Category Archives: Jarad Henry (Aus)

Crime Fiction Alphabet: V is for Victoria (the bit of Australia not the Queen)

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I have neglected the last couple of alphabet letters but it can’t be helped: day-job workload and a dead computer reduced my blogging in recent weeks. Unfortunately I’ve chosen to return to the meme for a pesky letter of the alphabet for which I could think of only two subjects to discuss. One is a theme common to crime fiction but is a word I can never spell correctly and the other is a state in Australia that I am meant to be at war with. I’ve chosen to go with Victoria, the state of Australia that we South Australians are taught to hate from birth (it’s all to do with sport which is a subject that bores me witless) but which is home to some of the best crime fiction in the country. Victoria is a small state in the south-east of the country and its capital city is Melbourne.

As far as I know Carolyn Morwood only wrote two novels featuring Marlo Shawe who is a professional cricketer and amateur sleuth based in Melbourne but I enjoyed them both and would like to know what happened to this author. In the second of the books, 2002′s A Simple Death, Marlo finds a homeless man who has been bludgeoned to death and her boss becomes a suspect in the case.

One of the world’s earliest mystery stories is Fergus Hume‘s 1893 tale Mystery of a Hansom Cab in which a hansom cab driver finds his passenger has been poisoned and has died during their journey. I think I read this book many years ago but I picked up a new copy last year when a new publisher released it in a spiffy leather-ish binding.

Garry Disher has two crime series which are both set in Victoria. The novels featuring Detective Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry take place in and around the Mornington Peninsula, one of the state’s holiday destinations. The first novel of the series is 1999′s The Dragon Man which involves the investigation into a series of assaults on women and takes place across a blistering Australian summer (fans of the series take note, Disher’s website says there’s a new instalment of this series with a working title of Whispering Death due this year)

Jarad Henry has written two books set in Victoria. I haven’t read the first, Head Shot, which is about a drug squad detective who is accused of murdering a gangland figure who killed a policeman but I did read the second novel to feature the same detective as its central character. Blood Sunset takes place across a sweltering Melbourne summer in which bushfires ring the city and detective Rubens McCauley investigates the death of a young runaway. Melbourne, warts and all, is a distinct character in this terrific novel (more rumours, via tweets from the emerging writer’s festival held in Melbourne recently, are that Jarad Henry’s third novel will be out later this year)

Kerry Greenwood’s historical series starring Phyrne Fisher features the Melbourne of the 1920′s while her Corinna Chapman series takes place in the present day, inner-city version of the place. While the series is definitely at the lighter end of the crime fiction spectrum it does present a very recognisable Melbourne, including some of its darker elements (fact this time, Greenwood’s historical series and its Victorian setting will be brought to television next year).

Leigh Redhead‘s protagonist is Melbourne based former stripper Simone Kirsch. In her first outing, 2004′s Peepshow, Kirsch has enrolled in a course at security college (she won’t be accepted into the police force due to her former career) and becomes involved in the hunt for the kidnappers of one of her old dancing colleagues. This series shows off the seedier side of life in Melbourne .

Lindy Cameron‘s trilogy featuring Melbourne-based private detective Kit O’Malley is a treat. The first book in the series, Blood Guilt (1999), uses another sweltering Australian summer (trust me this is an almost annual occurrence so it’s not surprising to see the weather as a recurring theme) as the backdrop for a philandering husband investigation which turns into a hunt for a murderer.

Peter Klein brings the world of Victorian horse-racing to life in his series of novels featuring John Punter, a professional gambler and amateur detective. These novels have a real ring of authenticity due to Klein’s long history with the racing world in which he started as a strapper. Although racing takes place everywhere in the country (we are a nation of gamblers after all) it is the Melbourne Cup that, quite literally, stops the country on the first Tuesday each November and Klein draws out this aspect of Victoria’s life very well in novels such as Punter’s Turf.

