Category Archives: Australia

Review: FLOUNDERING by Romy Ash

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FlounderingAshRomy18489_fThere’s no getting away from the fact that Romy Ash’s début novel FLOUNDERING has garnered a lot of attention on the Australian literary scene. It was shortlisted for last year’s Vogel Award (for unpublished manuscripts) and this year as a published novel appeared on the shortlists for the inaugural Stella Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and now the first-ever all-female Miles Franklin Award shortlist. So the fact that I am underwhelmed by it won’t matter a jot. Which is as it should be.

Whereas last year my foray back into the literary end of the writing pool was very successful, forcing me to reconsider my “I’m done with literary fiction” stance, FLOUNDERING reminded me of all the reasons I gave up on it in the first place.

It starts with a woman picking up the two sons she abandoned a year or so earlier as they walk home from school. Loretta (she won’t be called mum), Jordy (13) and Tom (11) then travel across the country in the half of the novel that is reminiscent of the classic American road trip experience, though with a distinctly Australian flavour. Although the trip has seemed directionless it turns out Loretta’s aim was to reach a run down beach side caravan her parents have probably forgotten they own. In an event that was only surprising in terms of the length of time it took to happen, Loretta disappears again and, largely due to Jordy’s fierce fear of being fostered, the boys try to fend for themselves. There is, of course, an unsavoury neighbour to contend with on top of being young boys alone in the world.

I know it marks me as a literary lightweight but I want something to happen in the books that I read. Preferably several somethings, at least some of which aren’t predictable from page five. FLOUNDERING really doesn’t have much of a plot and what does exist is inevitable from the outset. There were no genuine surprises for me which made the book drag, a pretty astonishing feat given it’s only 202 pages long. This kind of meandering nothingness is what I remember most from slogging through literary fiction in the past and my tolerance for it has, if anything, shrunk as I’ve gotten older. I can appreciate some aspects of the book: the vivid sense of place, some individual moments of beautifully understated heartache and even the authentic nature of the narrator’s voice (though that came with its own problems). But I wanted a story too. More, really, than any of these other things.

FLOUNDERING is told from Tom’s perspective. The innocent, naive sensibility this allows for grew thin especially as it does, by necessity, leave a lot out. I found myself more interested in the book that Ash didn’t write. This is probably wildly unfair of me but I can’t help that I found the child’s point of view very limiting. His world view is, legitimately, narrow and consists of being in a hot car, not having enough food, taking lonely beach walks and going to the toilet. His inner life really isn’t that much more compelling. I would rather, for example, have known what Loretta was thinking as she drove off on a supposedly short errand that left her children alone in a new place and without food or water for a long, hot summer’s day but instead we spent (another) day viewed from the point of view of a kid whose time was largely spent sitting on a step outside his caravan.

Many reviews make particular and generally glowing mention of the fact that this book raises the issue of children at risk. It does, but only in a descriptive sense. That is it says “look, here are some children in danger” and then describes their particular version of danger for 200 pages. It doesn’t offer different perspectives on those dangers nor any insights into how they might be averted. It didn’t even touch on the vexing question of how a 13 year old has learned only bad things about the welfare/foster system in his young life.

After reading the book I listened to an interview with Romy Ash in which she said she wanted to write a book with no bad guys and I’ve been pondering this for a few days. I think it probably explains a lot. Ash has been gentle with everyone, even the people you might expect to dislike and while this is admirable in a “golly let’s all be totally non-judgemental of our fellow human beings” kind of way, ultimately it led to a very passive novel. To me it was just a handful of people doing a few not very interesting things for a while. And then they stopped.

There are however a gazillion glowing reviews of FLOUNDERING to be found so read a few of those before taking my word on anything. And if you do decide to read it make sure you’ve a large supply of drinking water to hand: I defy anyone to read it for long without becoming intensely thirsty.

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awwbadge_2013FLOUNDERING is the 8th book I’ve read as part of my participation in this year’s Australian Women Writers Challenge, though only the first that sits outside my reading comfort zone of crime fiction.

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Publisher Text Publishing [2012]
ISBN 9781921922084
Length 202 pages
Format paperback
Book Series standalone

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Review: THE BAT by Jo Nesbø

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TheBatNesboAudioThe latest of Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole novels to be translated into English is the first one ever released in Norwegian, back in the late 90′s. At least for me this is one of the few occasions where I think translating out of order was probably the right decision. Even setting aside the fact I didn’t find it a great book I don’t think it’s a particularly good representation of what the series would eventually become and with it being set outside Norway, a strange choice for a first book in a series, it wouldn’t exactly have fitted in with the rest of the ‘cold Scandi crime’. Personally I doubt I’ve bothered reading any more if this had been my first exposure to the Nesbø/Hole phenomenon.

