerry Greenwood. Published in 1989, Cocaine Blues introduces Phryne, a British aristocrat, who quickly solves the mystery of a stolen necklace at a dinner party. Impressed with her skill, a guest asks Phryne to find their missing ill daughter in Australia – Phryne’s childhood home. Phryne is soon embroiled in various mysteries in 1920’s Australia, including finding the ill woman, a back street abortionist, and a Russian family involved in the cocaine trade. Cocaine Blues has a rich sense of place and time, and its protagonist, Phryne, is a daring independent woman racing around in cars and flying around in planes while remaining stylish. Readers are introduced to the reoccurring supporting characters of Phryne’s maid and companion, Dot, and investigator, Inspector Robertson. Readers have said they start with later books in the series and have noticed growth in Kerry Greenwood’s writing, and new layers with Phryne, Dot and the Inspector emerging with each edition.
Meanwhile, The Clouds Return tells the story of WWI veteran Danny Doyle, who returns home to face new accusations and his past. Bereft is similar as we join another veteran of the Great War returning home and facing accusations of a despicable crime and possible acquittal. The crime novel series by Gentill, Gott and Greenwood, all centre on civilian crimefighters in the inter-war years in Australia. The Clouds Return is unique for its Western Australian setting, the time period, and for its complex protagonist who seems to care more about revealing the truth than exonerating himself.
Scott Grimley
Acquisitions Department
