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The unpublished manuscript of Alan Carter's Prime Cut was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writer's Association Debut Dagger Award. The following year it was published in Australia by Fremantle Press, and earlier this year it was published in the UK by Michael O'Mara Books.
In a nutshell, it is a first-rate crime thriller. It's fast-paced without skipping over detail and it feels incredibly evocative of time and place — a mining community on the Western Australian coast in October 2008, just as the rest of the Western world is heading into economic meltdown.
The book is structured around two narrative threads that eventually come together in an unexpected — and ultimately — shocking way.
The first revolves around Stuart Miller, an English police detective who quit the force after a particularly harrowing murder case in Sunderland, England, in 1973. He decamped to Australia, where he has been living ever since with his Scottish wife. But he's been mentally scarred by what he saw the day the "Cup Final killer", Davey Arthurs, electrocuted and then blugeoned to death his wife and child. Now, 35 years later, someone with the same modus operandi has struck in the Adelaide hills, and Stuart can't help wondering if it's the same man.
The second narrative focuses on Detective Senior Sergeant Cato Kwong, a Chinese-Australian, who's been banished to the Stock Squad, which investigates crime in the outback relating to sheep, cattle and roadkill, following a fall from grace. But he's called back in from the cold to head up a murder investigation when a torso is washed up on the coast. His return to "proper" police work brings him back into contact with an old colleague, Senior Sergeant Tess Maguire, which adds additional complications he doesn't really doesn't need.
To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.
In a nutshell, it is a first-rate crime thriller. It's fast-paced without skipping over detail and it feels incredibly evocative of time and place — a mining community on the Western Australian coast in October 2008, just as the rest of the Western world is heading into economic meltdown.
The book is structured around two narrative threads that eventually come together in an unexpected — and ultimately — shocking way.
The first revolves around Stuart Miller, an English police detective who quit the force after a particularly harrowing murder case in Sunderland, England, in 1973. He decamped to Australia, where he has been living ever since with his Scottish wife. But he's been mentally scarred by what he saw the day the "Cup Final killer", Davey Arthurs, electrocuted and then blugeoned to death his wife and child. Now, 35 years later, someone with the same modus operandi has struck in the Adelaide hills, and Stuart can't help wondering if it's the same man.
The second narrative focuses on Detective Senior Sergeant Cato Kwong, a Chinese-Australian, who's been banished to the Stock Squad, which investigates crime in the outback relating to sheep, cattle and roadkill, following a fall from grace. But he's called back in from the cold to head up a murder investigation when a torso is washed up on the coast. His return to "proper" police work brings him back into contact with an old colleague, Senior Sergeant Tess Maguire, which adds additional complications he doesn't really doesn't need.
To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.