The book sees Harry Hole, a disgraced Norwegian policeman, sent to Australia to be a kind of liaison as Sydney police investigate the death of a Norwegian girl. It is a sort of test to see if Harry can be fully trusted again. But, as those who have read any of Harry’s later adventures might expect, the path to even a semblance of redemption is a bumpy one to say the least. As far as providing many of the details which explain why Harry is the way he is in later novels THE BAT does a good job and the last third of the book was a reasonably fast-paced kind of yarn. The rest of the book didn’t really do it for me.

Most of the reason is length. The book rambles, endlessly, and often in a terribly earnest, almost preachy kind of way. I am always annoyed at being preached at but I am particularly peeved when preached at about complex issues such as my country’s handling of indigenous issues by someone who spent 5 weeks here before writing a book. In his trek along the east coast of Australia Harry meets an assortment of fringe-dwellers …Aboriginal boxing troop members, transvestite clowns, junkie cops, sky-diving homeless people, kind-hearted prostitutes and the like…who are all, rather unbelievably, as articulate as professors when they share their life-lessons thinly disguised as amusing anecdotes. Along with a few random and unrelated Dreaming stories these are inserted fairly clunkily into the book with the result that I felt like I read a combination whodunnit / high school social studies primer. I suspect most of this content would have appealed far more to Nesbo’s home audience than it did to me. But even if I hadn’t been mentally grizzling “but that wouldn’t happen like that” I’d still have been rolling my eyes at the rambling in this book. It needed a lot tighter editing.

When I read the next book in this series, THE REDBREAST, a couple of years ago I said of Harry

He is funny, smart, occasionally insolent, socially inept and has a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve. At first I liked him but his realistic and truly touching reaction to a particularly horrible event about half-way through the story made me love him to bits. I rarely think about wanting to meet fictional people (because, ya know, it’s impossible) but I’d happily engage in a bit of black magic if it meant I could have a chat with Harry.

I don’t feel nearly so enamoured of him having read this instalment of the series. I’m not sure exactly why as he did exhibit some of those characteristics I identified, though he wasn’t particularly funny or smart in THE BAT. But it was more than that…something to do with the inevitability of his new fall from grace (i.e. the one that happens in this book not the one that happened in his back story)…like he wasn’t even trying to fight it. And his investigative skills basically boiled down to a series of guesses, all but the last of which was wrong with awful, even fatal, consequences so I couldn’t really respect him as a policeman. The rest of the (many, many) people populating this story were caricatures…none of them terribly interesting.

To top it all off I found the ending preposterously unbelievable. If for no other reason than by that point any self-respecting policeman would surely have told the towering blonde foreigner (who by that time was sozzled as well) to take his theories, which up to that point had all been disastrously wrong, and sod off which would have spared at least one innocent life. But the police in this book continue to politely sit back and wait for Harry’s next ludicrous theory before doing anything that vaguely resembles their job.

Completists will presumably want to read this to gain an understanding of Harry’s past but I wouldn’t recommend it to others, especially not those who have yet to embark on the Harry Hole adventure. It doesn’t give you much of an idea of what future books will be like and it might put you off all together. Given the series had a legion of fans long before this book’s release it is obviously entirely possible to enjoy the series without having read this instalment. If you are going to read it I’d highly recommend the audio version I listened to as Seán Barrett is a great narrator; indeed one of my favourites (and for the linguistically challenged like myself you’ll finally learn how to properly pronounce Harry’s surname).

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Narrator Seán Barrett
Translator Don Bartlett
Publisher Random House Audio [2012]
ASIN B009L9ES22
Length 10 hours 43 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #1 (chronologically) in the Harry Hole series

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Review: PAST THE SHALLOWS by Favel Parrett

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I’m not sure it was a completely conscious decision but, looking back, I can almost pinpoint the moment I gave up on ‘literary fiction’. My book club had chosen yet another humourless, droning account of despair for our monthly discussion and I quietly dreamed up an excuse to leave the club rather than face another bout of depression. In the intervening half-dozen years I have rarely dipped my toes back into the literary end of the reading pool and those few experiences, such as this year’s reading of THE SLAP, have not left me wanting more.

