Review of Crimson Lake by Candice Fox (2017, Penguin)

Ted Conkaffey’s life has been turned upside down. The last known person to see a girl at a bus stop before she was abducted and raped, he’s accused of the crime. The case is withdrawn halfway through the trial leaving him neither acquitted nor convicted, but his reputation and marriage in ruins. His lawyer drives him north from Sydney to the wetlands of Crimson Lake, near to Cairns, and introduces him to Amanda Pharrell, a private investigator who has served time for killing another girl when she was a teenager. With the local community and cops starting to make Ted’s life a misery, he throws himself into investigating the disappearance of a local celebrity author with his new partner. At the same time he starts to dig into Amanda’s past, convinced there was more to her case than what’s on the public record. He’s pretty much given up on trying to prove his own innocence; the question is whether he’ll be able to stay in Crimson Creek long enough to solve the cases he’s working on before the locals force him to leave.

Crimson Lake is the first in a private investigator series set near to Cairns in North East Australia, featuring ex-detective Ted Conkaffey, a man wrongly suspected of kidnapping and raping a teenage girl, and Amanda Pharrell, an ex-con, who served time for murdering a fellow teenager. Ted has fled north to try and rebuild his life, knowing that he’ll never be able to shake-off the accusation unless the real culprit is caught. Amanda is all sharp angles, awkward, brazen, and with her own way of doing things. They make an odd pairing, but their circumstances enable them to form a working relationship. Their first case together is to investigate the disappearance of a local author who has gained fame and fans for Christian fiction, but whose lifestyle is far removed from pastiche of Old and New Testament he writes. As they hunt for clues and track down leads, the local community start to harass Ted and the cops threaten him with the aim of moving him on. Then the media track him down. Relatively tense from the start, Fox slowly ramps up the tension to create a taunt psychological thriller that interweaves three cases – Ted’s abduction, Amanda’s murder, and the author’s disappearance. Although somewhat unsettling and uncomfortable at times, there is strong character development, a good sense of place, and a nicely crafted plot that propels the story along with some good hidden twists leading to an enthralling denouement. And I was certainly left with a desire to see how Ted and Amanda’s lives develop in the next book in the series.

Review of The Lost Man by Jane Harper (2018, Abacus)

Deep in the Australian outback Cameron Bright’s body is discovered by his two brothers at Stockman’s grave, a bleak, isolated spot, having perished in the searing heat. His vehicle being parked some kilometres away suggests foul play, but other circumstantial evidence indicates misadventure or suicide. It’s not uncommon given the rural isolation and Cam seemed off-colour for weeks before his death. Nathan, the eldest of the siblings and social outcast, wants answers but the rest of the Bright family and ranch hands are more concerned with his mental wellbeing, their own problems, and preparing for the funeral and Christmas. And the police are several hours away, busy, and unconvinced that the death was anything more than a tragic incident. Nathan hasn’t spent this much time with others in a decade and he’d sooner retreat to his own failing ranch, but something about Cam’s death has got under his skin. 

Harper’s tale charts Nathan’s faltering investigation into his brother’s death, slowly revealing secrets and dark moments that shadow the Bright homestead. The telling is nicely evocative, with a strong sense of place, realistic rendering of ranch and family life, and tensions and social relations among an isolated, resilient community, and well-painted characters. The real strength of story is the tight crafting of plot, which is free of awkward or contrived plot devices; mixing reminisce and mystery it creates a slow burn sense of unease and intrigue, leading to an understated and satisfying denouement. The result is an engaging tale of a lost man wandering back towards redemption.

 

Review of Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina (2018, Penguin)

Beth Teller died in a car accident. Now she haunts her broken-hearted father, who’s a detective. When he’s sent to small town to investigate a fire at a children’s home which killed an un-identified person, she accompanies him. While the local police chief is keen to wrap the case up as the result of an electrical failure, Beth’s father is suspicious; more so after he discusses the fire with a witness – Isobel Catching who tells an oblique tale that seems to have little to do with the inferno. Like Beth’s father, Catching can see and converse with Beth. Shortly after, two bodies are found in the town, seemingly dropped from the sky. Beth’s father calls in fellow city cops to help, sensing that other crimes are surfacing.

Catching Teller Crow is pitched as a young adult read, but its story and themes will resonate with readers of all ages. While told as a kind of literary supernatural police procedural, it is probably better to describe it as a meeting of Western and aboriginal traditions of storytelling hooked around two principle characters/voices. Beth Teller is a mixed race teen who has died in a car accident and haunts her grieving father, who’s a detective. Isobel Catching is an aboriginal girl who witnesses a fire that burns down a remote children’s home and kills a man. Beth’s tale sets out the investigation into the fire led by her father. Isobel’s tale is told more obliquely as a kind of dreamlike poem. The two stories cast light on the intersection of two cultures and issues of grief, colonial violence, and resilience. I thought it was a very moving, thoughtful, and thought-provoking tale that nicely blends different forms of storytelling. It’s a little short in the telling, but nonetheless is a substantive and engaging read with some very evocative prose.

