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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
This book was as good as everyone says. I especially liked that the characters were more compelling than the crime; and the tiny phrases that conjured an image in so few words. "liquorice black poodles". (although I did think that was an unlikely choice of breed for such a man, not ameliorated because the author had one. The only other jarring moment was when he said they 'defecated' whereas his language was much more vernacular'.)
A morality tale for the ages.
A morality tale for the ages.
So...choppy...and short....
I can't figure out what the hay is going on...and I'm a third in...
I can't figure out what the hay is going on...and I'm a third in...
book club read. i had to abandon it at page 77. i couldn't take it anymore. very SLOW book. with choppy sentences.
After getting injured on the job, Joe Cashin leaves Melbourne Homicide for a post in his rural home town while he recovers. While he deals with some family tragedies, the trauma of his last Homicide case, and the politics and racism of his new environment, he investigates the brutal murder of the town’s wealthy hero, Charles Burgoyne.
I really enjoyed this book! It takes a long time for it to really get into the mystery, but that time is well spent on establishing Cashin’s character and the various factions that make up the town. Once the mystery starts in earnest, the red herrings and plot twists are expertly handled, such that I really felt taken along all the false roads with no cheating.
Race plays a fairly significant part in this story, as the murder is cast as rich white guy brutalized and killed by thieving aboriginal kids. This leads to an overt conflict between the white side of town and the slums. I found the question of race to be deftly handled. It’s explicit in parts, but never gets browbeating.
The story has a strong Australianity. The slang peppering the story is an obvious example, as are the descriptions of the town – Port Monro – and nearby Melbourne. I’ve never been to Australia, so I’m probably a poor judge, but I feel like Temple really nailed that “sense of place” aspect. And I, for one, will be adding “spaggy bol” to my vocabulary!
Cashin is a very interesting character. In fact, I think it could be argued that the book is far more about him and his journey to come to terms with the past (both his on-the-job injury and his family history) than it is about the murder of Burgoyne.
The writing style is fantastic, with great use of imagery and metaphors. The dialogue is very snappy and funny, and Cashin is pretty much the master of sarcasm. I think it’s fair to say that Temple does something special with the detective mystery genre in Broken Shore, and I highly recommend giving it a try!
I really enjoyed this book! It takes a long time for it to really get into the mystery, but that time is well spent on establishing Cashin’s character and the various factions that make up the town. Once the mystery starts in earnest, the red herrings and plot twists are expertly handled, such that I really felt taken along all the false roads with no cheating.
Race plays a fairly significant part in this story, as the murder is cast as rich white guy brutalized and killed by thieving aboriginal kids. This leads to an overt conflict between the white side of town and the slums. I found the question of race to be deftly handled. It’s explicit in parts, but never gets browbeating.
The story has a strong Australianity. The slang peppering the story is an obvious example, as are the descriptions of the town – Port Monro – and nearby Melbourne. I’ve never been to Australia, so I’m probably a poor judge, but I feel like Temple really nailed that “sense of place” aspect. And I, for one, will be adding “spaggy bol” to my vocabulary!
Cashin is a very interesting character. In fact, I think it could be argued that the book is far more about him and his journey to come to terms with the past (both his on-the-job injury and his family history) than it is about the murder of Burgoyne.
The writing style is fantastic, with great use of imagery and metaphors. The dialogue is very snappy and funny, and Cashin is pretty much the master of sarcasm. I think it’s fair to say that Temple does something special with the detective mystery genre in Broken Shore, and I highly recommend giving it a try!
This is undeniably a good book: strangely reminiscent of the best of Paretsky, Temple uses the lens of crime fiction to explore the corruption at the heart of the modern establishment. Unlike Paretsky, though, Temple's prose consistently sings, embracing his love of the country, the landscape and the towns.
Having said that, I've been delaying the review because I didn't love it as much as I felt I should. Mostly, I think, this is the themes. While touching on the difficult issues of race and poverty, the book increasingly veers into concern with corruption of power, in this case throughout the Victorian police and philanthropic wealthy world (hence the Paretsky comparison), a topic of simply far more villans, and hence, for me, far less interest.
I'm also a little over the ultra-violence in so many "socially aware" Australian fiction. Almost all of the characters we meet in the first chapter have been victims of sickening, brutal, sadistic violence. Now don't get me wrong, violence is far more part of the Australian scene than is comfortable, but it isn't omnipresent (particularly premeditated violence). I get that it is a crime book, and that is kinda the thing, but the moments when the book was more - they were amazing. I wanted more.
