Highton to the world
AUTHOR Neil Humphreys owes his international literary success to Geelong. The titular character in his Inspector Low series was born in his suburban home in Highton.
“My first novel, Match Fixer, was written in the back room of my Highton house,” said Humphreys, speaking from Singapore, where he now lives.
“I had some success, but the novel included an incidental character called Detective Inspector Stanley Low. I liked his complicated duality and thought his story had real legs.”
Three novels later and Inspector Low is back in his biggest crime thriller yet, Bloody Foreigners, a thriller that takes the Singaporean Chinese detective to a post-Brexit London. The novel is the first in Humphreys’ series to earn a worldwide release and has just reached Australian bookstores.
The 46-year-old attributes the success to the content’s dark, contemporary relevance and its brutally honest autobiographical elements.
“After being away for 25 years, Inspector Low returns to a polarised London, obsessed with immigration and foreigners generally,” he said.
“The pandemic has only heightened those concerns just about everywhere, including Australia.”
Humphreys grew up in Britain, moved to Singapore when he was 21 and spent most of his 30s in Geelong – where he worked at the Geelong Advertiser – before returning to Singapore in 2011.
Humphreys is proud of Geelong’s integral role in bringing his crime series to life and the fact that the literary journey has come full circle.
“In Match Fixer, my first novel, about soccer corruption, I shamelessly had the lead character living in Geelong while he went for trials for Melbourne Victory, which makes little sense geographically, but I had to get my home in somewhere,” Humphreys said. “I think I even mentioned the Geelong Cats. And now my latest novel has reached bookstores in Geelong and across Victoria. I couldn’t be more proud.”
The author recently signed a production deal to turn the Inspector Low novels into an international TV series.
“Low has started globetrotting a bit in recent novels,” said Humphreys. “So I just need to kill someone in Geelong and concoct a plot device that needs a Singaporean copper to solve the crime. He’s taken care of London. Let’s get him down the Geelong waterfront.”
Bloody Foreigners, is out now at all good bookstores and online.