Review of Only Thieves and Killers by Paul Howarth (2018, Harper)

1885 in the Queensland interior. The McBride family are trying to survive a drought that is killing their cattle. When the rains finally break, teenage brothers Tommy and Billy head to a swimming hole. They return to find their father and mother shot dead and their sister Mary unconscious, a shot to her stomach. Nearby they find the revolver given to a former Aboriginal stockman. The two brothers place Mary on Tommy’s saddle and head north to the home of John Sullivan, the wealthiest landowner in the region and their father’s former employer. Sullivan persuades the brothers to embellish their story in order to convince the Queensland Native Police to pursue the suspected culprit and his tribe. The posse who heads into the Outback is headed by Edmund Noone, a clever, ruthless man influenced by Darwin’s ideas of evolution. It’s a coming of age trek for Billy and Tommy, one slipping under the influence of Sullivan, the other starting to see the family tragedy and Australia’s colonialism for what it is under the tutelage of Noone. And it’s a nightmare for any Aborigines the group finds.   

Only Thieves and Killers is a coming of age tale set in the settled outback of Australia in 1885. Life is tough for the McBride family and it’s gotten worse with a drought. For Tommy (14), and his older brother Billy (16), it takes a further savage turn when their parents are murdered and their sister left for dead. Seeking help for their sister from a local, wealthy landowner quickly turns into seeking retribution against the suspected Aboriginal killers. The boys head off into outback as part of a posse. While one embraces the bigotry and violence of the landowner and native police, the other starts to regret what they have started and resist rough justice. Howarth creates an engaging story rooted in a credible history of Australian colonialism and the relations between settler and Aborigines without it swamping the story or becoming preachy. While the overall arc of the tale is well telegraphed, the story retains its insistent pull, there is strong character development and interplay between the characters, and a good sense of place and time. The denouement and the wrapping up is particularly nicely done. At times, it is not a pleasant read and is often unsettling, but then the outback and its violent expression of politics and capitalism in the nineteenth century was often not a pleasant place. Overall, a compelling tale of coming of age and its after-effects.

Review of Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic (Pushkin Vertigo, 2015)

Caleb Zelic and his business partner, ex-cop, ex-alcoholic, Frankie Reynolds run a security and investigation company in Melbourne. They hire in Caleb’s best friend, Senior Constable Gary Marsden, to help solve a couple of thefts from a warehouse. Shortly after sending a couple of warning texts to his family and Caleb, Gary is found dead. Soon Frankie has seemingly been kidnapped, Caleb has been attacked, and the only clue as to who’s behind the assaults is the name ‘Scott’. Unwilling to trust the police, Caleb retreats to his ex-wife, Kat, and to Resurrection Bay, his childhood home. There he tries to piece together Gary’s last few hours and identify Scott, while also rekindling his relationship with Kat. But Resurrection Bay isn’t beyond the reaches of his enemies.

In many ways, Resurrection Bay is a straightforward crime confusion tale in which a PI stumbles into a murderous situation and, unable to trust the police, goes on the run, at the same time trying to protect those around him, solve the case and bring the perpetrators to justice. As with most fictional PIs, Caleb Zelic’s personal life is a mess – recently divorced, a brother who’s a reformed drug addict/dealer, a partner who’s a recovering alcoholic. The fresh angle is Zelic is deaf and is reliant on lip-reading, some very residual hearing, and sign language (by coincidence, in the book I read prior to this, Sleeping Dogs, it was the criminal who was deaf and signed). Zelic’s deafness adds somewhat to the confusion, but to Viskic’s credit it is largely incidental to the story – it’s a tale in which the lead character happens to be deaf, rather than being centrally about a deaf PI. The characterisation in general is nicely done, with a good dynamic between Zelic, his ex-wife, and those he encounters. And the story zips along as Zelic careens from one situation to the next. The plot itself and the denouement is a bit predictable, except for a twist near the end, and is reliant on a series of somewhat staged plot devices (lost phone, crushed keys, etc.); nonetheless, the characters, pacing, dash of dark humour ensure it’s engaging and entertaining read.

