Melbourne

Dougal is a very lucky cat.  He knows that, so he's very determined to be a Good Cat and repay Man and Woman who kindly took him and his sister Shadow home with them after a shaky start in life.  

Not being much of a reader (paws won't turn pages, let alone switch on a reading light), I had to have this book read to me by my Woman (although we call her She Who Often Returns from the Shops with Squeaky Toys).  Our Man (He Who Disapproves Heartily of the Ongoing Provision of Squeaky Toys) just rolled his eyes and told me to go look for rats in the chook shed, but a dog does not live by exercise alone, and besides, reading involves lots of lying around on beds which is a Very Good Thing.

Dougal seems like a very lucky cat.  Not that I'm a big fan of cats, but I can tolerate them if they Don't Touch Me!  So I was pleased that Dougal found a lovely home with Man and Woman who give him lots of cuddles and lots of food (note to self - must discuss this one daily meal idea with ProSqueaky and AntiSqueaky... may need to find favoured shoe to concentrate their attention on the subject at hand!).  Personally, I'm not that convinced about this being a Good Cat thing as I've never seen the need.  My sister Meg moved in from next door a while ago and she says it's very important as if she's a Very Good Dog she won't be made to go home and sleep in her own little house (she prefers to sleep on big beds with fluffy doonas).  My other sister Jedda and I know that we're the only reason that ProSqueaky and AntiSqueaky have to get up every morning and do something called work (or at least they keep telling us that Squeaky Toys don't grow on trees and you have to work to earn something or other that magically creates Squeaky Toy bushes).  Or something.

I did like the idea of the walks that Dougal and Shadow go on.  They sound much more interesting than the once arounds the paddock that we get as there are no cats to be glared at and the Alpacas hate us.  But we do have rabbits to chase and I bet Dougal and Shadow would like that - so maybe they could visit one day and maybe they could show us how to sneak up on a rabbit, because we're something called a "Smash and Grab Gang without the Grab".  Whatever that means.

Dougal's Diary is a very nice book about a very nice cat who looks after the girls in his household (even though girls are really annoying).  I know how very hard it is to be Good when you have a little sister (I've got two of them and they are a real trial so I know exactly how Dougal feels!).  I hope he has a very happy life and that he figures out how to get on and off the roof and out of the trees.  I'd like it if he would write another book about how you do that as I can't seem to even get close to climbing and there's this crow that lives in a tree outside the front door that I'd really like to surprise one day.
 

(ProSqueaky is not from a cat household, and should declare an interest being the WebWrangler for http://www.clandestinepress.com.au - Publishers of this book.  She would, however, genuinely recommend this very sweet, funny, often very touching little book to animal lovers of all ages - it's perfect for kids as well as adults.  It's a joy to know that there are people out there that love and care for their animals as much as Dougal's Man and Woman do.  It really makes you think very hard about animal adoption from shelters as a real alternative to pure bred breeders - and that's from somebody who is utterly besotted with Aussie Terriers!)

SILK CHASER is the third novel set within the Australian Racing Industry by ex-strapper, trainer and punter Peter Klein. These books, unsurprisingly, have a fantastic sense of place and reality within that setting, covering the difficulties and vagaries of the Sport of Kings from exactly those viewpoints - strapper, trainers and punters as well as bookmakers, stewards, security and other people who work in and around the tracks and horses, through to the occasional racetrack visitors - the full range of hangers-on.

In SILK CHASER there are all these sorts of characters, and a serial killer.  Targeting young, female strappers somebody is killing them brutally.  The affect of this gets particularly close to Klein's central character - John Punter - when a strapper from his father and brother's stables is one of the victims.  Punter is not the only person worried about this killer though, but then he's also worried about the relationship he's developing with new girlfriend Maxine.

The settings of these books, and the characters who populate those settings are just terrific.  Granted my experience of the racing industry is pretty limited, and from a long-time ago, but everyone just rings so very true.  And that's consistent for all the characters - from the socialite girlfriend to Punter's pickpocket mate.  The settings are spot on as well - Punter moves around from track to track, and off track to home, his Pizza restaurant, and through a set of social events all over Melbourne with great aplomb, and with a wonderful laid back, laconic sense of Australian humour and wry observation.

Unfortunately, what doesn't work so well in SILK CHASER is the serial killer element.  Now I will admit to a profound boredom about the whole being in the head of the serial killer thing - let's face it, it has been done to death.  Having said that, it can still work provided the reader does feel like they are truly in the killer's head, or gets the feeling that the killer is one very scary individual.  Unfortunately in this book I never really felt like I was hearing an authentic voice, and because of that the killer wasn't a particularly foreboding presence, despite the high body count.  It isn't just a feeling of been there, done that, there was something not quite convincing about the serial killer viewpoints, the language, the tone that simply didn't work for me.

