Synopsis
Traven Collins is a sort of detective. He's not really a detective, more what you might call a burnt-out case who was a writer and now who'll take most any kind of writing job to pay the rent. If it's interesting. He lives in a nice seaside suburb of Melbourne with down-and-outers, stand over merchants and ice addicts at one end and pimps, thieves, hookers and transexual rent boys at the other. Traven takes a job from an old friend to promote the visit of the last American beat poet, Duke Weston, who claims to have been a friend of Kerouac & Burroughs etc. Things are going averagely until the first death -- which is seems to be a hit & run but proves to be a murder. And then the next one...that's murder too. Both of the victims were poets. With his trusty sidekick, the brilliant border collie Maynard G Krebs, Traven sets out to make sure he doesn't become embroiled in these murders most foul & most horrid. And he has to protect Lexi, the young lady who couldn't possibly be his daughter - could she? More Detail: It is 2014 in St Kilda. Traven Collins, 50+, failed journalist, finds writing work he can - even (ugh!) PR. Tray (his street name) is single, never married, no children (well, there is an issue which is revealed in the novel) and living at his existential limits. An old friend from the early seventies anti-war protests days, Franklin Rankin, offers Traven a gig to look after a visiting beat poet, (in fact the last of the beats) Duke Weston, a probable fraud who claims to have been mates with Kerouac, et al. Rank Frank was once his Chief of Staff when Traven worked as a reporter on a big daily newspaper. Traven lives next door to Carmen Romero, a 30-something actress/waitress with daughter Lexi. Carmen is poised for big fame with a part on a soapie called ‘All Our Blessings’ but there is a problem because her contract is dodgy and the producer, one Momo Gretzky, is trying to stiff Carmen on her pay and conditions. Carmen thinks he is trying to invoke the ‘leg over’ clause. Traven knows Carmen from years before when he was on a press junket to review the Seattle grunge band Nirvana on Great Mankell Island in Queensland, and Carmen was a radio station prizewinner. It’s also when he met Carly Lucinda Ryder aka C.C.Ryder aka Cindy, (a dangerous woman, though this wasn’t yet obvious back in 1994), with the third-richest father in Australia. Traven, on the way to talk Carmen into stepping out of her short shorts and halter top for the evening, is waylaid by Cindy and never gets to visit Carmen. Many years later, in St Kilda, the suburb on the bay, the locals hang out at the Roma Cafe where poet Daniel Nugent does his concrete poetry - casting women in real concrete as an installation. To the great annoyance of Traven. Things darken when Momo is found shot to death, and only worsens when the next night Traven discovers The Duke’s body in a transsexual hooker pick-up zone in St Kilda. Traven feels it’s all too hot and heads to Byron Bay where he meets the seemingly shonky Swami Govinda (but there’s something strange and unworldly about the impromptu visit). Traven also meets a couple of odd disciples of the swami, a kind of female Laurel & Hardy duo without the comedy routine (Emily & Bathsheba) and the love of his life, wonderful Kate Carey. In Byron: There’s a missing poet, an ashram euthanasia group, a drug import racket, a transvestite drug dealer, Billee, crooked police, and the love of Traven’s life. What could go wrong? The Sweet Myst is a mystery, Traven is the anti-hero, yet the novel has a humour - well, the author laughed when he was writing it - and there's evocation of that 'something in the air' thing of the late sixties which said (50 years ago)...there’s something more than this... 'The Sweet Myst' is a mystery and there are murders and mayhem and guns and dames and dark moments. But it's the mystery of everyday life, of the ultimate missing object (one's own self) that Traven is always seeking.#
About the Author
Colin (Tad) Talbot was born in 1948 and raised near the world-famous Flinders Ranges in South Australia. His first 'roman a clef' attempt was at age eleven, sadly forever uncompleted. Attended Adelaide and Melbourne Universities without distinction, then fell into a ‘career’ in journalism, which was the best accident ever. He worked as a reporter on several newspapers and as a columnist for Richard Neville’s weekly, The Living Daylights, and as ‘pop’ columnist for The Australian. Most memorable assignment a week on an island with Joe Cocker and band. Writer/director of the feature film Sweethearts, (1990) which screened at San Sebastian Film Festival. He has co-written rock&roll songs recorded by several rock&roll artists. Colin has published four novels, plus non-fiction works & one poetry book. Published comment re this novelist... ‘There are certain things one should never do in a newspaper office. Chief among these is to claim divinity…a man (Taddy) credited with having gone to India as a cub reporter, become crazed with the heat and drugs and rung his news desk late one night telling them to hold the front page, he’d found God.’ Martin Flanagan, The Age. ‘(Taddy’s) friends describe him as one of the sweetest, smartest, funniest, most paranoid and almost certifiable crazy people they know.’- Larry Meltzer, Follow Me. *** Reviews of Taddy's novels: 'Massive Rad Trauma' -‘Colin Talbot is amazingly fluent … Massive Road Trauma is a most impressive and accomplished novel indeed.’ - Carl Harrison-Ford, Sydney Morning Herald 'Sweethearts': ‘A very funny, cleverly written book, keenly ironic...provocative, fascinating, and very entertaining reading ...’ - Julie Carr, Melbourne Report. ‘…joyously and effortlessly readable, it is witty - with a verbal wit that is not just an intermittent grace-note, but it is the very life of the book, pervading every page and every sentence … a clever, original and very funny book…’ - The Australian. 'Colin Talbot's Greatest Hits: …warped syntax, the delusional personalism, the wacky humour, the deep insight, the happy sadness, the deviant skepticism…(etc)’ - Garrie Hutchinson. The Zen Detective: Among the fiction writers (in Australia) Melbourne’s Colin Talbot is the most interesting. His books are surreal collages of dialogues and vignettes … The Zen Detective is in a war against boredom.’ - Valery Oistenu, New York Cover Magazine The Zen Detective…'fast becoming a cult classic.’ - Book News
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