And so it was with some trepidation that I picked up Favel Parrett’s much talked-about, Miles Franklin Award-shortlisted debut novel PAST THE SHALLOWS, discussions of which almost invariably include words like dark, moody and haunting.

I was engrossed from the outset and unexpectedly read the book in a single sitting, almost physically unable to tear my eyes away. I was helped along by the fact it is a deliciously short novel in this age of doorstop-sized tomes. It is, as Wendy Harmer described when the novel received The First Tuesday Bookclub’s treatment, like reading a poem. A beautiful poem that you want to re-read, savour and quote bits of forever more.

It is the story of three brothers – Joe, Miles and Harry – who are growing up in an isolated fishing community in southern Tasmania. With their mother having died in a car accident their alcoholic father virtually ignores them all, except Miles whom he expects to work on the family’s small fishing boat even though he is only 13. Although older, Joe has moved away from the family home for reasons that only become clear well past the point of spoilers. Motion-sickness prone Harry is nine and, as he can’t go out on the boat, is left to fend for himself during the long school holiday days which leads to a series of small but compelling adventures. For me at least the book is the story of these boys: their inner lives, their dreams and their relationships with each other.

The story unfolds from the dual perspectives of Harry and Miles and Parrett does seem to have realistically captured their voices – fearful, protective, excitable, yearning to be older and…elsewhere. While I cannot personally attest to her ability to show the world from the perspective of a young boy I am able to confirm that she has depicted the sibling relationship to perfection; capturing the competing forces of fierce, overprotective love and extreme annoyance that one feels towards one’s siblings (often at exactly the same moment).

Though this story is sad it does not weigh the reader down with heartache or despair and I’m not sure I can articulate what it is that, for me, made this sad book a lovely reading experience while so many other sad books leave me contemplating bringing about my own oblivion as a blessed release. Perhaps it is that there are moments of joy for the boys, Miles’ contentment in finding the perfect wave while surfing or Harry’s delight in suddenly having enough money to buy showbags for his brother and best friend, which alleviate the sadness. Or it might be the brevity and things left unsaid. For this is not a book that dwells. It glides quickly from one moment to the next, often encapsulating a major idea or plot point in a single line. I think it is this element that made the book feel like poetry to me because each sentence…each word even…seemed like it had been carefully selected and placed. Nothing wasted.

PAST THE SHALLOWS is one of those increasingly rare books that left me wanting more (rather than fervently wishing there’d been less). It explores important, heavy themes without inducing clinical depression in the reader. Alongside its central sadness there is beauty in the natural environment brought stunningly to life and hope in the irrepressible effervescence of the boys. Reading it was an absolute treat.

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I promised myself that I would dabble outside my reading comfort zone when I signed up for the Australian Women Writers Challenge and although it’s taken me nearly all year to develop the courage to include some literary fiction I am chuffed to have done so. If it weren’t for the challenge I’d have missed this treat which sounds to me like a good reason for you to sign up for next year’s challenge - who knows what treat you might find for yourself? For those keeping score this is my 16th book for the challenge (which officially ended when I hit 10 books but I’ll keep going until the end of the year).

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My rating 4.5/5
Publisher Hachette Australia [2011]
ISBN 9780733626579
Length 251 pages
Format paperback
Source I bought it
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Review: Matilda is Missing by Caroline Overington

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Matilda is Missing is narrated by Barry Harrison, a pensioner from a typical working class suburb in Melbourne. As the book opens we learn that Barry’s wife Pat is struggling to cope with the loss of access to her grandchildren after her son’s marriage collapses. At the same time Barry inherits some documents from an old friend of his, Frank Brooks, who was a judge in the Family Court. Frank believes he made a mistake in a case he presided over and, knowing he is dying, thinks Barry will know the right thing to do and so arranges for the case files to be passed on. Barry has no clue why Frank chose him to deal with the matter but he is not the sort of bloke to shirk a duty so he starts to review the documents. As he does so  the troubling story of Garry Hartshorn and Softie Monaghan and their struggle for their daughter Matilda unfolds.

I’ll be up front and say this is not the sort of book I would normally read. I was wary of comparisons in the book’s own marketing material to the works of Jodi Picoult as I’ve read a couple of those and found them too manipulative of reader emotions and opinions for my taste (to me they have an air of the author pushing the reader to be in a flood of tears by the end and if you’re not there’s something wrong with you). However, when I signed up for the Australian Women Writers challenge I opted to dabble in genres beyond what I typically read and I chose Matilda is Missing as one of the “out of my comfort zone’ books. In the end I had a couple of misgivings about it but overall there was much more to like than I anticipated.

