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kcfromaustcrime's review
4.0
As I was reading this book I couldn't help but create a checklist of the things that make up seriously good crime fiction for me, and apply it as I went.
A sense of place that puts you right on the spot, without turning into a travelogue. Something that gives you a sense of the smell, the look, the way that people move around and interact with their location. THE OLD SCHOOL is set in Bankstown, a suburb of Sydney almost tailor-made for the action that is taking place - multitudes of cultures living up close and personal, dodgy dealings in all walks of life, overcrowded streets, haves and have nots, development and profound poverty, traffic and dust. Aboriginal activists are still fighting for land rights and against deaths in custody. The Prime Minister's famous Redfern Speech gets a mention. There is such a strong sense of the place, and the timeframe in this book, that I'd swear you can smell the kebabs she describes.
A solid plot, a believable set of circumstances in which people find themselves pushed to the limit, achieving great things, dealing with other people, solving problems. The events of the book - the discovery of two skeletons in the concrete foundations of a building being demolished and the death of an old homeless Aboriginal man are interwoven with the professional and personal life of Nhu 'Ned" Kelly. Ned is a young, mixed race woman, working her way towards promotion / change within the NSW police, at a time that ICAC (the Independent Commission Against Corruption) investigations are carefully dismantling the careers of many around her. It's a nice touch to weave the reality of the ICAC investigations, and mentions of some of its more notorious participants into the daily working life of Ned - adding not just a sense of realism, but giving readers a timeframe without having to stress dates. Perhaps there are a few elements in the plot that rely a little too much on co-incidence but frankly the way that THE OLD SCHOOL lays that out - well coincidences do happen.
Good characters, including some growth, a bit of backstory, a realistic feeling of people who aren't perfect, who make mistakes, who do good, and bad things. What glues the elements of this book together are the characters that Newton has built. Ned, her mentor and boss TC, her sister Linh and aunt MM, along with various other police and members of the Aboriginal community. Whilst it's undoubtedly Ned's story, all the other players get their moments, and provide a great supporting role. Newton also draws a very sensitive portrayal of being the child of a Vietnam vet in Australia, whilst slowly revealing the truth behind the death of Ned's parents, many years ago.
Social observation - exploring real things from real life that aren't right. THE OLD SCHOOL does touch on a lot of issues - police and official corruption, organised crime, Aboriginal activism and land rights, fallout from the Vietnam war. It uses all of these elements as aspects of the plot - there's never any sense of lecturing or pushing a barrow. Rather each element is revealed as part of the ongoing investigation, the lives of the characters, as aspects of the revelations leading to a solution.
Finally realism. Not to the point of user manual accurate - but a real feeling that there are elements of the story, the setting, the events that are being presented that have a believability about them (not that I actually care if they are or aren't 100% realistic or accurate - I just want to feel like the author knows what they are talking about). THE OLD SCHOOL does this in spades.
According to the blurb on THE OLD SCHOOL, Newton worked in the NSW police force for thirteen years, and this is her first novel. If this is a debut - bring on a whole lot more of the series
A sense of place that puts you right on the spot, without turning into a travelogue. Something that gives you a sense of the smell, the look, the way that people move around and interact with their location. THE OLD SCHOOL is set in Bankstown, a suburb of Sydney almost tailor-made for the action that is taking place - multitudes of cultures living up close and personal, dodgy dealings in all walks of life, overcrowded streets, haves and have nots, development and profound poverty, traffic and dust. Aboriginal activists are still fighting for land rights and against deaths in custody. The Prime Minister's famous Redfern Speech gets a mention. There is such a strong sense of the place, and the timeframe in this book, that I'd swear you can smell the kebabs she describes.
A solid plot, a believable set of circumstances in which people find themselves pushed to the limit, achieving great things, dealing with other people, solving problems. The events of the book - the discovery of two skeletons in the concrete foundations of a building being demolished and the death of an old homeless Aboriginal man are interwoven with the professional and personal life of Nhu 'Ned" Kelly. Ned is a young, mixed race woman, working her way towards promotion / change within the NSW police, at a time that ICAC (the Independent Commission Against Corruption) investigations are carefully dismantling the careers of many around her. It's a nice touch to weave the reality of the ICAC investigations, and mentions of some of its more notorious participants into the daily working life of Ned - adding not just a sense of realism, but giving readers a timeframe without having to stress dates. Perhaps there are a few elements in the plot that rely a little too much on co-incidence but frankly the way that THE OLD SCHOOL lays that out - well coincidences do happen.
