An Evening with John Silvester - “Inside Melbourne’s Underworld”

 Those of you who live in Australia may well have heard of John Silvester. He is a journalist who writes the crime section of the Age newspaper. I subscribe to that paper online and get his newsletter. He is a very entertaining writer. 

On Wednesday this week, I went to hear him speak at the Capitol Theatre, a  beautiful Melbourne landmark designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney Griffin, as a cinema in 1924. It was taken over by RMIT, where I studied librarianship and this event was planned for the RMIT journalism students, but the Age invited subscribers to attend as well. It was free. I nearly missed out, because the event was booked out in an hour, but someone must have cancelled because I was on the waiting list and got an email saying I could get a ticket. 

It was a great evening. It was done in the form of an interview and discussion, by one of his colleagues from the Age. Both of them had worked on the stories about Erin Patterson, the woman who poisoned her family with mushrooms, so that was one of the discussions. John had met quite a few big names in crime, and wrote about the gangland wars known as Underbelly. That was the name of a TV series, which I never saw because there were trials going on in Melbourne and it might have affected the outcome.  I was working on my children’s book about crime in Australia, Crime Time: Australians Behaving Badly at the time, and I used his books about the gangland wars as part of my research, along with the work of Andrew Rule. So you can understand why I was excited to go.

I found myself sitting next to a lady who was a fellow Kerry Greenwood fan, so we happily chatted away until it was time for the show to start. Well, I say “show” but it was a bit like being at the Melbourne Writers Festival, back in the days when they were doing this sort of event. 

I hadn’t realised that he has a podcast and a TV show about true crime. I googled them and now I have something worth watching/ listening to. 

It was a fascinating evening, which started with how he got into journalism - some funny stories there. One of the criminals he interviewed was Chopper Read, whom he interviewed in jail. When they made a film about him, he chose Eric Bana to play himself, according to Wikipedia. 

There was a table from Reading’s, selling two of his books. I struggled with myself, but bought one, Dark City, which is about crime in Melbourne. I just couldn’t resist. I found the other book on Apple Books for $4.99! Still, Dark City is a visually beautiful book, and I’ve read it a chapter at a time. The chapters are very short and easy reading.

I might do a proper review when I read it all.

Meanwhile, I have some good reading to enjoy.