Noel Mealey

The second book in the Syd Fielding series, THE ICON MURDERS follows on closely from the opening salvo, MURDER AND REDEMPTION.

Syd Fielding is a WA based cop who, in the first book, got himself into a lot of hot water with a drugs investigation and the death of a childhood friend. Here we're continuing with many of the themes from the debut - a childhood spent in a brutal Catholic boy's home, mateship, the illicit drugs trade, the sometime uncomfortably close ties between law and order and criminals, and love in all the wrong places.

THE ICON MURDERS does, however, go more into child abuse perpetrated by members of various religious orders, as there is a serial killer out there brutally murdering men with suspect backgrounds. And he's framing Fielding along the way. That's either subtle (murders taking place all over the country whilst Fielding happens to have been in the same area), or through actual physical evidence. Needless to say Fielding's enemies within the local force are more than happy to put their backs into a guilty finding, whilst Fielding works against the tide to prove otherwise.

The style of both of these books tends towards the laid-back, laconic, sarcastic. Probably because Fielding is, himself, a bit of a lone wolf, a man accustomed to pissing off everybody around him and someone not given to a heap of empathy or the warm fuzzies. Whilst it does come as a bit of a mild surprise that there are lusting women on his trail, it's not so unlikely when you consider that it's a rather pragmatic pursuit, and really more about alliances. Which is also part of the point of the whole book - the shifting alliances and loyalties that spring up as a result of some very inconvenient, and frequently decidedly stroppy roosters coming home to roost.

THE ICON MURDERS, is not, however, without problems. The more I think about it, the more I suspect you're going to have to read the first book. There's a lot of backtracking, a lot of past connections, and a lot of interactions between characters that may not make sense without it. Having said that, even though I had read it, I really struggled sometimes to get everything straight - there's been a lot of books between then and now. Unfortunately it did contribute to a feeling of possible points being missed, which rapidly led to a tendency to lose the plot. And whilst the basic premise of the book isn't overly complex, the number of characters with history with Fielding did mean that it all got a tad muddled at times.

Given that it's "yet another serial killer book" and the circumstances of the killings are clearly telegraphing another nutter on the prowl, the connections backwards are really spotlights strafing the night sky. It's not that hard to take an educated guess at the why's of the killings, and from there narrow the suspect list down to a very neat little group which is fed by clues and details along the way. But these books don't always have to be about who. The why is often as important, and despite the problems, if it casts a bit of light into some very dark corners of our recent history, then that's not a bad thing.

2011 was an interesting year in Australian Crime fiction with quite a few excellent debut books appearing.  In 2012 we've started off with the release of MURDER AND REDEMPTION by Noel Mealey, another debut, another book set in outback Western Australia, and another book aiming for a quintessentially Australian voice and viewpoint.

Blurbed as "moody and atmospheric" and "following in the traditions of both Peter Temple and Carl Hiaasen", somebody is setting the bar for MURDER AND REDEMPTION rather on the high side.

As you'd expect from those comparisons the central character - Syd Fielding - is a flawed, complex and damaged individual.  A childhood spent in a notorious WA orphanage, a tour of duty during the Vietnam War, a recovering alcoholic with a broken marriage and a distant relationship with his only son, Fielding manages to maintain some close relationships with a few selected mates - from his time in Vietnam, from the orphanage, these men are all, in their own way, damaged and coping using different methods.  When one of Fielding's life time friends, Ivan, appears to be mixed up in something violent and nasty, Fielding finds his role as policeman complicated.

Fielding is a classic outsider, a complex and damaged man, dealing with his demons - not a particularly unusual characterisation in crime fiction these days and as a result there are a lot of expected tensions with hierarchy, tricky relationships with colleagues and a fair bit of personal angst and self-analysis.  There is definitely a terseness to the style, and dialogue that is reminiscent of Temple's patterns of writing, although it's understandably not as assured, as clean or as pared down.  Whilst Syd is controlled, clipped, frequently sparing of details; there are hints, and glimpses into some parts of the life of Fielding and his mates.  There are also some parts that are drawn out, concentrated on, more voluminous, giving the book a slightly unbalanced feel.  

The central plot in MURDER AND REDEMPTION was particularly interesting, especially after reading the author notes which outline some of the true events that were used.  Even without knowing that up front, the way that story built around the "technicalities" of illicit drug trafficking was cleverly done - the advantages of the vast, mostly uninhabited areas of the coast and mining towns of WA intriguing.  The book definitely had a strong sense of place drawing the isolation and distances into the story very effectively.

As with most debut books, there's a fair amount of heavy lifting going on - getting a character established, explaining some background, whilst developing a storyline along the way.  Even allowing for slight quibbles with the balance, and making a huge allowance for the thing that I absolutely adore about Temple's writing is more about what he doesn't say, than what he does, Noel Mealey's MURDER AND REDEMPTION is an interesting book.  Let's just hope that this, and some of the other excellent debut books recently, are the start of some new, solid, Australian series.