Review of The Dry by Jane Harper (Abacus, 2016)

Aaron Falk left Kiewarra when he was sixteen, run out of town by the father and nephew of a teenage girl found drowned in the creek who believe one of the Falks is responsible for her death. Falk has reluctantly returned twenty years later for the funeral of his childhood best friend, Luke Hadler. With a devastating drought bringing misery to farmers, it appears that Hadler shot his wife and young boy, leaving his baby girl alive, before turning the gun on himself. It seems like an open-and-shut case, but neither Luke’s father nor the local police sergeant are fully convinced that everything is as it looks. They persuade Falk to help with their unofficial investigation, though all he wants to do is leave a town that is still openly hostile to his presence. While trying to piece together the final hours of the Hadler’s lives, Falk also rakes over the case that led to his banishment.

The Dry is Jane Harper’s debut novel featuring financial cop, Aaron Falk. The tale is set in a small rural town and its hinterland in Australia during a devastating drought and focuses on the apparent murder-suicide of Luke Hadler - Falk’s childhood best friend - and his family, and the death of their friend, Ellie Deacon, twenty years previously. Falk is personae non-grata, suspected by the local community of being responsible for Ellie’s death. Harper nicely portrays the sense of place of rural Australia, the claustrophobia, tension, and desperation of a community struggling to survive, and the bitterness of unresolved accusations and intimidation. The narrative interweaves to good effect the two murders, time-shifting back-and-forth from the present to Falk’s teenage years and the days leading up to the Hadler deaths. Harper maintains the menace throughout, and while the resolution of one of the threads is kind of obvious from the start, the other is a nice puzzle with a twist. Overall, a captivating opening to a new series.

Review of The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong (Text Publishing, 2016)

Darren and Wally Keefe spend all their time growing up playing cricket in the backyard.  They hone their skills and rivalry through hours of contest while their single mother works in a bar to pay the bills.  Their passion and batting skills soon gets them noticed when they join a local team. A short while later they are the youngest members of the senior team and are breaking records.  As they progress into adulthood, Wally becomes taciturn and single-minded, determined to play for his country.  Darren falls in with the wrong crowd and becomes the bad-boy of Australian cricket.  Both become sporting stars, but their careers take different paths.  What remains constant is their sibling rivalry and an endless succession of ups and downs on and off the pitch.  However, as they enter middle-age, it seems as if Darren’s past has caught up with him as he’s driven from Geelong to Melbourne, locked in the boot of a car, gagged and cable-tied, a bullet in his knee.

The Rules of Backyard Cricket is a brilliant slice of literary Australian noir.  The story is told through twin narratives.  The first, which opens each chapter, details the attempt by Darren Keefe – a bad-boy of Australian cricket – to free himself from the confines of a car boot.  The second charts the childhood and careers of Darren and Wally, his elder brother who secures a place in the Australian national team and eventually becomes captain.  Throughout their careers the Keefe brothers experience a number of highs and lows, all the while maintaining their sibling rivalry and fierce devotion to their single-mother who made many sacrifices to make sure they succeeded in becoming professional cricketers.  The plotting, pacing and prose is superb, with Serong creating a convincing story of two brothers who seem to have it all but are always slightly out of their depth and attract tragedy as much as success.  The Keefes’ world is very well realised, with keen attention to detail with respect to the cricket, as well as its less attractive elements – indeed, the story had the feel of a well realised autobiography than a piece of fiction.  The characterisation and character development is excellent, with Darren Keefe in particular – with his frailties and complexities – being very nicely portrayed.  Given Darren is trussed inside the car boot throughout it’s clear where Serong is leading the tale, but the denouement still packs a powerful and surprising punch.  Overall, an excellent, engaging read that knocks the ball out of the park.

Review of A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute (1950, Heinemann)

The late 1930s and a young Jean Paget travels back to Malaya to work for the company that used to employ her father.  When the island is invaded by the Japanese she and the family she has been staying with are captured.  The men are sent to a camp, but unsure what to do with the women and children they are marched to south towards Singapore.  For seven months the women criss-cross the country, one-by-one dying of exhaustion or disease, no-one wanting to take responsibility for them.  With her resolve and ability to speak fluent Malay, Jean becomes their unofficial leader.  On the way they meet two Australians, one of whom takes a shine to Jean.  However, in trying to help the women he pays a terrible price.  Eventually the small group sees out the rest of the war in a Malay village tending rice paddies.  After the war, Jean settles in England, but when she inherits some money she decides she wants to return to Malaya to thanks the villagers who took her in.  From there she decides to travel to Australia and the outback where she discovers her next great challenge.

