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.

A frustrated book buyer

A couple of days ago, Bernadette over at Reactions to Reading posted her reads of the month.  Two of the books took my fancy: Black Wattle Creek by Geoffrey McGeachin and Paving the New Road by Sulari Gentill.  Neither are available on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com, nor Book Depository.  I've previously tried to buy McGeachin's other Charlie Berlin book, The Digger's Rest Hotel.  It's available as an audio book but not a paper or e-book.  I've twice had pre-orders for White Dog by Peter Temple cancelled because of delays in being published in the UK, despite the fact that it was published in 2004 in Australia (it is now available at hardback price).  I've also tried to buy Kel Robertson's second novel, Smoke and Mirrors, a winner of Ned Kelly prize for crime fiction in 2009, but to no avail.  I've read the first book in the series because a friend in Australia sent me a copy.

It's pretty difficult to be Fair Dinkum about Australian crime fiction when it is almost impossible to buy the crime novels published there.  In an age of globalised cultural production, Internet buying and e-books, I find it very odd that English language books are still being limited to geographical regions.  I can read reviews of books, but I can't buy them.  It's a practise that seems limited to fiction.  I think all of my academic books can be bought anywhere on the planet relatively easily.  It is very frustrating to potential readers and I suspect also authors who's audience is being deliberately limited.  I know that this is to do with the selling of rights and the launching/marketing of books in different locales, but it seems to me that there should be an opportunity for readers to purchase books online that might not yet be available in bookstores.  If nothing else it might create a buzz about a book, including reviews, and actually aid the selling of rights in different regions.  Especially as so many of the books I'm interested in will probably never be published in other regions.

Anyway, what I want to know is this: can somebody recommend an Australian online bookstore that will post the books to Ireland at a reasonable rate?  Or perhaps an alternative way to buy Australian crime fiction that is presently not available in the Europe or North America?  I know books in Australia are relatively expensive, but I can live with that.  I just want to be able to read the books that I want to read.

Review of Truth by Peter Temple (2009, Quercus)

A young girl is found dead in a glass bath in an empty apartment, thirty storeys up in a brand new, exclusive property development. The building’s management company claim there’s no security footage, despite boasting that it’s the most secure complex in the city, using the latest Israeli systems. Inspector Stephen Villani, head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad, knows he’s been given the brush-off, and he’s determined to get to the truth. Only the truth is an intangible and slippery concept, especially when everyone Villani encounters is on the make in one way or another or has a dark secret to hide, including his colleagues and himself. Then more bodies start to turn up and Villani finds himself swimming in very murky waters infested with powerful politicians, influential businessmen, and senior police officers bent on using him for their own gain, all offering rewards for looking the other way. And to top it off, his wife is away, his youngest daughter is roaming the streets in a drug-addled state, his brother is mixed up with a biker gang, and his father is refusing to leave his landholding despite a huge forest fire heading his way. Unsure who to trust, doubting himself, and trying to keep his own secrets hidden, Villani seeks justice, if not the truth.

It took me a little while to get hooked into Truth. The story had a change in style from Temple’s previous novels somewhat similar to the transformation in James Ellroy’s work – the prose becoming starker, terser and sparser, yet still retaining its lyrical prose. For much of the first half of the book, the story is a succession of fragments, the reader dropped into scenes that lack backstory and context; it’s a bit like hearing a sequence of partial conversations between guarded protagonists and trying to piece them together into a full narrative to try and understand what is going on. The result is that the reader is not really sure what is happening or why. Slowly things start to take shape and the multi-layered plot twists to a resolution. While the characterisation is good, and the dialogue realistic, the strength of the novel is that it provides plenty of food for thought with respect to its central premise – that nobody can be trusted, even family and friends; that everybody is on the make in some fashion; and every action has to be evaluated for possible consequences and costs. To that end, Truth, for me at least, is a novel that has more weight and substance a few days after reading, as its deeper meanings surface on reflection. Overall, an enjoyable novel that lingers after reading, but not quite in the same league as Temple’s Jack Irish novels, which are first class.