One of those misgivings concerned the contrivance used to make Barry the teller of this particular story. Aside from questioning the legalities of such a handover of documents (one component in particular is illegal where I live) it was a little too convenient to be wholly believable that the court documents would include a series of taped sessions with a psychologist that were perfectly ordered and complete in the details they provided about the histories and shared life of the two main characters. But while I’d have preferred some other method for enabling Barry to be the narrator, I think Overington made a great choice in using him for the role as the novel did need to be told from the perspective of an outsider to the central relationship. He was far enough removed from the heart of things to allow him (and by association us as readers) some objectivity but involved enough to offer some authentic insights into the events being depicted and the emotions experienced by the various players.

Barry was also a very realistic character, often sounding like my own dad (who is a bit older but has a very similar background and philosophy to Barry’s). I particularly liked the way Overington used him to help show the generational differences in the way men display their thoughts and feelings about their families. I warmed to Barry’s laconic, pragmatic voice very quickly and wanted to give him a great big hug at the end when he took a practical approach to his own family’s problems. My dad would approve too.

The couple at the heart of the story are also realistically depicted, as is their tale of misguidedly getting together. I know some people whose lives have panned out exactly as they planned when they were eleven, but I know a lot more (myself included) who have muddled their way through and often found themselves astonished at the situations they’ve gotten into. Garry and Softie fall squarely into this second category and the book does a great job of showing us how easily such things happen, irrespective of how smart the participants are or how many warning bells ring. Overington shows us why Garry and Softie either couldn’t see the disasters looming in their relationship or why they chose to plough on regardless. The plot device used is a series of taped sessions the two participated in individually with a psychologist as part of the court process and so we see two vastly different interpretations of the same events on multiple occasions and this is fascinating. Their first date for example is described truthfully by both of them but it sounds as if they are talking about two entirely different events because, as with most things in life, the truth is often a matter of perception. As a whole though the two were shown with an almost complete lack of moralising about their behaviour and choices; another benefit of the narrative device and another strong point in the book’s favour.

My only other misgiving is about the ending. The bulk of the book is an even-handed and thoughtful exploration of the fallout from family breakdown in a modern setting. Through the various scenarios depicted we see that whether you go down the route of using the Family Court or trying to sort things out amicably between the parties, splitting one family unit into two can’t result in happiness for everyone (or in many cases anyone). For me that provided enough drama but the story takes a final, fairly sensationalist twist that I found a little disappointing. Funnily enough I liked the very end which some reviewers who otherwise love the book struggle with due to its ambiguity. But life is full of such loose ends in my experience so I thought this a perfect ending to this sad but realistic story.

All in all this was a very enjoyable read with a terrifically authentic narrative voice which allowed an objective exploration of a difficult subject. Matilda is Missing manages to depict the family breakdown scenario from multiple viewpoints, including that of the often-forgotten extended family members, without demanding that readers take a side. I suppose if you had been through a similar scenario yourself you might find yourself identifying more with one party or the other, but not having been through that experience (thankfully) I found Overington’s characterisations of both Garry and Softie to be even-handed and judgement free. I eagerly gobbled the book up in a couple of sittings and recommend it to all.

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Caroline Overington is a Walkley Award winning investigative journalist and has published two non-fiction books as well as three novels to date including Ghost Child and I Came to Say Goodbye in addition to Matilda is Missing.

This is my first book counting towards the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012 in which I am aiming to read and review 10 books by female Australian writers (actually I’m hoping for a number somehwere closer to 25 by year’s end but the offical challenge is for 10 books). I’ve opted to be a dabbler as far as genres go. I’ve no idea what genre this book belongs to (which kind of supports my premise that genre labels are silly) but in the absence of anything else will go with contemporary fiction.

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My rating 4/5
Publisher Bantam [2011]
ISBN 9781742750385
Length 353 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series standalone.
Source I borrowed it from the library
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Review: Cold Justice by Katherine Howell

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My third book for this year’s Aussie Authors challenge is also Katherine Howell’s third novel, which I only realised recently I had somehow missed on its release in February last year. Of course I had to read it before embarking on her fourth book which has just been released.