It’s been a while since I read a story told by a narrator.  In this case it is Noel Strachan, the solicitor for Jean Paget’s uncle.  Encountering Jean for the first time after the Second World War he gets to know her well and continues to correspond with her for many years later.  The book is his recounting of her life from the late 1930s to early 1950s. During this time Jean has two major adventures, the first surviving the war in Malay as a prisoner of the Japanese, the second, making a new life for herself in the Australian outback.  In both case she takes on the role of unassuming leader, someone with the resourcefulness and vision to make a go of things and to realise goals.  Through Strachan Shute tells an engaging tale of trials and tribulations, one that is sometimes fraught and deadly, but has at its core the values of resilience, hope and love.  The central characters of Jean and Joe are both likeable, and Shute nicely portrays their chemistry and story, as well as the wider story of the war in Malaya and post-war rural life in Australia.  The voice, pacing and sense of place in Malaya and Australian are nicely done.  Overall, an interesting and evocative tale of a young woman coming of age in difficult circumstances.

Review of The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (2013, Vintage)

Dorrigo Evans has risen from rural poverty in Tasmania to become a doctor.  He joins the Australian Army and is preparing to ship out and join the fight in the Second World War when he meets Amy, the young wife of his uncle.  Despite being engaged to Elle, Dorrigo starts a passionate affair with Amy, but then the war intervenes.  First he lands in Syria, fighting the Vichy French, then transfers to Java where he is captured by the Japanese.  With a thousand men under his command he’s put to work building ‘The Line’ – a railway through Thailand to Burma.  In the forced labour camp he assumes the persona of The Big Fella – the compassionate but hard-nosed commander who strives to keep his men alive, forcing officers to share the work of ordinary ranks, negotiating with the Japanese, begging and stealing where necessary, and looking after the sick and dying.  Thoughts about Amy sustain him, but then in a rare letter from home he learns of a tragedy from home.  When he returns to Australia after the war he quickly finds himself married to Elle and resumes his career as a surgeon.  But he’s haunted by the war and Amy and continues to play The Big Fella, though with an ever-growing list of indiscretions, including a string of affairs. 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North charts the life of Dorrigo Evans, a flawed war hero who is haunted by his love for a woman with whom he had a brief affair and the horror of a Japanese prisoner of war camp.  It’s essentially an exploration of the human condition and its different forms and qualities – love, regret, cruelty, honour, jealousy, friendship, savagery, doubt, hope, commitment, infidelity – and of culture and social relations, while also detailing the history, context and horrors of the construction of ‘The Line’ – the railway built by the Japanese using forced prisoner of war and local forced labour.  Rather than use a linear narrative, Flanagan switches between different points in Evans life in a seemingly random order that actually pivot around a single day in 1943 when he receives a letter from home, Darky Gardiner is thrashed to death, and Jack Rainbow dies on a makeshift operating table.  He also switches the focus to other characters, notably the Japanese camp commander who survives the war and rebuilds his own life, but also Amy, the woman Dorrigo loved, his wife, Darky Gardiner, a Korean prison guard, and a number of the Australian prisoners.  What emerges is a series of contrasts and juxtapositions – love/indifference, freedom/confinement, compassion/cruelty, carefree/haunted – with threads of connection such as the camaraderie of prisoners, family ties, and in the case of Dorrigo and his Japanese commander a fascination with the beauty and meaning of poetry and literature.  The result is a vivid, haunting, moving and thought-provoking tale of love and loss told through some wonderful prose.  A story that I sense I will continue to mull over for some time.

Review of Peepshow by Leigh Redhead (Allen and Unwin, 2004)

Simone Kirsch always wanted to join the police force.  The police, however, do not want her given her time working in peepshows and as a stripper.  Undaunted she’s taken an evening class as a private investigator and gained her license.  With her first case she’s dropped in at the deep end, investigating the murder of Frank Parisi, the notorious owner of The Red Room, one of Melbourne’s premier strip clubs.  To provide added motivation, Frank’s older brother has kidnapped her friend Chloe, demanding a result within two weeks or he’ll end her life.  Looking for fast answers Simone heads undercover in The Red Room trying to find clues while baring all.  She’s soon on the trail of a corrupt policeman, is being pursued by another, has fallen in lust with a rockabilly guitarist, and trails round Melbourne’s sex industry, usually with a hangover.  With the clock ticking down, Simone seems out of her depth, but she’s determined to try and shed her water wings and to find the killer and save her friend.

