Crime Fiction

It is possible that the reader of a lot of mystery fiction could come to BAY OF FIRES with a predisposition to like it very much. It's an unusual twist on what is, frequently, a rather formulaic style. More importantly, it's a lot more about the people involved in a community than the tragic death.

The story revolves around Sarah Avery, who was second on the scene when the bikini-clad body is found on the beach. She and her family are long-term holiday residents at the Bay of Fires, so they were there the year before when a young girl went missing. As were a lot of the characters in the story, this being the sort of holiday destination where people own shacks and return every year.

The only incomer in the story is Journalist Hall Flynn, sent to the coast to write a story on the dead girl, he soon finds himself attracted to the odd little community, and to Sarah.

The people who occupy this mostly transient community are a very quirky bunch, and because of the style of BAY OF FIRES there's an intense and concentrated view of them. Avery herself is quite a character, a fishing fanatic, obviously running away from a relationship that went pear-shaped in Queensland, she's a prickly, tricky character. Her encounter with the local teenage peeping tom is just one of the problems she's trying to process, her attraction to Flynn another big problem. Although Flynn quickly comes to share her feelings of protectiveness for the local intellectually disabled town loner who is picked on, bullied and suspected of both the murder and the disappearance.

Cleverly there's no shortage of suspects within the community, and whilst there's not a lot of overt concentration on the actual murder, or even, until towards the end, the disappearance of the young girl, there is a slow build up of possible suspects, of strange behaviour and odd occurrences that make you question the tranquillity of the location.

Being a huge fan of the why's of crime fiction, BAY OF FIRES ticked just about every box for me. It's not absolutely perfect, and there are some parts that do wander around a bit, as well as the occasional feeling of disconnection or lack of purpose. Minor problems in what is overall an interesting, and refreshing debut novel.

Two novellas, connected by PI Jack Munro, COORPAROO BLUES and THE IRISH FANDANGO are an interesting historical hard-boiled combination of PI, mean streets, fallen women, drinking and the whole nine yards.

The first story, COORPAROO BLUES, introduces Jack, war veteran, ex-cop, nose for trouble, attractor of a simply staggering number of women, PI that you turn to when things are going to get nasty.

The second story, set a few months later, sees the US troop angle switched for political refugees and Communists around every corner, and a suicide that isn't.

So we're not exactly talking scenarios and a counter-hero of a type that we've not seen before. Albeit that Munro comes with a hefty dose of Australian colloquial language (so much so that they've included a glossary at the back of the book for those less used to the way that the common language can divide). He's also walking the seamier side of Brisbane at a period in history that not a lot of dark and noir current day fiction addresses. And it's done very well - the setting feels authentic, right down to the sense of heat and grime that comes with a Brisbane summer. We're also talking, mercifully a couple of intricate plots that were clever and well formed and resolved in two such short novellas.

The thing with this sort of crime fiction is always that there's a sense that attitudes of the time must be clear cut, all women are either whores or saints, all men gangsters or heroes. Even though Munro is a fair bit more nuanced than like hero's of the type, he is, a good bloke to have on your side in a tight spot and a man seemingly irresistible to any female within range. Definitely one for fans of noir, particularly as it's been a long time since Australia's mean streets have been explored in this way.

Award winning police reporter Paul Anderson obviously spent a lot of time around the Victorian Armed Robbery Squad during some pivotal investigations in this state as there's much of the plot in THE ROBBERS which rings loud, persistent and very musical bells.

There is therefore a parallel when journalist Ian Malone is assigned as a police reporter, his first involvement with the "the Robbers" as he wants to write a feature about the feared, and not always admired Squad. Malone is along for the ride as "the Robbers" slowly fall from favour with the more controlled, corporate, considered style of policing overtaking the Victorian Service.

There is also the parallels that can be drawn between the villains in this book and many of the "names" from some of the worst of the Melbourne Underworld wars and associated cases, some of which have been the most high-profile crimes in recent Victorian history. These aspects are the most chilling parts of this book taking the opportunity to look behind the headlines and court cases at the sorts of people that many of this criminals could be / maybe actually are.

Along the way Anderson takes the opportunity to cast a light into some very dark corners of all sides of the equation. There's not a lot of aspects that miss out, from the criminals that front-line police have to find a way of dealing with, past policing behaviour including physical violence, and the posturing that goes on at the top.

Given Anderson's background you would be well within your rights to expect that this is well written, and extremely realistic. Warts and all storytelling without the niceties of not offending readership or the individuals so easily recognisable for that matter. This is, after all fiction, even though it's obviously based very firmly in true life events and a part of the great strength of the book is the searing, unapologetic realism of the whole thing.

It's interesting to see the proliferation of books based on true life events recently appearing, although it's probably not so surprising. There was something so over the top, so seemingly fictional about the cases they are casting a light on, in very real examples of truth definitely being stranger than fiction. The great thing about THE ROBBERS is that it's actually making a fictionalised version that's actually publishable.

On page 2 of this book I kind of got the feeling that we'd be destined to get on very well....

"He's got more prior convictions than brain cells which means he won't get bail, so he's wallowing in the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall, trying to find a lawyer who'll argue that society is to blame."

The sort of dry sense of humour that works for this reader at least.

Subtitled a detective's story in ten cases, this is the tale of the life and times of John Dorn. Private Inquiry Agent because that's what his father called himself, he's not quite the same as his father. Yet. He doesn't drink, lots. Yet. (His father drank himself to death). He doesn't have a wife to leave him (like his mother left his father), but he does have an ex-fiancee that he longs for. Where he does share his father's characteristics 100%, is that his business is heading in roughly the same direction... out the back door in a hurry.

Part of the reason for the lack of business success is undoubtedly that John Dorn's a decent bloke, who takes cases that nobody else would touch, that make very little money in the process, even though his friend, and very successful Defence Barrister throws him some help whenever he can.

Each of these 10 cases, 10 individual stories, follow a similar trail - backwards and forwards from the end to the past, from the current day to what got him here. Each of them is beautifully written, wonderfully evocative, dry and sad and funny all at the same time.

The jaded PI can be horribly clichéd, but in the hands of this author, there's something glorious about him. Possibly it's because Dorn himself, in a lovely twist, is acutely aware that he's a bit of a cliché. Perhaps it's because his jaded is what he's supposed to be (suffering for your art and all that). Of course he's also profoundly flawed, not in a dodgy way, but strangely as a form of self-preservation.

Whatever twists and turns, and leaps and bounds John Dorn takes, however, the book is deliciously readable and extremely well done.