Tim Pieters’ body was found hidden in bushes not far from his home 19 years ago. His killer was never found. Now his cousin is a Member of Parliament and has enough clout to arrange for the case to be re-opened. Detective Ella Marconi is assigned to the cold case as her first job back at work after being shot. Among the many investigative avenues she takes is the need to track down Georgie Daniels who was Tim’s school classmate and was the one to stumble over his body. She is now a paramedic who has recently undergone some workplace troubles and is being assessed for fitness to work.

This is one of the most cleverly plotted novels I have ever read. I had some issues with plotting in this book’s predecessor but here Howell has excelled at creating a complex, taut drama that is also easy to follow. The story is told mainly in two alternating threads from Georgie and Ella’s points of view but when necessary to fill in details no one else could know there are also chapters from other key players’ perspectives, including Tim’s cousin Callum who is responsible for the case being re-opened. The way these threads are woven together is outstanding and the result is a totally gripping novel full of suspense. This is one of those books that genuinely deserves the ‘unputdownable’ label as I read it over the course of a single day/night and only stopped when circumstances positively demanded I do so.

A feature of this series is that although the Detective is consistent across the books there is always another lead character who is a different paramedic each time. Howell is a former paramedic herself so brings an authenticity to her depictions of this high-stress workplace which are always fascinating and provide lots of drama. Using a different character each time keeps the series genuinely fresh by having someone other than the Detective lead us through some of the important action. It also gets rid of the credibility problem that can sometimes happen in long running series where awful things keep happening to the same poor sod. Importantly though the characters are always well-drawn, whether they are long-running ones or only to appear in a single book. Ella, who we have come to know over three books, has a near-obsession with work which impacts her personal life in various ways. The characters new to this book, including Georgie and the family of the murdered boy who have all struggled in various ways to come to terms with his death and the lack of closure on the case, are all sensitively described and people whose stories I felt quickly drawn into.

I loved the way this book approached the idea of people’s pasts and how they might feel differently about events they witnessed or took part in with the benefit of age and distance. There are multiple characters, major and minor, who Howell uses to explore some variation of this idea and it really does give some insight into how real world cold cases might be solved years after the event even if there isn’t new evidence.

In short the book is brilliantly plotted, full of compelling characters and can be just as easily read by people new to the series as it can by existing fans. It’s Howell’s best book to date and is highly recommended to all.

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Cold Justice has been reviewed at Aust Crime Fiction

I read Howell’s first book, Frantic, in my pre-blog days but have reviewed the second book, The Darkest Hour.

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My rating 4.5/5
Author website http://www.katherinehowell.com/index.htm
Publisher Pan Macmillan [2010]
ISBN 97814055039277
Length 329 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series #3 in the Ella Marconi series
Source I bought it

Review: Document Z by Andrew Croome

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If you ignore the fact that we (literally) lost one of our serving Prime Ministers in the 1960′s, relative to most countries in the world Australia’s political history is uneventful. We’ve had no civil wars, no major coups, our lone armed rebellion lasted a single day and for most of the 223 years of our political history you’d have had to look awfully hard to find more than six people holding anything approaching radical political beliefs. It is little wonder then that when a genuine political upheaval does occur it receives an enormous amount of attention. What is known colloquially as ‘the Petrov Affair’ is one of these events. Taking place in 1954 it involved the defection of a senior official from the Russian Embassy in Canberra and his wife who had both also been operating as spies. This sparked the Royal Commission on Espionage which in turn led to the severing of diplomatic relations between Australia and Russia until the end of the decade.

In Document Z Andrew Croome has provided a fictional account of these events from the point of view of the primary ‘players’: Vladimir Petrov, his wife Evdokia and the Polish/Australian spy who orchestrated Petrov’s defection. Croome says that using fiction allowed him to put his characters in every-day scenarios in a way that factual historians cannot For me, someone who has never been able to take the subject of spying seriously due to an early and prolonged exposure to Get Smart, I found this particularly effective as it showed that the art of spying is subject to the routines, mistakes, ordinariness and petty rivalries familiar to any workplace.

The story that Croome tells is personal rather than political. Vladimir is depicted as a womaniser, a petty thief and fairly unsuccessful spy. His decision to defect has a lot less to do with any deeply held beliefs than it does vested personal interest. His betrayal of his wife is in keeping with that character. Defecting alone, without telling her what he was up to, put Evdokia in an impossible situation because she had family in Russia whose safety she was worried for. Her story is just sad. Having lost her first husband to a Russian gulag she marries Vladimir more out of necessity than anything else. She appears to spend her entire life dealing with the real or imagined death of loved ones and, though she is stoic, it is quite heart breaking to read.