In the late 90s/early 00s I read a whole bunch of tart noir tales involving sassy, smart female PIs who usually got themselves involved in dangerous, madcap adventures with a side-line in romantic/lustful romps.  Peepshow fits neatly into the sub-genre, but with sex/sexy dial turned up to eleven.  Leigh Redhead provides a vivid glimpse in the peepshow and stripping side of the sex industry, and leaves little to the imagination with respect to the sex life of her lead character, Simone Kirsch, a stripper turned private investigator.  Simone’s task is to find the killer of a strip club owner under threat that her friend, Chloe, will die if she fails.  Given that the police have failed to turn up any clues it’s a tall order.  Thrown into the mix is a colourful set of strippers, a corrupt cop, a rockabilly band, two suitors – a guitarist and an undercover cop – and a lot of champagne and drugs.  The result is quickly paced romp laced with plenty of humour.  There’re not too many surprises in the telling, but the story is good explicit fun and sets up the series well.  Simone Kirsch is certainly breaks the usual PI mould and I’m looking forward to her next case.

Review of Dunbar Case by Peter Corris (Allen & Unwin, 2013)

Cliff Hardy, a Sydney based P.I. and tough guy, is hired by a university professor to look into the possibility that more than one person survived the Dunbar shipwreck in the mid-nineteenth century, taking ashore a fortune in diamonds.  The trail leads to a prisoner who knows the whereabouts of another treasure.  All Hardy is after is old family history, what he gets is more complex, involving the notorious Tanner crime family, an undercover cop, and an ambitious journalist.  Then someone he talks to is found dead and the case takes a more sinister turn.

The Dunbar Case is the thirty eighth book in the Cliff Hardy series set in Australia.  It’s a fairly standard independent, headstrong, tough guy PI tale, where the lead character takes a bit of punishment, has a romantic fling, and somehow manages to survive the shenanigans in which he finds himself involved.  The tale is more than a paint-by-numbers case, with Corris blending a historical and contemporary plotlines to good effect, but it did feel a little paint-by-numbers in style, lacking a certain edginess to the writing and relying on a few plot devices to tie things together.  Overall, a competently told, entertaining PI tale from down under.

Review of Nice Try by Shane Maloney (Text Publishing, 1998)

Murray Whelan, Labour party fixer and advisor to the Minister for Water, has decided to try and give up cigarettes and get fit, joining an exclusive fitness club.  There he meets the beautiful aerobics instructor, Holly Deloitte, who he’d last met when she did a work experience placement as a tubby, pimply youth.  This is quickly followed by an encounter with her ex-boyfriend, Steve Radeski, a bodybuilder with a roid rage problem whose father was a member of the Polish weightlifting team at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and had defected, marrying a local girl.  After a narrow escape, Whelan heads to a meeting about Melbourne’s bid to host the 1996 games, the awarding of which is perceived to be the only way the Labour party will stay in power.  He’s asked to switch jobs for a week to help manage the visit of three IOC members - from Senegal, South Korea and Poland - and agrees to do so, but only after bargaining that his son, Red, currently living with his mother in Sydney, gets to hand the Olympic torch to the delegates at a gala dinner.  His task is to marshal an aboriginal agitator who’s intent on using the games to campaign for land rights.  It seems to be going to plan until a young aboriginal tri-athlete is murdered and one of Whelan’s colleagues goes missing.  And to add to his woes, his car has been stolen, he’s fallen for his doctor who shares his smoking habit, and Holly wants his help dealing with Radeski.  All he needs to do is keep a lid on things until after the gala dinner, but that seems all but impossible.

Nice Try is the third book in the Murray Whelan series of political satires/crime stories (my reviews of the first two are here and here).  Whelan is a three steps forward, two steps back kind of political operator -- wise to the games, shenanigans and back stabbing, but unable to always capitalise and often out manoeuvred or prey to rotten luck.  He also has a habit of walking into explosive situations and those involving dead bodies.  This is the case in Nice Try where he is co-opted into helping out a young woman whose former beefy boyfriend is seriously unhinged and roped into trying to shepherd a three person IOC group in Melbourne to assess the city’s bid to host the 1996 Olympics.  Whelan is affable, self-depreciating, shambolic lead character and Maloney populates the story with a set of colourful schemers.  The story has some nicely observed and amusing political satire and farce, though it’s never quite laugh out loud funny, and the contextualisation with regards the Olympics bid and the previous games held in the city is well done.  Whilst the plot is engaging, it does overly rely on a couple of large plot devices mainly to do with the personal intersection of a number of characters that all happen to be in Whelan’s life at the same time.  Overall, a tale that is a little too contrived, but is nonetheless a fun read.

