LOCATION, LOCUTION: Kiwi-Brit author team produce first in eco-thriller series spanning continents where they’ve lived

Thanks to JJ Marsh for featuring us in The Displaced Nation where we discuss creating a sense of place.

The Displaced Nation

Columnist JJ Marsh (left) talks to Lambert Nagle, Kiwi/Brit co-writers of international thrillers.

Today we welcome JJ Marsh back to the Displaced Nation for this month’s “Location, Locution.” If you are new to the site, JJ, who is a crime series writer (see her bio below), talks to fellow fiction writers about their methods for portraying place in their works. We’re excited that her guest today is the better half of a husband-wife team who have composed an eco-thriller that takes place all over the world, including places where they’ve been expats.

—ML Awanohara

Lambert Nagle is the pen name of co-authors Alison Ripley Cubitt and Sean Cubitt. They write thrillers set in sunny climes.

Sean’s day job is Professor of Film and Television, Goldsmiths, University of London. He has been published by leading academic publishers.

Alison worked in TV and film production for companies including the…

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The land of the long white cloud

I am still taking in the news that Eleanor Catton, beat off the competition to win this year’s Man Booker Prize. And as my thoughts are turning to an upcoming trip back to New Zealand in a few weeks time, I’ve been planning what am I going to read on my Kindle when I’m away. The Luminaries – of course!

Here is Eleanor Catton in the Guardian writing about growing up in New Zealand’s South Island, where I lived as a child. I particularly like the paragraph where she says this: ‘To experience sublime natural beauty is to confront the total inadequacy of language to describe what you see.’ I also agree with her when she says that she doesn’t feel the same way when she looks at a city because a city has been ‘formally determined.’
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/17/eleanor-catton-booker-new-zealand

lambertnagle interview

 

 

 

 

 

Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia. It’s a World Heritage site and one of the most beautiful places on earth…..The size of Wales, with flowing rivers, wildlife and fabulous rock art carved centuries ago by indigenous people, yet the tourists who head for Uluru and the Sydney Opera House have likely never even heard of the place.  But Kakadu hides a dirty little secret….. Perhaps not so secret?  It’s one that many Australians who are anti nuke would rather forget……

Rufus Wallaby

Wildlife

The treacherous slopes of Cradle Mountain

Cradle Mountain

Button Grass

Button Grass, Cradle Mountain, Tasmania

Cradle Mountain, Tasmania

Cradle Mountain, a mountain of 1500 metres is in the Cradle Mountain – Lake St Clair National Park in Tasmania is in Tasmania’s north, about two hours drive from Launceston.  It’s where Cara goes to recuperate after George’s death in the Southern Ocean.  Cliff has bought her a bike and she decides to go and look for wildlife in the button grass, the long grass you see in one of the photographs.  Wombats go mad for it and at dawn and dusk you can see them and the little rufus wallabies out there happily grazing.

There’s only one road in and out of Cradle Mountain and the road twists and turns.  It’s the perfect place for a chase sequence.  And here on this lonely road Cara decides to venture out on the bike.  What she doesn’t know is that she’s been spotted…. And nobody else knows that she’s out there alone on that road.  If she did miss a corner or have a close encounter with another vehicle there wouldn’t be any witnesses….

The House, Coromandel

The Coromandel Peninsula,  about two and half hours from Auckland is a mixture of rugged forested hills and coast. It’s a magic place and a  place of escape for city dwellers to spend the summer.  It’s where Cara goes to when she flees to New Zealand and falls in with the group of eco-terrorists.   The humble holiday cottage, called a ‘bach’ (pronounced batch) in New Zealand may soon become consigned to history – as many are being torn down and replaced by smart modern houses.  I thought I’d post this so that you can see what a Kiwi bach looks like and I imagined it as the house where the eco-terrorists hang out.  

Revolution Earth

Ranger Mine – Northern Territory

Revolution Earth

Ranger Mine – Northern Territory