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lizbarr's review
4.0
I read The Old School in November 2012, while I was travelling in America. I had grabbed a paperback to read while planes were taking off and landing, figuring that if I didn’t like it, I could leave it behind for some passenger or flight attendant who might enjoy it more.
Not only did I like The Old School, but it’s still on my mind now. It had a vivid sense of time and place, and a really fantastic heroine in Detective Nhu “Ned” Kelly.
Time and place: Sydney, 1992. Bill Clinton is in the White House. The High Court has just overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius with the Mabo ruling, establishing precedent for Aboriginal land rights.
The heroine: Ned is the daughter of an Irish-Australian man and a Vietnamese woman he met while serving in the war. Her parents were murdered when she was young, and she and her sister were raised by their eccentric paternal aunt, who doesn’t make a secret of the fact she wishes her nieces were just a little more, you know, white. As an adult, Ned is career-minded, ambitious and somewhat resentful of senior officers’ expectation that she be their token minority (a role that falls by the wayside when she reveals she speaks no Vietnamese). (So good was the portrayal of the pressures and micro-aggressions Ned faces that I was really shocked to learn that the author is in fact white.)
This is the status quo when the bodies of two women are discovered in the foundation of a building that Ned’s father constructed in the late ’70s. One was an Aboriginal activist whose inability to swallow bullshit and play nice with the patriarchy earned her a lot of enemies. The other was a Vietnamese refugee who may have had links with the Viet Cong.
Probably the weakest link in the novel is that Ned wasn’t transferred to other duties right away, but it does make sense that she would want to prove herself, and that her mentor would give her the chance.
Despite that, it’s a fantastic, intricate mystery that covers espionage and war crimes in Vietnam, police abuse of Aborigines in Sydney, and the way past sins can still damage families. And the culture, the awkward fumbling steps towards inclusivity that in my family we called political correctness, is portrayed vividly. Late in the book, events take place with Paul Keating’s famous Redfern speech as the backdrop, assimilating all the themes beautifully. I was really excited to learn that there’s going to be a second book about Ned.
Not only did I like The Old School, but it’s still on my mind now. It had a vivid sense of time and place, and a really fantastic heroine in Detective Nhu “Ned” Kelly.
Time and place: Sydney, 1992. Bill Clinton is in the White House. The High Court has just overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius with the Mabo ruling, establishing precedent for Aboriginal land rights.
The heroine: Ned is the daughter of an Irish-Australian man and a Vietnamese woman he met while serving in the war. Her parents were murdered when she was young, and she and her sister were raised by their eccentric paternal aunt, who doesn’t make a secret of the fact she wishes her nieces were just a little more, you know, white. As an adult, Ned is career-minded, ambitious and somewhat resentful of senior officers’ expectation that she be their token minority (a role that falls by the wayside when she reveals she speaks no Vietnamese). (So good was the portrayal of the pressures and micro-aggressions Ned faces that I was really shocked to learn that the author is in fact white.)
This is the status quo when the bodies of two women are discovered in the foundation of a building that Ned’s father constructed in the late ’70s. One was an Aboriginal activist whose inability to swallow bullshit and play nice with the patriarchy earned her a lot of enemies. The other was a Vietnamese refugee who may have had links with the Viet Cong.
Probably the weakest link in the novel is that Ned wasn’t transferred to other duties right away, but it does make sense that she would want to prove herself, and that her mentor would give her the chance.
Despite that, it’s a fantastic, intricate mystery that covers espionage and war crimes in Vietnam, police abuse of Aborigines in Sydney, and the way past sins can still damage families. And the culture, the awkward fumbling steps towards inclusivity that in my family we called political correctness, is portrayed vividly. Late in the book, events take place with Paul Keating’s famous Redfern speech as the backdrop, assimilating all the themes beautifully. I was really excited to learn that there’s going to be a second book about Ned.
knowledgelost's review
2.0
The Old School is the debut novel by former Policewoman P.M. Newton; set in the south western Sydney suburb of Bankstown in 1992, this book follows Detective Nhu ‘Ned’ Kelly who’s current case leds her into the dark pasts of Sydney. This book is full of Race struggles, power moves and corruption. While this was a fantastic debut novel for P.M. Newton, I found my self a little bored and not interested in the characters. I remember the era as I grow up in Sydney but I don’t really remember the grittiness of that time (I was still in primary school).
It was worth a read and if you enjoy a good Police procedure style book then don’t let my review detir you, this book is really interesting and I think many people will enjoy it. I just struggled to connect with it. Ned is a strong powerful young woman tha has to go through many struggles to prove herself, I’m interested to see if there will be any more novels to continue on her story.
It was worth a read and if you enjoy a good Police procedure style book then don’t let my review detir you, this book is really interesting and I think many people will enjoy it. I just struggled to connect with it. Ned is a strong powerful young woman tha has to go through many struggles to prove herself, I’m interested to see if there will be any more novels to continue on her story.
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