Peter Temple made his home in Victoria after leaving his native South Africa and spending time in several places (including Sydney) and most of his crime fiction is set in the state. His quartet of novels featuring lawyer/gambler/private detective Jack Irish paint a picture of Melbourne that you’d swear could only have been drawn by someone born and bred there. It’s the little things, like the lamenting of the old-timers for the loss of the football clubs they knew and understood, that make Temple’s Melbourne come alive.

Melbourne is also home to one of the few writers of Australian crime caper novels I can think of. Shane Maloney‘s series featuring political aide and bumbling amateur sleuth Murray Whelan is based in Melbourne. Melbourne certainly seems to be the home of comedy in Australia (it boasts one of the world’s largest and most influential comedy festivals) so perhaps it’s not surprising it is also home to some fictional crime comedy.

Have you read any of these crime tales set in Victoria? or have I missed your favourite crime fiction set in Victoria? Do tell in the comments

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise is hosting the crime fiction alphabet meme which requires the posting of an article relating to the letter of the week. Do join in the fun by reading the posts and/or contributing one of your own. You don’t have to write every week.

Review: Blood Sunset by Jarad Henry

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Title: Blood Sunset

Author: Jarad Henry

Publisher: Allen and Unwin [2008]

ISBN: 978-1-74175-420-9

Length: 327 pages

Setting: Victoria, Australia, present-day

Genre: Police Procedural

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating: 4/5

One-liner: Powerful imagery and a fascinating protagonist made this one hard to put down.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It’s summer in Melbourne, Australia and with the city choking on the smoke from bushfires the body of a young runaway, Dallas Boyd, is discovered. At first Detective Rubens McCauley, newly back to work after recovering from a gunshot wound, registers the death as having no suspicious circumstances. However as he thinks about it more he becomes convinced the boy was murdered though it’s difficult for him to convince his superiors of this. He works alone on the case while suspended from duty but when a second teenager’s body is found his boss reluctantly allows him to return to work.

Ostensibly about the case of a murdered boy, Blood Sunset really seemed to me to be more about inner-city Melbourne. McCauley meets a series of people as he investigates the case and each one is used to show some aspect of life in the city. Sometimes these vignettes have little to do with the case, such as the scene which had me in tears where McCauley’s elderly neighbour describes the fear and helplessness he feels over one of his friends who was assaulted while withdrawing money from an ATM. At other times they’re more directly involved with the investigation such as when McCauley meets the social worker who has been assigned to the case of Dallas Boyd’s six-year-old sister who lives with the same step father who abused Boyd. Even McCauley’s personal life presents opportunities to display different sides of city life including his niece’s use of recreational drugs and his own search for the perfect pub gig. All of these threads are pulled deftly together to present a portrait of the gritty side of life in a modern city.

There is a very sound police procedural too, with McCauley doggedly tracking down leads and involving anyone he can find to help him uncover what happened to Dallas Boyd. At the very end of the book Henry did introduce one over-used crime fiction cliché, particularly unnecessary when the book is wonderfully suspense-filled without it, but overall it didn’t detract too much from the otherwise excellent story.

McCauley is a nicely complex character: sharing some of the foibles of other lone detectives in crime fiction but never becoming unbelievably dysfunctional. His struggle with some personal issues throughout the book is woven into the story well, providing interesting insight into his character without allowing the story to become angst-ridden. None of the other characters had much opportunity to be terribly well-developed and that, for me, was the only other slightly disappointing element to the book. Still, we did get some fascinating glimpses of both the city and McCauley’s personal history through meeting his estranged wife, his brother and some of his police colleagues.

I bought this book purely because it was buy an Australian author and hadn’t read a single thing about it before embarking on it. I sometimes wish I could approach all books with such a lack of expectations because it offers the potential for a reading surprise which, at least on this occasion, was  an entirely pleasant one.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Blood Sunset is the second book from Jarad Henry and follows on from his debut, Heat Shot (which was shortlisted for the 2006 Ned Kelly Awards in the best first novel category)

Blood Sunset has also been reviewed at Crime Down Under and Aust Crime Fiction