Which is a pity, as I do like the setting of these books, and I really like the character of John Punter.  Perhaps this is a book for readers who don't seem to have had to spend quite as much time in the heads of serial killers as a more frequent (okay, well fanatical) reader of crime fiction.  It may be that the voice will work if you're less (sadly) finely attuned to the mad, bad and most clinical of serial killer voices.

When local Crime and True Crime Author Lindy Cameron decided to re-release GOLDEN RELIC as an ebook I was very very pleased (DISCLAIMER - I did the conversion of the manuscript into the ePUB file).  I remember the story of STOLEN PROPERTY (as it was originally titled) when it was released on the website of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) '98 website and I was lucky enough to get a copy of the paperback GOLDEN RELIC when it was released (which I've still got!).  I do like to go back and re-read books, and I simply don't get that opportunity that often these days.  One of the things that intrigued me the most about re-reading GOLDEN RELIC was to see how it stood the test of time, particularly as the story was originally released on the Internet, in the very very early days of the Internet.  Yes there was a time when wireless / broadband access from anywhere wasn't even contemplated, so much was still text-based (and I don't mean SMS), and the idea of using a website to release a murder mystery was, well unheard of.

GOLDEN RELIC, is a story built in and around the world of Museums, collections, artefacts and strange goings on.  When Professor Lloyd Marsden is murdered in the Museum of Victoria, Special Detective Sam Diamond is given the case.  Her photographic memory and passion for cryptic crosswords definitely help in the investigation, but then so does archaeologist Maggie Tremaine who not only knows all about the internal machinations of Museums, she can help get Sam from Melbourne to Egypt and Peru as they search for a legendary relic.

Given that this is a book that was released originally on the very new-fangled Internet the author has pulled off a very delicate balancing act in the use of technology.  One of the things that instantly ages a book dramatically is the overt use of (or not) of elements that we take for granted these days - mobile telephones, GPS, Internet databases and search engines.  Whilst GOLDEN RELIC refers in general terms to searching for information on the Internet and so on, it's very general, it's not intrinsic to the story, and the reader can just roll through it without instantly being made aware that this is a story from a past era (seems strange to be calling 1998 a past era - but it definitely is).

Aside from the gotchas of technology and timing, the main point of a mystery story like GOLDEN RELIC has to be the mystery itself.  This really is a good, fun read.  Woven into the goings on in a Museum sense, the search for answers remains the focus of the book.  That's not to say that you won't learn quite a bit about Museum roles in the preservation of artefacts and knowledge; the tensions between Indigenous cultures the world over and the holders of "repatriated" collections; and the very human conflicts between staff and colleagues.  There's no obvious pushing of any particular barrows though, so the novel reads ultimately as an entertainment, and the lightness of the banter between Sam, her own police colleagues, Maggie and her museum colleagues, and the sense of good, old-fashioned friendship between Sam and Maggie is really very good.  As is the relationship between Sam and her sister, and Maggie and her romantic pursuit of Sam's colleague.

All in all, this is still a really good story, told with a lightness of touch that's very engaging and refreshingly Australian.  It's a pity that Sam and Maggie have only had the one outing thus far - they would be a tremendous crime-fighting duo, sort of the Australian Rosemary and Thyme, with just the slightest larrikin streak.  

The ebook of Golden Relic is available from Clan Destine Press - http://www.clandestine-books.com.au/node/340

FORBIDDEN FRUIT is the 5th book in the Corinna Chapman series by Australian author Kerry Greenwood (probably best known for her Phryne Fisher series).  These books are set in modern day, inner Melbourne, are also on the cosier end of the scale.  There are enough elements that coincide in both series to make fans of one feel somewhat comfortable in the other.  Having never read any of the earlier books in this series, though, I can't comment on whether FORBIDDEN FRUIT is particularly representative, so I comment on it in isolation.

Corrina is a woman who has turned to baking after a life in the professions.  Happier, content to the point of delirious, she is even able to just cope with the 4.00am starts.  Living in very idealised circumstances, she has a happy home life in a building full of bohemian type characters, all living their own somewhat unorthodox lives.  A content love life with Daniel, the main thing making Corinna grumpy in this book is Christmas. 

Basically the story is that Daniel, the private investigator, is trying to track down two teenage runaways.  Pregnant Brigid and the father of her baby Manny.  Neither parents approve of either of the couple, Brigid has been locked up at home awaiting the birth of the unwanted (by her family) child, when she escapes and hits the streets with Manny.  Daniel wants to find them because he's been asked by her parents, Corinna wants to find them because she's worried for Brigid's health.  Along the way they are assisted / distracted by nuns who run a soup kitchen bus, freegans, maniacal mothers, thunderstorms and naked dancing witches, a donkey named Serena, glace cherries, the heat of a long hot Melbourne summer and meals which are described in somewhat minute detail.