Review of A Decline in Prophets by Sulari Gentill (Pantera Press, 2011)

Rowly Sinclair is the black sheep of a rich Australian family, a bohemian artist with leftist views living on the proceeds of inherited wealth.  Having fled Sydney having foiled a right-wing nationalist plot, Rowly and his working class friends, Clyde, an artist, Milton, a poet, and Edna, a beautiful sculptress and model, have spent a number of months wandering Europe during 1932.  Sensing it is now safe to return home they have boarded the luxury ocean liner RMS Aquitania, travelling back to Australia via New York.  Amongst their fellow first class passengers are leading members of the Theosophists, a religious movement, and a fearsome Catholic Bishop, his wayward niece, and a couple of priests.  Halfway across the Atlantic a former member of the Theosophists is murdered with the evidence pointing towards Rowly being his attacker.  Not long after shots are fired.  By the time they reach Australia a couple more passengers have become victims, with Rowly firmly in the frame for the murders.  The dapper artist, however, is determined to bring the real killer to justice, despite being distracted by a major family event, the christening of his new-born nephew and the attempts of his brother to get him more involved in the family business.

A Decline in Prophets has the feel of a golden age of crime fiction tale, with its focus on an upper class amateur detective and his small band of confidants, the setting on board a luxury liner in the early 1930s, and the form taking a classical style whodunnit.  Gentill pulls off all three elements with aplomb, providing a gently paced, well observed tale of manners and the upper class lifestyle of the period, whilst tingeing the story with darker narrative and keeping the reader guessing as to who the killer is and their motives.  A key ingredient is the character of Rowly Sinclair, a wealthy Australian dilettante with impeccable manners, who attracts trouble and trouble-makers, and his three working class, bohemian friends who live the high life on his tab.  They’re full of playful humour and joie de vivre, even when the chips seem set against them.  They are complemented by their colourful fellow passengers, the rag-bag collection of Theosophists and the more serious Catholic bishop and accompanying priests.   Gentill plays all three groups off against each other generating plenty of potential suspects and subplots.  Back in Australia, Rowly’s stiff upper class family are added to the mix, causing him yet more headaches.  The result is an enjoyable sojourn across the Atlantic to New York then onto Sydney and its wealthy neighbourhoods.

Review of Prime Cut by Alan Carter (Freemantle Press, 2011)

Philip ‘Cato’ Kwong used to be the face of the Western Australian police force’s recruitment posters and on a face-track to the top.  Then one of his early convictions is overturned when the real murderer is caught several years later, the evidence from the first case having been tampered with, and Cato is relegated to the stock squad, investigating farm and animal related incidents.  The move is designed to make him leave the force, a decision he’s close to making when he and his partner are sent to the small coastal town of Hopetoun that’s being transformed by a new mine to investigate the discovery of a torso washed up a beach.  There he’s reunited with an old flame, Tess Maguire, who’s fighting her own demons and a fourteen year old daughter.  They make little headway in the case, rebuffed by unhelpful locals as they slowly pick away at the town’s underbelly and its exploitation of Chinese migrant workers.  And unbeknownst to them, they unsettle a man with a very dark past, one that ex-cop and pommie retiree to Australia, Stuart Miller, has been chasing his whole life.

The strengths of Prime Cut are the evocative sense of place, the characterisation, and the mordant sense of wit.  Carter places the reader on the southern shore of Western Australia, with its scenic beaches and desolate landscape, and into Hopetoun, a small town being transformed by a massive nearby mine.  He populates the town and story with an interesting set of characters who are nicely penned, especially Cato Kwong and Tess Maguire, two damaged cops clinging onto their roles and rethinking their futures.  The storytelling is engaging, aided by a very nice dose of dark wit, expressed through some zinging one-liners.  For the most part the plot worked well, with a couple of decent hooks and steady pace, but as the story progressed it fractured into too many subplots and some of the scenes felt a little over-the-top and melodramatic.  Personally, I felt the Sunderland-linked plotline was not needed and was rooted in too much coincidence - it was if Carter couldn’t decide which case the tale should be about, the washed up torso or the Sunderland murderer and rammed together two plots that could have been the central focus of the story in their own right.  Sometimes, less is more. Regardless, I’d be interested to read the second book in the series to see how Cato fares in trying to get his career and personal life back on track.

Review of The Holiday Murders by Robert Gott (Scribe 2013)

Melbourne, Christmas Eve, 1943, and Inspector Titus Lambert of the Homicide division is called to a large house in which a father and son have been brutally murdered.  He’s accompanied by Sergeant Joe Sable, a young Jewish cop with a heart murmur, who’s been promoted to detective because others have been called up for active service.  Initially they have few leads, but when two military intelligence officers declare an interest in the case it’s suggested that this might be the work of Nazi sympathisers.  Lambert is not convinced that the murders are politically motivated, but it's soon obvious that there is a small group of active national socialists that have not yet been interned who are intent on creating a fascist Australia.  For Sable, the investigation reawakens an interest in his Jewish heritage, and for Constable Helen Ford presents an opportunity to make her mark in a patriarchal police force.  As the violence escalates over the Christmas period, Lambert and his team seek to solve the murders before they induce public panic.

