20 Facts About Peter Temple

Peter Temple was an Australian crime fiction writer, mainly known for his Jack Irish novel series.

Peter Temple won several awards for his writing, including the Gold Dagger in 2007, the first for an Australian.

Peter Temple was an international magazine and newspaper journalist and editor.

Peter Temple grew up in a small town near South Africa's border with Botswana.

Peter Temple eventually came to consider himself as "complicit" in the apartheid regime, and after the death of Steve Biko in 1977 he resolved that he had to leave South Africa.

Peter Temple managed to secure a job with an English-language news digest in Hamburg, falsely claiming that he could speak German.

In 1982 Peter Temple moved to Melbourne to become the founding editor of Australian Society, a magazine of social issues, where he stayed until 1985.

Peter Temple then returned to teaching, playing a significant role in establishing the prestigious Professional Writing and Editing course at RMIT, Melbourne.

In 1995 Peter Temple retired from teaching to become a self-employed editor and full-time writer.

Peter Temple wrote three stand-alone novels: An Iron Rose, Shooting Star and In the Evil Day, as well as The Broken Shore and its semi-sequel, Truth.

Peter Temple wrote the screenplay for the 2007 TV film Valentine's Day.

Peter Temple wrote four books under the Jack Irish franchise, three of which were awarded the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing and Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction.

Bad Debts is the first of the four novels, and the first of Peter Temple's crime writing career.

Peter Temple's ex-girlfriend becomes one of the main suspects as Irish attempts to solve the murder mystery, unveiling secrets and even more complications along the way.

In 2019 a 20,000 word fragment of an unfinished Jack Irish novel, provisionally titled High Art, appeared in a posthumus collection of Peter Temple's writing, The Red Hand.

In 2010, Peter Temple won the Miles Franklin Award for his novel Truth.

Peter Temple has won five Ned Kelly Awards for crime fiction, the latest in 2006 for The Broken Shore, which won the Colin Roderick Award for best Australian book and the Australian Book Publishers' Award for best general fiction.

Peter Temple is the first Australian to win a Gold Dagger.

Peter Temple was married to Anita and had a son, Nicholas.

Peter Temple died in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, on 8 March 2018 at the age of 71 after a brief battle with cancer.