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There are books stacked up in the corners of this house that I look at fondly and think I must read that.. I've got to read that... and next thing you know it's a few years down the track and I'm still mumbling must to myself.  DRY DOCK is one of those books that wants me to take myself outside and beat myself around the head and shoulders for taking so long to get to it.

 

It's really a story about the pressures that come to bear when the old, industrial and worker inner-suburbs of big cities start to get squeezed.  On one side you've got the original residents, the combination of industrial and workers living close by; and the property values - the closeness to the city; the younger people trying to move in.  This brings with it the developers, the squeeze of more housing in less and less places; the competing priorities of original, old residents (and the sorts of people that they are) and the monied new residents (and the sorts of people they can be).

 

DRY DOCK introduces Nicola Sharp, who has lived in Balmain all her life, recently turned to a job as a private investigator after years in the public service.  There are two main threads in this book - the first is the woman that Nicola is hired to protect - she's being threatened and it would seem that this is because of an application with the Council to build a garage on her property - none of her neighbours are happy.  The other side of the story is the friend of Nicola's father - both shipworkers on nearby Cockatoo Island, Kevin's been a unionist all his life - and a militant one at that.  He's also opposed to the yuppification of his suburb and he's very vocal about it.  When Kevin goes missing, Nicola is balancing between protecting her threatened client, and finding out what happened to Kevin.

 

DRY DOCK really works mostly because Nicola's interesting.  She's a good entrant in the female PI group - not too "conflicted", not too much personal baggage, able to take a bit of a personal beating and actually have to take to her bed - so she's very real and feels like somebody you'd run across.  She's got good friends, she's close to her dad.  She's got enough that has gone wrong in her past life to make her not perfect, but she's also not that so edgy, difficult, cartoonish character that can show up these days.

 

The investigations themselves are interesting - the stalking of the wealthy property owner ticks on with some interesting twists and turns; what happened to Kevin is resolved but there's a nice bit of ambiguity about what really happens to Balmain.

 

Death in Dreamtime was published by Wakefield Crime Classics in 1993. Originally published in 1959, S H Courtier is one of the classic crime fiction authors in Australia who is little known / commented on. Which is a pity.

 

In Death in Dreamtime Jock Corless ends up at Ungimillia, home of The Alchera or Dream Time Land - a sort of "theme park" of Aboriginal mythology. He's travelled through to New South Wales in response to a very cryptic letter from his cousin who, as Jock arrives, is found dead on the road.

 

Death in Dreamtime certainly reads like a novel from 1959 with a turn of phrase that comes directly from that era. Some of the characterisations are to be expected, Inspector 'Digger' Haig reminds you a bit of your returned soldier grandfather in his mannerisms and his language. There are two main female characters who are not as cliched as is often the case from books of this era, and best of all, there is a stagey but relatively sympathetic discussion of Aboriginal mythology and history which actually doesn't make you squirm from embarrassment.

 

Interestingly enough for me, living in the Dandenong Ranges, there is a central character in the park who seemed to me to remind me very strongly of William Ricketts and the famous William Ricketts sanctuary - not so far from where I live. The editors who bought these writers to Wakefield made the same observation in a short essay at the back of the book describing the circumstances around the book.

 

For more on William Ricketts: http://teachit.acreekps.vic.edu.au/cyberfair2002/Williamrickettssanctuar...

 

http://travel.webshots.com/album/331650198fRFdHa

 

All in all I enjoyed this a whole lot more than I thought I would.