From foreign correspondence to home-grown thrillers

IN a long career as an acclaimed journalist, foreign correspondent, and author, Michael Brissenden can sometimes be found in an inner-city bar playing double bass with his jazz trio.

“I’ve always been musical and played in rock and roll bands in my 20s, but when I worked in America in 2009, I decided to learn the double bass,” he said.

“Washington is a divided city – a black city and a white city, and because it’s home to places like the State Department, there is a mixed workforce, and many of them have come through the military bands – amazing musicians.

“They get into their 50s and go back to playing music, and I played in a lot of bands with black and white Americans, all trying to rediscover their musical roots. It was great fun.”

When he’s not on the bass, Brissenden is writing gripping crime thrillers. His first book of fiction, The List, was published in 2017, and DeadLetters followed in 2021. His fourth book, Dust, released last month by Hachette Australia, expands on his third 2024 novel, Smoke, set in California.

Speaking from the road on his way to talk in Lismore this week with friend and author Paul Daley, Brissenden said he was inspired by reading about Lake Mead in Nevada.

“It’s not far from Vegas, and as it was drying up, they found all sorts of stuff on the lake bed that people had wanted to keep hidden – the mob had been dumping bodies in there for years,” he said.

“I loved that idea and my colleague, the late Paul Lockyer, did a story about Lake Cargelligo when that dried up and the town was playing cricket on the lake bed.

“We’ve got a lot of lakes this happens to, and I wanted to write a book based here. It’s not a real town but set in an area west of West Wyalong.”

Brissenden has worked in Moscow, Brussels and Washington. He was the political editor for 7.30 Report, the ABC’s defence and security correspondent, the presenter of the AM current affairs program on ABC radio and a reporter with Four Corners.

Still working as a journalist when he published his debut novel, Brissenden decided a transition was in the wind.

“I hit 60, and I thought if I’m actually ever going to make a go of it, I should do it now, so that’s when I decided to leave,” he said.

“I’d come to the end of the road at the ABC after 35 years and done pretty much every job I’d wanted to do.

“It was just time to do something else, and if I was ever going to make this work, this was the time.

“It’s still hard, but it’s a different bit of your brain, and there are some great things about not having to stick to the facts – that’s quite a liberating experience.”

Weaving international geopolitics, conflicts and universal themes, Brissenden’s storytelling retains a distinctly Australian voice.

“The crime novel has become the new social model of our time – it’s reflecting the reality of what we are and what’s coursing through our world,” he said.

“The anxieties running through the background of a lot of the best of these is essentially fiction, but it’s cemented in our current reality.

“After such a long time in journalism, I bring that background, but I’m not trying to be didactic about politics or anything; I’m just naturally attuned to it and the stories within.”

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