The Holiday Murders is a very competently told police procedural.  The real strengths of the book are the plotting and historical contextualisation.  The story has a nice pace and cadence, and carefully works all the various clues and participants into place, with some nice feints and blinds.  Set in Melbourne in 1943, the story is well framed with respect to the small pockets of anti-Semitism and Nazi sympathisers and agitators who felt the real enemies of Australia were the Jews and communists rather than fascism.  Despite this, the sense of place is a little underdeveloped, giving little flavour of the locale.  The characterisation is nicely done and there is a good dynamic between the various actors, especially Inspector Titus, Sergeant Joe Sable, and Constable Helen Lord.  Overall, an interesting and entertaining read that is hopefully the first in a series.

Review of The Low Road by Chris Womersley (Quercus, 2007)

After leaving prison, Lee is recruited by Josef into the criminal underworld.  Sent on a job to collect eight thousand dollars from a gambler, Lee is shot in the stomach.  He awakens in a grubby motel on the edge of the city.  The motel manager calls on Wild, a disgraced junkie doctor on the run to tend to the wound.  Wild reluctantly agrees but feels Lee needs the attention of a better physician.  Together they set off across country to visit Wild’s former mentor, taking with them a suitcase containing the gambler’s debt money.  Given Josef recruited Lee, he is responsible for debt is paid to his boss and he sets off in pursuit.

The Low Road is a bleak, dark, literary noir tale.  It is somewhat of a curious story as it feels both timeless and placeless: it could be set anywhere from the mid-1930s through to the 1990s and in any reasonable sized city with a large rural hinterland.  The story is all about the three main characters, especially Lee, a young petty criminal, and Wild, a doctor addicted to morphine, and their journey to try and escape their past and their developing, uneasy friendship.  It is not a cheery plot, but it well crafted and paced, told through stark and engaging prose.  Overall, this is not a story that will inspire hope and joy, but is an evocative and engaging tale that has the feel of a stage play with its small cast and handful of settings.

Review of Black Wattle Creek by Geoffrey McGeachin (Penguin, 2012)

Ten years after starting a relationship with Rebecca in the Diggers Rest Hotel, Charlie Berlin is living in suburban Melbourne with his wife and two children, Peter and Sarah.  He’s still working as a cop, but his career is in a dead-end, he’s struggling to make ends meet, and he is still living with the demons of his time as bomber pilot and POW in a Polish camp.  When a recently bereaved widow becomes suspicious about the activities of a funeral home, Berlin agrees to investigate.  It’s immediately obvious that the director of the company has something to hide and his interest piqued, Charlie starts to poke around.  It soon becomes clear though that he’s stumbled onto something much bigger than he anticipated and he’s inadvertently put himself and his family at risk.  Rather than turning a blind eye, however, he stubbornly continues to investigate the strange goings-on at Black Wattle Creek.

Black Wattle Creek has two strong elements: the character of Charlie Berlin and his family, and the reason behind his investigation.  Berlin is interesting company, a caring family man who’s haunted by his past, and is tenacious in his pursuit of a solving a case.  When he looks into the suspicions of one of his wife’s friends about a local funeral home he has no idea what he getting himself into.  It soon becomes obvious that maybe he’d be better off keeping his nose out of other peoples’ business.  Where the story seems to become a little unstuck, however, is in its unfolding.  There were two aspects that I had a hard time buying which worked to undermine the fidelity of the tale somewhat.  The first was the strategy of those he’s investigating, who inflict savage violence on those Berlin consults rather than the man himself.  The second was Berlin being enlightened by the same people when there was really no need and then let wander free.  Nevertheless, the tale is enjoyable, mainly because Berlin is a compelling, wounded character and the pacing and prose are nicely done.  The third book in the series is due out next year and I’m looking forward to reading it in due course.

Many thanks to Geoffrey McGeachin for sending me a copy of the book, which has recently won the 2013 Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in Australia.

Review of Roll With It by Nick Place (Hardie Grant, 2013)

Tony ‘Rocket’ Laver is a Detective Senior Sergeant with the Victoria Major Crimes unit in Melbourne.  In an operation to arrest a team of armed robbers he shoots one of the gang members dead.  It is the sixth time a Victoria cop has killed a member of the public in a four month period.  The fact that Laver was returning fire cuts no mustard with the politicians who feel they need to set an example.  Senior police management bow to their pressure, demoting Laver and ‘sending him to Siberia’ pending an inquest.  Siberia turns out to be the Mobile Public Interaction Squad, cops who patrol the city on bikes, helping tourists and directing traffic.  It’s a long drop down from being a member of an elite squad and means turning up for work dressed in Lycra.  To add to his woes his fiancée has little sympathy for his predicament and is giving him the cold shoulder.  Reluctantly, Laver takes to the saddle, but it doesn’t take him long to spot four shady characters who immediately set his crime detection antenna twitching: a naive, love struck junior supermarket manager, a beautiful green activist, and two career criminals.  Laver is sure that a major crime is about to take place, but given his quarantining none of his previous colleagues want to know and it’s left to him and a newbie bike cop to investigate.  