So I'll keep reading, no question, and I couldn't justify any less than five stars given the content, but I wanted more.
Having said that, I've been delaying the review because I didn't love it as much as I felt I should. Mostly, I think, this is the themes. While touching on the difficult issues of race and poverty, the book increasingly veers into concern with corruption of power, in this case throughout the Victorian police and philanthropic wealthy world (hence the Paretsky comparison), a topic of simply far more villans, and hence, for me, far less interest.
I'm also a little over the ultra-violence in so many "socially aware" Australian fiction. Almost all of the characters we meet in the first chapter have been victims of sickening, brutal, sadistic violence. Now don't get me wrong, violence is far more part of the Australian scene than is comfortable, but it isn't omnipresent (particularly premeditated violence). I get that it is a crime book, and that is kinda the thing, but the moments when the book was more - they were amazing. I wanted more.
So I'll keep reading, no question, and I couldn't justify any less than five stars given the content, but I wanted more.
I'm giving this book a 5-star review not because it's perfect, but because it's outstanding. I love the uncompromising dialogue (minimalist, witty Australian-speak with no dumbing-down) and the lean narrative (very little backstory; a 'fill-in-the-blanks-yourself, I know you're bright enough!' approach).
Then there are the acute (and often darkly hilarious) observations. Here's one of my favourite small-town vignettes, describing onlookers at an environmental rally:
Triple-bypassed Bruce of the video shop was beside saturated-fat dealer Meryl, the fish and chip owner. (p.125)
I can just see 'em.
Then there are the acute (and often darkly hilarious) observations. Here's one of my favourite small-town vignettes, describing onlookers at an environmental rally:
Triple-bypassed Bruce of the video shop was beside saturated-fat dealer Meryl, the fish and chip owner. (p.125)
I can just see 'em.
Blanket Peter Temple review: picked the first book (this one) up from a book-swap box at a hotel, expecting awful crime fiction. Discovered it to be beautifully, beautifully written awful crime fiction. As a lover of awful crime fiction, that's high praise! Peter Temple writes way too well for the genre niche he inhabits. I'll read everything he writes from now on.
A little history of my copy of this novel: I picked up this book in a bookstore along the Great Ocean Road when I was in Australia in 2006. On my flight home, my luggage was delayed and soaked, and the book I bought was damaged. I got the airline to reimburse me for the replacement, which I ordered from Dymocks in Australia (along with another book not available in Canada at the time), but then never read it until now, nearly six years later.
Joe Cashin has had bad experiences in his Melbourne police career recently and come close to death. Subsequently he has been posted to the quiet coastal community he grew up in. When a prominent local is killed, three local aboriginal boys are fingered for the crime, but Cashin doesn't believe it is that straightforward. It would be easy for him to go along with this story, but even as the deaths pile up, he moves forward in a different direction, searching for the truth.
Cashin is a man who has lived a difficult life, whose father died when he was young, who cares about people, and has a strong moral centre. This makes for a very interesting character.
We see him develop and the characters around him are also interesting. The plot is complex, yet never hard to accept. A great and gripping mystery with many facets.
Joe Cashin has had bad experiences in his Melbourne police career recently and come close to death. Subsequently he has been posted to the quiet coastal community he grew up in. When a prominent local is killed, three local aboriginal boys are fingered for the crime, but Cashin doesn't believe it is that straightforward. It would be easy for him to go along with this story, but even as the deaths pile up, he moves forward in a different direction, searching for the truth.
Cashin is a man who has lived a difficult life, whose father died when he was young, who cares about people, and has a strong moral centre. This makes for a very interesting character.
We see him develop and the characters around him are also interesting. The plot is complex, yet never hard to accept. A great and gripping mystery with many facets.
I devoured all of Jane Harper’s books last year and, thereby, got into Australian crime fiction. Subsequently, I picked up this book because it was recommended on a list of the five best contemporary Australian books. It did indeed not disappoint. The writing was a bit difficult to get into at first, because of the barebones style. I sometimes had to read passages again, because I realised that I must have missed something. I also noticed that the inner life of the characters was often not described but had to be inferred from other descriptions, e.g. the protagonist's interactions with his dogs. The story itself is fantastic and draws a rich tapestry of social and cultural influences that goes beyond the usual constraints of the crime genre. I know next to nothing about Australia and can’t commend on the accuracy, but I can say that I found the setting interesting and refreshingly different from the European or US settings that are more familiar in crime fiction. I highly recommend the book to anyone, no matter if they are crime novel aficionados or high literature snobs.
