We’re celebrating the publication of Lisa Walker’s new young adult fiction novel this week, Trouble is my Business. This second Olivia Grace novel is another rip-roaring mystery, with nods to Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes, and a flavour of Veronica Mars. This Byron Bay set caper will definitely keep you warm this winter!
The release of Trouble is My Business coincides perfectly with an exciting announcement from Sisters in Crime. Lisa’s first Olivia Grace mystery, The Girl with the Gold Bikini, has been shortlisted for two awards in this year’s Davitt Awards! Lisa has been shortlisted in both the YA and debut crime category.
Both Olivia Grace mysteries are set on the Gold Coast and in Byron Bay, where sunny facades hide deeper, darker stories. Read on for Lisa Walker’s thoughts about ‘sunshine noir’, and setting her teen detective novel on the sun-drenched east coast of Australia.
Would you like a dash of sunshine with your noir?
Written by Lisa Walker
Most people who read crime fiction are familiar with Nordic noir, also known as Scandinavian noir. It’s all about dark deeds in cold countries with morose detectives. Think The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Miss Smilla’s feeling for Snow.
Trouble is My Business is pretty much the opposite of that. It’s not Nordic noir, but sunshine noir. In Olivia’s world everything is fun and colourful on the surface, but rotten underneath. The sea is sparkling, but dark deeds are afoot.
Olivia’s world is the Gold Coast and Byron Bay. She might not be treading the mean streets of urban California like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, or Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, but her beat has its share of both glamour and grunge.
As in the Florida crime novels of Carl Hiassen and Elmore Leonard, the happy holiday exterior provides cover for a seedy underbelly. Florida has been called a sunny place for shady people, and this could be said of the Gold Coast and Byron Bay as well. In these places crime arises from the sheer desirability of the location. An eclectic mix of real estate developers, tourists, and eco-warriors can lead to a whole lot of trouble.
In Trouble is My Business, as Olivia gazes out at the sparkling blue sea in Byron Bay, she muses that people would, quite literally, kill for this.
Olivia Grace, recently retired teen PI, has her priorities sorted. Pass first-year law, look after her little sister, and persuade her parents to come back from a Nepali monastery to resume … well, parenting. But after Olivia’s friend Abbey goes missing in Byron Bay, a short drive from Olivia’s Gold Coast home, she can’t sit back and study Torts. It’s time to go undercover as hippie-chick Nansea, in hippiechic Byron Bay, hub of influencers and international tourism, and home of yoga, surfing and wellness culture.
Olivia’s looking for answers, with the help of her stash of disguises, the PI skills her irresistible ex-boss Rosco taught her – and a nose for trouble. Her suspects include a
hardcore surfer who often argued with Abbey in the surf, a charismatic cult leader and an acrobatic botany student.
And then there’s Rosco, officially assigned to the case, and proving impossible to avoid.
Lisa Walker’s second Olivia Grace novel is another rip-roaring excursion into madcap sunshine noir, with nods to Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes, and a flavour of Veronica
Mars meets Elmore Leonard.