Good characters, including some growth, a bit of backstory, a realistic feeling of people who aren't perfect, who make mistakes, who do good, and bad things. What glues the elements of this book together are the characters that Newton has built. Ned, her mentor and boss TC, her sister Linh and aunt MM, along with various other police and members of the Aboriginal community. Whilst it's undoubtedly Ned's story, all the other players get their moments, and provide a great supporting role. Newton also draws a very sensitive portrayal of being the child of a Vietnam vet in Australia, whilst slowly revealing the truth behind the death of Ned's parents, many years ago.
Social observation - exploring real things from real life that aren't right. THE OLD SCHOOL does touch on a lot of issues - police and official corruption, organised crime, Aboriginal activism and land rights, fallout from the Vietnam war. It uses all of these elements as aspects of the plot - there's never any sense of lecturing or pushing a barrow. Rather each element is revealed as part of the ongoing investigation, the lives of the characters, as aspects of the revelations leading to a solution.
Finally realism. Not to the point of user manual accurate - but a real feeling that there are elements of the story, the setting, the events that are being presented that have a believability about them (not that I actually care if they are or aren't 100% realistic or accurate - I just want to feel like the author knows what they are talking about). THE OLD SCHOOL does this in spades.
According to the blurb on THE OLD SCHOOL, Newton worked in the NSW police force for thirteen years, and this is her first novel. If this is a debut - bring on a whole lot more of the series
sandin954's review
5.0
A very good debut police procedural set in Sydney Australia during the early nineties. I found the sense of place and time period very authentic and found the plot, which included the police corruption investigations that were occurring and Aboriginal land rights, quite interesting.
deballen21's review
5.0
Terrific book, one of the best I've read this year. If you love Sydney with all her sleaze and diversity you'll like this. Set in the 1990s at the height of the ICAC police corruption inquiries, there are many threads pulled into the story including past ghosts from the Vietnam war, Aboriginal issues as well eternal themes of betrayal and justice.
oanh_1's review
4.0
It is so exciting re-discovering how much I enjoy crime as a genre and better yet, discovering an eloquent and highly competent new author.
The Old School is PM Newton's first novel, and I hope there will be many, many more. I'm not sure whether I hope that they will all contain Nhu "Ned" Kelly, but she is a well-drawn, nuanced character and deftly depicted by PM Newton. Ned is half-Viet (and half Irish, let's not forget) and PM Newton writes the difficulties Ned has with her otherness well; we're introduced to her as she bristles at jibes about her appearance: islander, Hong Kong chicky-babe; boat baby. Throughout, I found PM Newton did not make one step wrong in depicting Nhu or her sister Linh, and I was very impressed. Her careful, non-stereotypecast handling of the war in Viet Nam, Australia's role and some of the characters' role was also - here's that word again - deft.
On other otherness fronts, PM Newton is also very good. She depicts the conflicts in indigenous politics well, clear-eyed but with compassion. Much better - and I'm sorry to make comparisons but how else do we make judgements? - than YA Erskine did in [b:The Brotherhood|12414617|The Brotherhood |Yvette Erskine|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328056061s/12414617.jpg|16972322]. There are similar themes, too, in this book and YA Erskine (corruption in the police force, anyone?), outdated methods and philosophy, resistance to change, loyalty. She draws out the sexism and almost-every-other-ism in the police force, while also giving credit to (minimal, incremental, baby steps) change.
But where she does best is in relation to her musings about The Past, how it shapes the characters and what it means to excavate things long forgotten or purposefully hidden. And this is what The Old School is really about - yes there's a murder (or rather, quite a few) and unsolved crimes - but what this novel is really about is our complicated relationship with the past, with our own history (and by our, I mean Australia's as well as the individual characters) and the careful ways we construct our lives to mask or to emphasise aspects of our past.
Of the recent Australian crime (Temple, Erskine, Newton) I've been reading, I am impressed at how nuanced our stories are.
I look forward to PM Newton's next. She is writing another, right?
The Old School is PM Newton's first novel, and I hope there will be many, many more. I'm not sure whether I hope that they will all contain Nhu "Ned" Kelly, but she is a well-drawn, nuanced character and deftly depicted by PM Newton. Ned is half-Viet (and half Irish, let's not forget) and PM Newton writes the difficulties Ned has with her otherness well; we're introduced to her as she bristles at jibes about her appearance: islander, Hong Kong chicky-babe; boat baby. Throughout, I found PM Newton did not make one step wrong in depicting Nhu or her sister Linh, and I was very impressed. Her careful, non-stereotypecast handling of the war in Viet Nam, Australia's role and some of the characters' role was also - here's that word again - deft.
