Upcoming Tasmania mystery exhibition.

The Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival is planning the exhibition "Tasmania: A Century of Mystery" in honor of the centenary of Agatha Christie's visit to Tasmania. The exhibition, which will be on view from October 2–30, 2022, will focus on mysteries written by Tasmanians or set in Tasmania. The webpage also reveals that there will be a new branch of Sisters in Crime in Tasmania.

Number, please: Return of an Australian debut.

Murder in the Telephone Exchange (1948) by Australian mystery writer June Wright (1919–2012) features a sleuthing telephone operator pursuing the murderer of a nosy colleague (Kirkus review here). It is slated to be reissued by Portland publisher Verse Chorus in April (in Australia) and June (other countries). This will be followed later in the year by a previously unpublished Wright mystery, Duck Season Death. Verse Chorus plans other Wright reissues.

Australian mystery.

The Sounds of Australia is a program of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia that seeks to preserve sound recordings of cultural and historical significance to the country. This collection includes the radio crime serials Night Beat and Dossier on Dumetrius. The archive is searching for the silent film The Blue Mountains Mystery (1921).  

Below: trailer for the upcoming season of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, based on the novels by Kerry Greenwood with flapper detective Phryne Fisher.

Murderous Melbourne, continued.

Thanks to recent Clues contributor Lucy Sussex, I heard from Dr. Derham Groves, the curator of the Murderous Melbourne exhibition at the University of Melbourne's Baillieu Library that runs through September 7th. Information on the exhibition cites the rich history of Australian crime writing: from Mary Fortune and Fergus Hume to Arthur Upfield, Edgar winner Charlotte Jay, Peter Corris, Kerry Greenwood, and Gold Dagger and Ned Kelly recipient Peter Temple. According to details supplied by Dr. Groves,

Murderous Melbourne features items from the University of Melbourne's extensive collection of Australian crime fiction. [... Also t]he architecture students have designed a Centre for Australian Crime Fiction, to be located on the car park adjacent to the north court of the Union building. [...The] landscape architecture students have designed stage props for S. H. Courtier's crime novels See Who's Dying (1967) and Murder's Burning (1967), both set in the Australian outback.

Dr. Groves is to be congratulated for this intriguing blend of literature and design, mobilizing students as well as library personnel and resources to present this exhibition.

Murderous Melbourne.

The University of Melbourne's Baillieu Library is holding the exhibition "Murderous Melbourne: A Celebration of Australian Crime Fiction and Place" through September 2008. Unfortunately, I could find little information about it.

Those unable to attend may be able to content themselves with the library's online exhibition "Sensational Tales: Australian Popular Publishing 1850s-1990s." Great images here.