Comic crime capers always have elements that are a little exaggerated or stretch the imagination, with characters that are somewhat larger than life.  At the same time, the story has to have some ring of believability about it.  It’s a difficult balance to perfect.  For the most part, Nick Place manages it with Roll With It, a tale about a good cop’s fall from grace and his increasingly desperate attempt to gain redemption.  Laver the career cop demoted from elite squad to bike duty, Jake the naive supermarket assistant, Lou the rebellious green activist, Stig the loser, low-level criminal, and Westie his violent side-kick, are all well-penned and engaging characters whose lives become entangled.  For the most part the plot also works well, with Jake pursuing Lou, Stig’s former girlfriend, whilst Stig is also trying to win her back whilst also offloading a consignment of drugs stolen in a different part of the country.  However, I didn’t quite buy Laver’s initial or ongoing quarantining, nor his relationship to his fiancée which seemed way past over and certainly not worth pursuing.  The tale is told in a nice tell not show style, with a gently comic voice, and a nice sense of place with respect to the city streets of Melbourne.  Overall, Roll With It is a light, enjoyable and amusing read.

Review of White Dog by Peter Temple (Quercus, 2011, pub in Australia in 2003).

Sarah Longmore is about to stand trial for the murder of her former lover, a property developer who’s business was in trouble.  Jack Irish has been hired to look into her defence and the veracity of her claims that she’s innocent given that it appears to be an open and shut case.  Jack’s partner has just taken a job in London, so he has plenty of time to investigate Longmore’s story.  It doesn’t take long for him to start to question her guilt and not much longer for others to warn him to quietly drop his snooping.  But once something has got under Jack’s skin, he finds it difficult to walk away.  The question is whether he’ll be walking at all if he doesn’t let the case slide.

White Dog is the fourth and (so far) last book in the excellent Jack Irish series set in and around Melbourne about a former lawyer who divides his time between being an investigator, debt collector, furniture maker, horse-racing gambler and watching Aussie rules football.  Like all of Peter Temple’s novels, White Dog is a nice mix of hardboiled crime and literary voice and observational asides.  In a genre full of workman-like prose, Temple writes with a fresh tone.  The narrative is layered and sometimes almost elusive or veiled, the reader as unsure as to what is happening as Jack.  It’s an intriguing and beguiling style.  As usual, the characterisation is excellent, especially Jack and the Youth Club, an elderly group of football supporters that prop up the local bar, and Jack’s horse racing friends.  The plot is tight and engaging and there’s a nice sense of place.  Overall, a first rate read and  I’m hoping that now the first two books have been adapted for television that Temple will resurrect what has been a stellar series.

Review of A Few Right Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill (Pantera Press, 2010)

1931 and Australia is in the grip of a depression, with thousands finding it difficult to make ends meet.  Politically, the country is being split between the left and the rise of communism, and the conservative right and the spectre of fascism in the form of the New Guard.  Rowly Sinclair has been bought up as a privileged gentlemen, his family rich from farming and investments, but lives a bohemian lifestyle as an artist, friends with many working class folk.  When his uncle is killed in his own home, the police prove less than useful, suspecting the elderly housekeeper.  Rowly and his friends decide to investigate, much to the chagrin of his elder brother.  Soon they are caught up in the swirl of political rhetoric and running battles between the communists and New Front, Rowly risking his reputation and life to get at the truth and justice. 

I wasn’t really sure about A Few Right Thinking Men for the first 150 pages or so.  Not a whole lot happens except the characters are introduced and the scene set for what follows.  It is only with Rowly’s friends turning up at his brother’s house that the book sparks into life and then it’s a thoroughly enjoyable romp all the way to near the end.  The strength of the story is its characterization, and its sense of place and history.  Rowly and his friends are very engaging, and the other main characters such as his brother, the police and the various political actors are nicely drawn.  Gentill weaves the story around a series of real events and actors, and the reader is dropped into Australia society in the 1930s, and in particular to the brief flirtations with communism and fascism.  The plot was relatively straightforward, the mystery element was a bit of damp squib, and the end just kind of drifted away as a bit of anti-climax and setup for the next instalment.  Nevertheless, for a good chunk of the story I was captivated and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, A Decline in Prophets.