David Owen

It's just so heartening to know that the Pufferfish Series lives on that it's difficult to remain objective about the latest book.  HOW THE DEAD SEE is the second of the re-emergence of David Owen's much loved, acerbic, dry, funny, dark and quite prickly Detective Inspector Franz Heineken.  

There are some things that never change in these books - Pufferfish (his nickname is a direct correlation between Heineken's prickly, dangerous, lurking personality and that of the fish in question), is, as always, dry, prickly, and acerbic, with the addition of being quietly and pointedly determined to see the crooks go down.  The crimes are always nicely balanced - in this case the supposed suicide of local boy made big-time Hollywood movie star (before he went downhill), and the theft of very valuable jewellery from another location altogether.  Both crimes that Pufferfish and his team, in a small force like the Tasmanian Police Force, have to juggle simultaneously.  Along the way they manage the priorities of stakeouts in less salubrious parts with the wealth and weirdness of those that circle even a falling Hollywood star.

All of the Pufferfish series are told in first-person, straight from the mouth of Pufferfish.  His observations, his thoughts, his voice is therefore central to the books, and the irony and sarcasm often drip almost visually from the words on the page.  Everybody is a target for his baleful eye - even himself.  Nobody avoids Pufferfish scrutiny, nobody is forgotten (much to the chagrin of the old Tasmania crim collective), nothing is ever missed.   It's not just the sarcasm that's visual, there's an image of Pufferfish that builds up as you read these books - you can see the man, you can hear him mutter, you can feel how skewering that gaze would be.  And the books are funny.  Maybe not laugh out loud funny, but you can't help but smile, you can't help but feel a snigger at some points.  You can't help but almost feel sorry for the poor hapless fools that think they can go up against Detective Inspector Franz Heineken and not come out just a little bit burned.

The ongoing life of the Pufferfish series is a thing of great joy.  David Owen created a fabulous character all those years ago, and HOW THE DEAD SEE is the latest in some terrific books.  

You can purchase this and the earlier book in the re-emerged series NO WEATHER FOR A BURIAL direct from http://www.fortysouth.com.au

Four Pufferfish novels were never ever going to be enough for dedicated fans of this wonderful, quirky Police Procedural from Tasmanian based author David Owen.  There was always a real sense of disappointment that Owen didn't appear to have been given the opportunity to publish more of these books (or at least I believe that's what happened).

The sight of NO WEATHER FOR A BURIAL was therefore a cause of much excitement in these parts - and a mad scramble to the publishers website (you can buy your own copy direct from http://www.fortysouth.com.au).  Now is it worth your while?  Yes.  In a word.

Pufferfish has been on long service leave, and he returns to a couple of very unusual cases in Hobart and environs.  The disappearance of the wife of a well known local academic is ticking away quietly in the background, searches for her having so far proven fruitless.  But attention is immediately distracted when a corpse is discovered, buried in an unusual manner, with no identification and the distinct possibility that his appearance had been recently altered.  The case leads Pufferfish into the murky waters of Outlaw Motorcycle Groups, organised crime, and just a little recent Tasmanian history.

One of the things that you must like to enjoy these books is a sparse, sly, tinder-dry wit.  Pufferfish is very fond of the aside, and a sort of internal monologue, mostly about himself which can be highly amusing, and is undoubtedly as dry as dry can be.  NO WEATHER FOR A BURIAL takes up with the team, his colleague (and very private lover) Hedda, Walter his odious boss and just about the entire cast from the earlier books.  It continues the story of Pufferfish with the lag between books nicely wrapped up in a spot of long service leave.  But aside from the great characterisation of Pufferfish, there's a really good mystery to this story of the corpse.  Step one - find  out who he is.  Step two - find out why he is in Tasmania.  Step three - work out where he came from and who he knows.  Step four - chase the bad guys and round them up.  Simple.  Unless you've got the wrong suspect locked up because your boss wants a quick resolution and step three gets a bit tricky.  Oh, and there's nothing like a touch of the serendipity and more than a hefty dose of the nothing gets past him to allow Pufferfish to tidy up the missing person case on the way through!

It's like Detective Inspector Franz Heineken never ever went away.  I hope he comes back again soon.  We've missed him.