I have never been much engaged by the study of history as a series of dates and events to be remembered. In this confidently written novel Croome has provided the kind of history that is intriguing even if it is not entirely true (though the factual basis for his imaginings is evident). He shows us a reality that might very well have been. One in which there were innate problems in maintaining strong Marxist principles while living in a place that demonstrates daily that capitalism has its advantages and one in which people’s fears and worries don’t always (often?) lead them to do the laudable thing. As someone who has plowed through a considerable amount of the non-fiction available on this subject I found this fictional account offered the much-needed human element that is missing from so much historical writing.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

You can hear a 15-minute discussion with Andrew about the book on our national radio network’s Book Show here. He talks, among other things, about making use of the extensive documentary archive as well as ignoring it when it did not suit his narrative needs.

Document Z has been reviewed at The Resident Judge of Port Phillip and Guy Salvidge

Document Z has won many awards including the 2008 Vogel Award (for best debut fiction by an Australian awarded by The Australian newspaper) and was shortlisted in the best first fiction category at the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards.

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My rating 4/5
Author website http://www.andrewcroome.com/
 Publisher Allen & Unwin [2009]
ISBN 9781741757439
Length 346 pages
Format paperback
Book Series standalone
Source I bought it

Review: Lethal Factor by Gabrielle Lord

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Jack McCain is a former detective and now a scientific analyst with the Australian Federal Police in Canberra. In Lethal Factor, the second novel in which he has featured, he is involved with several cases simultaneously including the brutal murder of a nun in a local convent and the death of a fellow scientist from what is thought to be anthrax. McCain’s personal life causes almost as much drama as his work and in this installment his daughter is threatened by a crooked ex-cop and McCain’s ex-wife makes claims that he once sexually abused his daughter.

As I mentioned when I discussed Lord’s first novel Fortress one of her strengths is the research she puts into her subjects and once again this is evident in Lethal Factor. There is lots of science in this novel and Lord has incorporated a good amount of realistic detail, including the depiction of the time it takes for rigorous scientific testing processes to be completed properly (i.e. the book takes place closer to real time than CSI time).

There really is a lot going on in this novel and as none of the cases really overlap it probably stretches the bounds of credibility a little to think that one man would be involved in so many disparate cases, especially as he has a habit of going out to conduct interviews as he would have when he was a detective and seems to spend half his time driving between Sydney and Canberra (roughly 3 hours each way). Still, none of the threads become lost and they are all quite fascinating. Although the initial set pieces of each case are ‘ripped from the headlines’ dramatic ones, the resolutions are all realistically domestic in scale, concerning age-old human foibles like vengeance, greed and envy.

Ten years ago when I read the first book in this series I was probably a lot less forgiving than I am now about the fact that Jack McCain does not always do the right, or even legal thing but as I get older I find it easier to accept these types of flaws and consequently I liked Jack more in this novel. I also liked the depiction of his 18-year old daughter Jacinta who seemed to strike just the right balance of childishness and maturity.

I do recommend Lethal Factor as a top-notch scientific procedural with a complex, intriguing plot. For those overseas, who might struggle to find this novel you could try any of Lord’s standalones or perhaps one of the four books from her series featuring Gemma Lincoln who heads up a private security firm.

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Lethal Factor has also been reviewed at Crime Down Under

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My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Hodder Headline [2003]
ISBN 0733617212
Length 451 pages
Format trade paperback
Source I bought it

Review: Mosquito Creek by Robert Engwerda

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I really enjoyed this author’s first novel, Backwaters, a few years ago so snapped this second novel up when it was released in June. Warning, only the most liberal of definitions would include this as crime fiction.

In 1855 the goldfields at Mosquito Creek near Bendigo in Victoria have seen their best days. Much of the easily extractable gold has been taken and many of the diggers have moved on. As this book opens it is teeming with rain and the river has burst its banks, causing a small group of diggers to be cut off from the main field. Amongst the general unrest over the fact that little work can be done due to the weather there is a feeling that ‘something’ must be done to rescue those cut off by the rising flood waters, there appears to be an outbreak of disease to contend with and it seems that one of the diggers has gone missing.

Early white settlement in Australia often seemed to me to be the stories of people who didn’t want to be here. This includes both the convicts who were transported here from England from 1788 onwards and many of the officials charged with maintaining order in the colonies whose postings were a form of punishment in themselves. How they deal with their circumstances, whether they treat it as an opportunity or an ordeal is, often, at the heart of things. The two central characters in Mosquito Creek seem to fit this category though they do approach it differently.