On other otherness fronts, PM Newton is also very good. She depicts the conflicts in indigenous politics well, clear-eyed but with compassion. Much better - and I'm sorry to make comparisons but how else do we make judgements? - than YA Erskine did in [b:The Brotherhood|12414617|The Brotherhood |Yvette Erskine|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328056061s/12414617.jpg|16972322]. There are similar themes, too, in this book and YA Erskine (corruption in the police force, anyone?), outdated methods and philosophy, resistance to change, loyalty. She draws out the sexism and almost-every-other-ism in the police force, while also giving credit to (minimal, incremental, baby steps) change.
But where she does best is in relation to her musings about The Past, how it shapes the characters and what it means to excavate things long forgotten or purposefully hidden. And this is what The Old School is really about - yes there's a murder (or rather, quite a few) and unsolved crimes - but what this novel is really about is our complicated relationship with the past, with our own history (and by our, I mean Australia's as well as the individual characters) and the careful ways we construct our lives to mask or to emphasise aspects of our past.
Of the recent Australian crime (Temple, Erskine, Newton) I've been reading, I am impressed at how nuanced our stories are.
I look forward to PM Newton's next. She is writing another, right?
burrvle's review
2.0
Last 80 pages of the book picked up, but this was the first time where I actually felt engaged in the book. I still wasn't really invested, just mildly interested, like when you peer over the top of a newspaper to watch something happening on TV for a couple minutes.
The first 80% of the book is just so boring, reading it actually turned into a chore. It took me over three months to finish it. It was not written very well, there were so many characters who are given twenty million different names, and sentences are phrased in a way that I don't even know what is happening, but I just don't even care enough to reread the last paragraph to try and interpret. Book could definitely have been shortened. By a lot.
The first 80% of the book is just so boring, reading it actually turned into a chore. It took me over three months to finish it. It was not written very well, there were so many characters who are given twenty million different names, and sentences are phrased in a way that I don't even know what is happening, but I just don't even care enough to reread the last paragraph to try and interpret. Book could definitely have been shortened. By a lot.
lidy_ugh's review
4.0
I must give my deepest apologies to Newton, for I initially described this book as "written like bad fanfiction" but it is definitely NOT so. She manages to imbue to essence of thriller/mystery so well and there were multiple times that I was at the edge of my seat, scared to find out what was on the next page but unable to prevent my finger from turning the page. I must admit, I am the prime target for plot twists and character reveals as I have no sense of foreshadowing and will take the smallest of surprises with great astonishment. Either way, I was highly entertained and the implication of Nhu's family in the case added a commendable element of personal gain into the investigation. My favourite things, however, were the commentaries on Indigenous Aboriginals and their land rights, multiculturalism and assimilation in addition to the systemic and systematic racism and prejudice embedded in our justice system. Seeing all facets of Sydney was also a great hit to my ego and it was just so heart-breaking, seeing the active and violent consequences of persecution and subjugation of the Aboriginals. Reading this in the contemporary era, I feel that we're so far removed from the harsh reality that so much of our history was violent, and overtly so. Characters are murdered, are stripped of their land, fear the people that should be protecting them because of the fucked up colonial constructions of civility and humanity. Seeing Nhu have to balance precariously in situations that require so much finesse just to be seen as equal or capable was so painful as well. I should've been writing my thoughts as I read the book but alas, we're here now. I'm sure there were so many other things I could've mentioned but either was this was a great read, not just for its entertainment value but for the conversations it catalyses about our history, present and future.
khakipantsofsex's review
4.0
Very good, particularly as I knew where everything was, it being set in Sydney where I live and grew up. I go past the Coroner's Court in Glebe and all on the bus. May be a slightly difficult read for some un-Australian readers to get some of the Australianisms.
amrap's review
5.0
Stayed up late finishing this book last night. PM Newton worked as a police officer for thirteen years in Sydney and The Old School is a engrossing procedural set in the 1990s. When two bodies are discovered in cement at an old building site Nhu "Ned" Kelly finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation that hits close to home. There are a lot of threads and layers to the book, and a very satisfying murder mystery. Newton's world view is coloured by her experiences and she's said in an interview that life isn't all perfectly tied up, and that's the sort of book she writes. Loved The Old School and looking forward to reading the sequel Beams Falling.
wtb_michael's review
4.0
A dark, compelling crime novel, with a vivid sense of place (Sydney), some excellent characterisation and a rich, gripping story to tell.