This was a dark and twisting noir with an impish heart that I thoroughly enjoyed despite the lingering questions it left me with.
We meet Joe Cashin, a taciturn, damaged cop "on leave" in the suburbs from the wilds of Melbourne after a dubious stake out left a fellow officer dead. He's going through the motions of rebuilding his families crumbling estate, a project that seems doomed to fail. His only company are two standard poodles (possibly the weirdest pair of pets I've ever encountered in a book like this) and a few friends as quiet and solitary as he tries to be.
When a local philanthropist is brutally murdered Cashin finds himself embroiled with the local police force, a rabidly racist bunch who are determined to pin the crime on a couple of local aboriginal teens. It isn't long before Cashin discovers the so called philanthropist may have been doing more than just providing poor teens with a chance to go to summer camp and it quickly becomes apparent that quite a few people might have wanted him dead.
This is a wide ranging novel with a huge cast of characters that occasionally gets super unweildy but despite a lot of twists and turns and some unresolved story lines I found myself really enjoying this. Its very much a character driven book with very sharp and often very funny dialogue that calls to mind an Australian version of a Bogey and Bacall movie. Author Peter Temple comes from a journalistic background and his sharp, staccato, David Mametish dialogue bears that out. There isn't a whole lot here visually, this was not a novel I "saw" in my mind as I read it, but it still works. Temple's characters linger. Cashin is an incredibly likable hero. He ticks all the "damaged cop with a heart of gold" check boxes but there's a certain je ne sais quoi that sets him apart. He's a good person, you just feel that in the way he deals with victims and perps and witnesses and the people he cares about. He's an introspective, troubled man, but he isn't mired in his problems. You get the sense that he wants to be happier, more settled and comfortable with himself and you root for him to find that inner peace that seems to elude him.
Temple doesn't reinvent the wheel here but he certainly makes it spin faster and more elegantly than most of his fellow noir crime fiction authors. I might have known where things were heading but I still wanted to see how it all played out and Temple doesn't disappoint. The end is brutal, disturbing and not every loose end is tied up neatly but it somehow doesn't matter.
There's a bit of a tacked on romantic element and readers may be a tad bit confused by the motherload of Australian slang (there's a super helpful glossary at the back of the book) but this is straight up a very good book and I'm looking forward to reading more.
We meet Joe Cashin, a taciturn, damaged cop "on leave" in the suburbs from the wilds of Melbourne after a dubious stake out left a fellow officer dead. He's going through the motions of rebuilding his families crumbling estate, a project that seems doomed to fail. His only company are two standard poodles (possibly the weirdest pair of pets I've ever encountered in a book like this) and a few friends as quiet and solitary as he tries to be.
When a local philanthropist is brutally murdered Cashin finds himself embroiled with the local police force, a rabidly racist bunch who are determined to pin the crime on a couple of local aboriginal teens. It isn't long before Cashin discovers the so called philanthropist may have been doing more than just providing poor teens with a chance to go to summer camp and it quickly becomes apparent that quite a few people might have wanted him dead.
This is a wide ranging novel with a huge cast of characters that occasionally gets super unweildy but despite a lot of twists and turns and some unresolved story lines I found myself really enjoying this. Its very much a character driven book with very sharp and often very funny dialogue that calls to mind an Australian version of a Bogey and Bacall movie. Author Peter Temple comes from a journalistic background and his sharp, staccato, David Mametish dialogue bears that out. There isn't a whole lot here visually, this was not a novel I "saw" in my mind as I read it, but it still works. Temple's characters linger. Cashin is an incredibly likable hero. He ticks all the "damaged cop with a heart of gold" check boxes but there's a certain je ne sais quoi that sets him apart. He's a good person, you just feel that in the way he deals with victims and perps and witnesses and the people he cares about. He's an introspective, troubled man, but he isn't mired in his problems. You get the sense that he wants to be happier, more settled and comfortable with himself and you root for him to find that inner peace that seems to elude him.
Temple doesn't reinvent the wheel here but he certainly makes it spin faster and more elegantly than most of his fellow noir crime fiction authors. I might have known where things were heading but I still wanted to see how it all played out and Temple doesn't disappoint. The end is brutal, disturbing and not every loose end is tied up neatly but it somehow doesn't matter.
There's a bit of a tacked on romantic element and readers may be a tad bit confused by the motherload of Australian slang (there's a super helpful glossary at the back of the book) but this is straight up a very good book and I'm looking forward to reading more.