Niall Kennedy, now a sergeant in the goldfields police, was transported as a convict and over the course of the novel we learn about his background, why he was transported to Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), how he has arrived at this point in his life and what he would like to do in the future. Early on in the novel when he is considering some of the other troopers on the goldfields he thinks

Joining the goldfields police would be just another job for them, something he’d thought himself at the start: a green winter uniform, a wage and a new carbine in your hands. A chance to swagger a bit and pay some bastard back for all you’d suffered yourself. There were a lot like that – most were, in fact. But he saw it differently now. It was a wage for him, but it was something else too: a chance to slip into some new kind of skin, a chance to make up for a past that had grown over like brambles and suffocated his life.

The other significant person in the novel is Commissioner Charles Stanfield who was forced into accepting his posting to the colonies by his father. Again as the novel unfolds we learn about the events which led to his ostracism and his compulsion to achieve some level of importance or notoriety that would enable him to return to England, which is his sole goal in life. In one of the letters to his family that he composes (either literally or in his head) he provides this insight into both his own character and the nature of the settlement he has been sent to

You must not believe the lies that are spread from these parts because this is not a real place. When the sources of gold are exhausted a population disappears with it. A town of ten thousand people can be reduced to little more than a hundred overnight, more lying buried in the cemetery than remaining near it. Nor are the inhabitants of a goldfield people as you or I would know them. Everything here is built on rumour and gossip, every conversation designed only to advance the interests of the speaker. When a person occupies a position such as I occupy here there are many enemies and very few friends. Everything I do is subject to scrutiny.

Of course the setting itself is also a major player in a novel like this. Engwerda does a fantastic job of depicting a time and place where the natural elements play a crucial role in day-to-day life. We see, for example, snippets of life for the men who have been cut-off by the flood and their increasing desperation at being cold, starving and having no sense of when or if there might be respite is wholly believable. Even the fact that there is only one female character who actually opens her mouth in the entire book helps give the setting a sense of realism.

The story didn’t capture my interest as much as the two men at the centre of the novel. Though at some points it was quite gripping, overall it didn’t feel particularly tense and wasn’t one of those books I felt I had to get back to as soon as I’d put it down (though I was always happy to pick it up again). I found one of the story threads in particular, involving Charles Stanfield’s efforts to retrieve a valued family heirloom, a little confusing and too reliant on innuendo over concrete plot advancement but this is a minor quibble really.

I have to admit that the early colonial history of my country is not my favourite area of history to read about (due to a combination of bad history teaching and a stint working as an archivist where all any researcher ever wanted to know about was their family’s convict past) but I found Mosquito Creek’s focus on two very interesting characters and the way they dealt with the tribulations life handed them to be very engaging. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is interested in getting a sense of this period of Australian history from an unusual perspective.

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My rating 4/5
Publisher Penguin [2010]
ISBN 9780670073719
Length 337 pages
Format Trade Paperback
Source I bought it

Review: Punter’s Turf by Peter Klein

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I chose to listen to this book mostly because it is an Australian book narrated by an Australian (who is also an actor I like). It is pretty unusual to find Australian books in audio format but to find an Australian story narrated in a genuine Australian voice is a very rare thing indeed.

Big Oakie White is a successful Melbourne bookmaker. When his daughter is kidnapped he doesn’t tell police because another bookmaker’s wife was recently kidnapped and killed when the ransom payment, being handled by police, went wrong. Instead he turns to several mates, including John Punter, to help get his daughter back in one piece. Punter is the son of a trainer, a successful professional gambler and something of a reluctant amateur detective. In addition to the kidnapping he becomes involved in an investigation into a series of unexplained events in one of Melbourne’s racing stables.

Peter Klein has been involved with Australian racing for decades, including as a strapper and trainer, so he has been able to create a very credible world for John Punter and friends. My own father has successfully supplemented his regular income by systematic gambling on horse racing for as long as I can remember so I’ve had a fair bit of exposure to the racing world in one way or another and the characters, small details and even the story threads themselves in Punter’s Turf all felt pretty realistic to me and the incorporation of real life identities such as well-known trainers adds to the authenticity.

As the protagonist Punter is very likable, largely believable and wholly Australian. He does as much work as he needs to get by but takes plenty of time for leisure (specifically surfing and eating pizza), helps his mates without question, has a vague disregard for authorities and has a soft side that is displayed a unwillingly but inevitably. He’s also intelligent, though he does make a couple of stupid mistakes of the kind plot advancement demands, and I rather enjoyed meeting him. There are a plethora of minor and colourful characters, surrounding Punter though none of them are terribly well fleshed out. The females in particular are a little light on the development front.