Whilst it could be that all these distractions - and to be frank - meandering down a simply astounding number of irrelevant byways and cul-de-sacs is part of the charm of these books, in FORBIDDEN FRUIT, it just seemed to go on, and on, and on, and on.  As did the none-too-subtle hinting about the joys of bohemia and alternative lifestyles and finding your inner whatevers.  Not that I'm opposed to any of the elements that were raised by this book - but I just found that the constant bombardment and distractions ended up, well tedious.  Every time the plot tried to progress a little, the reader was suddenly down one of those cul-de-sacs with a whinge about something (really, if you don't like Christmas decoration shopping then just don't do it!), or a lauding of "insert bandwagon here".  Yes, I know these books are fictional and idealised, and maybe that's part of the problem - I prefer idealised fiction that "shows" rather than "crows".

There are some glimpses of parallels between elements of these books and the Phyrne Fisher series that were interesting - a similar sort of independent, feisty female character with an abandonment of normal conventions.  But in FORBIDDEN FRUIT everything just seemed a little too over the top, a little too arch, a little too preachy for comfort.  Perhaps this is a book for fans of the series, perhaps there's something about not reading the earlier books that means I missed the point.  

TRUTH by Peter Temple is probably the most keenly anticipated novel in this house for many years.  Let's get the verdict out of the way right up front so there's absolutely no doubt - it did not disappoint.  Not in any way.

TRUTH has been "billed" as the follow up to the acclaimed THE BROKEN SHORE, but really that's not setting expectations for the book well - sure Joe Cashin makes a number of cameo appearances (by reference) as, for that matter, does Jack Irish, but TRUTH isn't a sequel in the strictest sense of the word.  Perhaps it would be fairer to call it a companion to the earlier book, a parallel story.

Inspector Stephen Villani goes from his own BROKEN SHORE cameo to the central character in TRUTH, as the head of the Victoria Police Homicide Squad.  A country boy / city cop he's a complex man, as complicated as Cashin, although his life has taken a different path.  Perhaps it is this concept of a man who is the sum total of his childhood, his younger years, his decisions, his personal and professional lives, and the decisions (or events) along the way that push and pull and shove and ultimately shape personality that most interest Peter Temple.  Villani is good at his job; hopeless at his personal life; struggling with his relationship with his father; they share a bond which is fractious at best, their forest of trees a bridge between the two men.  A joint love, it seems to Villani, it's the only thing that they hold in common.  Add that complexity to the environment in which TRUTH is set - Melbourne ringed by bushfires, hot, smokey, difficult, uncomfortable, threatened.  More so for Villani, as his father and their property, their forest, is directly in the line of threat.  

And then there's truth.  The central core of this book is the peeling back of artifice, of pretence, of deception and doubt and the revealing of truth.  The truth behind a young girls body in a luxury bathroom; the truth behind the tortured men hanging in a backyard in Oakleigh; the truth about colleagues, mentors and political masters; the truth behind Villani's marriage, his runaway tearaway teenage daughter; his relationship with his brothers; and his fractious, terse, uncomfortable relationship with a father who he doesn't understand, and he thinks, doesn't understand him.  Truth is a subject that the reader has to conclude is very very close to Temple's heart as well.  

TRUTH has been a book a long time in the making, but it's obvious that recent bushfires in Victoria have given the author cause for consideration.  There are elements of that time, the damage and the devastation built into the narrative, giving the story a particular resonance, a place in history, for Victorians in particular.  There are also some of the components that readers will have come to expect (demand?) from a book by the master of the understatement. Pared down language, an ear / eye for an authentic phrasing of the Australian accent that can drip irony, convey profound emotion or tell a lifetime's story in a few words, or a gesture.  The emotion built into the relationship between Villani, his father, and their beloved forest and the fire - the nearly all consuming fire - described in the shortest possible chapter, was devastating, profoundly, and somewhat startlingly affecting.

To be honest, I wasn't expecting the emotional response that TRUTH engendered.  Seems unfair to say it as I write this review.  After all, you can predict the pared down, minimalist language, the depth of the storytelling, combined with the pared down realistic characterisations, but it's a profound joy to realise you can never predict everything that you're going to get from a Peter Temple book.  

But the opening paragraph of this review isn't the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - there is something disappointing about TRUTH.  It eventually came to an ending - as good an ending as you could possibly want, but nonetheless an ending.