How cops become bent …

A Saturday Snippet from Peter Temple's, Truth. A just about perfect, succinct explanation for how and why cops become bent. Great stuff.


Bent forever, the job. Why not? Terrible pay, the hours, the conditions, the risks. It only took a few days for him to work out who he had signed up with: the dim, the school bullies, body-builders, martial-arts fanatics, control freaks, thrillseekers, loners, kids from cop families, kids bought up by mum.

In uniform, a full understanding of the job slowly dawned. A life spent dealing with the dishonest, the negligent, the deviant, the devious, the desperate, the cruel, the callous, the vicious, the drunk, the drugged, the temporarily deranged and permanently insane, the sick and sad, the sadists, sex maniacs, child molesters, flashers, exhibitionists, women-beaters, wife-beaters, child-beaters, self-mulitators, the homicidal, matricidal, patricidal, fraticidal, suicidal.

Some of them dead.

You could quickly slide into otherness, estrangement from the civilian world, a sense of entitlement. What did it matter if you didn’t pay full price for your clothes, your drycleaning, got free coffee, a sandwich, if people bought you drinks in pubs? You could take lotto tickets, not pay at places. People gave you horse tips, invites to clubs, you could go after your shift with a mate, everything on the house, the best girls.

Just give your name. Expecting you, the bloke.

They gave every sign you were the sexiest thing that year, you had experiences not normally had on a date or with the wife. When you were pissed, someone gave you something. And then one day you got the call.

Shit, mate, bastard pulls me over on the Tulla, goin a bit over, yeah. Not the fine, mate, the fucken points, gonna have to get the fucken push-bike out, have a word, can you? Appreciate it, mate.

White Dog

Way back in August last year I posted about a pre-order splurge. One of the books I excitedly ordered was a copy of White Dog by Peter Temple, the fourth Jack Irish novel. The fact that the publication date was delayed meant the other books I'd ordered were delayed, so instead of getting Philip Kerr's 'If The Dead Rise Not' in early Sept, it arrived in October. Amazon have just emailed to tell me that it has been indefinitely delayed and to ask whether I want my money back. What the heck is going on here? Why did the publisher inform Amazon of a publication date if it can't deliver with a six month timeframe? It was published in Australia in Sept 2006, so it's not as if there are writing/production issues. In fact, it is even been sold in Australia as an omnibus edition! A message to Quercus the UK publisher - please get this book out soon.

Pre-order splurge

I've had an interesting journey trying to get The Rule Book into Irish bookshops; I've learnt a lot about the book publishing industry in the process. I won't bore you with the details but it seems that the impasse has been cleared (by me taking a cut in royalties so that the publisher and distributor both got what they wanted). I got two reports yesterday of sightings, one in the Dublin Airport, the other in the window of Hodges Figgis, the largest bookshop in Dublin. Hopefully the blumming thing will now find its way into reader's hands ...

Anyway, feeling chipper with myself I decided to splurge and pre-order some books. I very rarely do this, but there are a couple of authors and series I'm prepared put my hand in pocket for. So I've ordered the following, which when they are delivered will zip to the top of a to read pile that's already rickety.


Are there any authors or series that you feel compelled to buy the minute they're published (and forget the price)?







I can't wait to get stuck into these. If they all turn up on the same day I won't know where to start. I also know a couple of people who'll be pestering me for first dibs once I've finished. In fact I imagine they might get snaffled the moment I turn my back.

I also decided to buy two others. Old Flames is the second book in the Troy series, the first of which I reviewed yesterday. If Donna Moore's blog is anything to go by then Go To Helena Handbasket should be a blast. Expect reviews this side of Christmas! I know I'm not going to be able to stop myself, but I really don't need to buy any more books before then.













Flip-it - I've just read the order email from Amazon. Peter Temple is published 3rd Sept, Philip Kerr 10th Sept, and Terry Pratchett 1st Oct. I just followed the default settings which groups the delivery into as few as parcels as possible so the expected delivery date is 7th-13th Oct! I need to to keep a better eye on that next time. Grrrr.