The plot speeds along for the most part (there were a couple of points at which I thought there was a bit to much detail provided on some esoteric aspect of racing) and there are lots of threads to keep readers’ interest.  There is some level of predictability with these though there were plenty of surprises to keep me entertained. Although the book has an overall light tone there are points at which it becomes quite poignant and Klein displays a lot of skill in depicting emotional situations, for example when someone is revealed to be deliberately stopping a particular trainer’s horses from winning. This really was quite a gripping part of the story which made me feel sympathy and anger towards the culprit. The resolution of the main thread too is darker than I expected, though people’s actions were in keeping with the way they’d been portrayed which is all I can ever ask.

What about the audio book?

David Tredinnick (Aussies might remember him as Simon in The Secret Life of Us) does a great job of the narration, giving full voice to an array of typical and very suitable Australian accents and also manages to portray just the right note of wry humour for much of the tale which is entirely appropriate. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the story told in voices that are representative of the real-life people the characters must have been based on.

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My rating 3.5/5

Narrator David Tredinnick; Publisher Bolinda Publishing [2010]; Length 10hours 58minutes

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The print version of Punter’s Turf has been reviewed at Aust Crime Fiction and Mysteries in Paradise

Review: The Old School by P M Newton

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This debut novel by ex policewoman P M Newton made it to my shopping basket because I’m trying to read as much Aussie crime fiction as I can and because a crime fiction commentator I respect, Graeme Blundell, said the book “puts Newton in the company of Gabrielle Lord and Peter Temple“. After that I couldn’t resist.

It is 1992 and Nhu ‘Ned’ Kelly is a relatively newly qualified Detective Constable in Sydney’s west. When two sets of bones are discovered in the foundations of a building being demolished Ned is drawn into the investigation both for professional and personal reasons. Determining who the people were and what happened to them unfolds within a wider context of social issues affecting the city both in the mid 1970′s, when the bodies were placed in the concrete foundations, and sixteen years later when they are discovered. The Aboriginal land rights movement, the treatment of soldiers returning from the Vietnam war, the absorption of different cultures into the sprawling city and the misappropriation of power by some within the police force are all woven into a complex but highly believable story.

Having lived on the fringes of the giant sprawl that is Sydney during the late 80’s and early 90’s the aspect of the book that stood out most strongly for me was that Newton has captured perfectly the things I loved about living there and the things that drove me away. The multitudes of cultures that rub along together, the endless traffic snarls, the dodgy politics, the chasm between haves and have nots are all to be found in this novel. Anchoring the book to its time are major real life events including the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s inquiry into corruption in the NSW Police Force. I can honestly attest that, just as in this book, ICAC wasn’t an acronym in Sydney in 1992: it was a word that everyone knew the meaning of and everyone was talking about. Another significant event that is used to great impact in The Old School is the speech given by our then Prime Minister (and written by one of Australia’s unsung political heroes) to launch the International Year for the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

Born in Australia to a Vietnamese mother and an Irish-Australian father she carries not much more than her name to acknowledge the Vietnamese part of her heritage. And even there she prefers the Australian nickname that was inevitable with a surname like Kelly and an unpronounceable first name starting with N. There are reasons for Ned’s decisions and these are teased out beautifully in the story to provide depth to her character. She is surrounded by other intriguing people too. Her loving sister, her prejudiced Aunt, a range of colleagues with their own foibles and personal demons. All of these people are imperfect and often unlikable but they are all highly credible and the kind of people you want to read more about.

This book has all the ingredients of the top notch crime fiction. There are believable, interesting characters, a story that keeps readers guessing, a strong sense of its time and place and something to say about the human condition. Would police be so open to corruption if they were all paid enough to live comfortably in one of the most expensive cities to live in the world? Can we learn anything from our collective past or are we doomed to repeat the worst abuses of our fellow man over and over again? There is a slight over-reliance on coincidence and perhaps a thread or two too many woven into the plot but overall this is a highly readable and impressive debut and I look forward to reading the next installment of this series.

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My rating 4/5

Publisher Penguin [2010]; ISBN 9780670074518; Length 363 pages

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The Old School has been reviewed at Mysteries in Paradise

You can listen to Paul Keating’s 1992 speech here (though only if you have IE or Firefox).