Patrick Lyons Book List

Patrick Lyons grew up in a house full of crime; literally. Almost every room had a crime novel lying around, spread-eagled, face down, his mother’s ways of bookmarking. Christie in the bedroom, Rendell in the kitchen and Chandler in the lounge. It was only a matter of time before he picked these books up himself. 

Patrick wrote his first crime story at the age of twelve. A school competition. He got an ‘A’. He also got a talking to about the amount of violence in the story. It did not matter that Patrick didn’t win; he was just thrilled with how the writing process seemed to flow. He’s been arrested by crime writing ever since. 

Writing about his experience as an Anglo-Indian growing up in Australia during the 1970s and 1980s is a good way for Patrick to explore broader concepts of exclusiveness, racism, identity and duality. These notions subtly pepper his work, bringing grit to his characters.