Allen & Unwin

1945 - World War 2 is over, and TRUTH DARE KILL is another book set in a post-war period that I've read recently.  Set in London, this is the story of Danny McRae, an ex-policeman who has returned from the war after being captured by the Germans, incurring a severe head injury in the process.  As a result he suffers amnesia and blackouts, which has to make working as a private investigator a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

Approached by a woman who wants the possible death of her married lover investigated, McRae takes the job.  Partially because he needs the money, and partially because the missing man turns out to be McRae's commanding officer in France, and one of the few people in the world that can help him discover the missing parts of his life.  The complication is that not only do the blackouts and amnesia make his job difficult, there are also a series of brutal murders of prostitutes in nearby Soho and McRae has some very valid reasons to wonder if he could be involved.

TRUTH DARE KILL felt very like a book aiming to create a lone wolf, stripped down, struggling character.  Danny McRae is taciturn and introverted, he's probably not meant to be an easy man to find any connection with.  I'm not sure whether that was a particular ploy on the part of the author (the character is, after all, having trouble coming to grips with himself after his war-time experience), whether it's an artefact of the book's "styling", or maybe because it's the first book in a series.  Alternatively it could be a combination of the whole lot.  Either way, I suspect some readers will struggle with McRae.  I found him quite realistic, and everything about him consistent, right down to the problems of finding something about him to connect to.  He felt at sea, awash with the complication of life, the difficulties of randomly losing control of your life, making it seem feasible that he'd be disconnected from everyone and everybody (including a distant observer like me - the reader).

There's a very noir feeling to the setting as well.  There was something subdued, dark, shell-shocked about 1945 London that felt authentic, albeit deliberately washed out, tired, gritty, bleak.  

Despite the overwhelming feeling of bleakness left behind by TRUTH DARE KILL, I did find it to be quite an interesting book, set in another post-war period that isn't like the world that I live in.  I certainly engaged enough with the book to add the next in the series to my buy list.

THE COLD COLD GROUND arrived announcing the beginning of a new series, with a new character by Adrian McKinty and I was intrigued... and worried.  It's been stinking hot in these parts, so I'm already sleep deprived.  I wasn't sure I could cope with another all night reading session.

So I got cunning, and started the book early in the day.  And ended up with an all day reading session.  Simply could ... not ... put ... the thing down.

THE COLD COLD GROUND is therefore obviously another outstanding book from this outstanding writer.  It is, however, a rather different viewpoint and a different timeframe to previous books.  Sean Duffy is a Catholic copper in a Protestant police force in 1981 Ireland.  A tricky job in a tricky place.  A place where, as a cop, your early morning routine is coffee, brush, dress and check under your car for mercury tilt bombs before you drive to work.  Where there are places that you simply do not go unless you are in a armour plated police 4WD.  Even then you can get caught, and will get shot at - with malice and a clear intent to kill.  There's no messing around in this world.  It's dangerous, your life can turn on a look, or a thought, or just simply being in the wrong place with the wrong name.

In the middle of this climate of distrust and fear the idea that there could be a serial killer lurking, targeting gay men is strangely a novelty.  There's a line in the book about most serial killers being able to satisfy their urges by joining one of the paramilitaries.  Needless to say this is not a book that pulls punches.  It's restrained sure, but it's pointed, carefully drawing out the story and the sub-threads, subduing the delivery to make sure that you get the points being made.  And there definitely are points which you will feel are being hammered home hard, but at least it's done with a book of poetry.  Take, as an example, the opening paragraph:

"The riot had taken on a beauty of its own now.  Arcs of gasoline fire under the crescent moon.  Crimson tracer in mystical parabolas.  Phosphorescence from the barrels of plastic bullet guns.  A distant yelling like that of men below decks in a torpedoed prison ship.  The scarlet whoosh of Molotovs intersecting with exacting surfaces.  Helicopters everywhere: their spotlights finding one another like lovers in the Afterlife.  I watched with the others by the Land Rover on Knockagh Mountain.  No one spoke.  Words were inadequate.  You needed a Picasso for this scene, not a poet."

This is exactly the sort of thing that goes on throughout the book - drawing a picture of that time in Ireland that's stark, clear, sobering and moving.  Drawing a picture of the life of Sean Duffy that's memorable, alone, not quite a lone wolf, but definitely a man who dances to his own tune.  Not exactly brave in the face of all comers, but good and right and quietly determined.  Not completely stupid, not an energiser bunny, not a man given to flights of fancy, he's alone, lonely and ever so slightly sad.  

He's also a man that just fits into this portrayal of Northern Island.  Whilst there's no forgetting that the book is about the solving of the deaths of two men - shot in quick succession, the strange juxtaposition of each other's hands beside their bodies, seemingly signalling something paramilitary, both men's backgrounds pointing elsewhere, it's also a book that cleverly sets up a lot of information about this character.  His background, his decision to put himself seemingly in an impossible job in an impossible place.  But once the investigation gets going, and the intricacies and expectations of life in Northern Island start to play themselves out, the actual solution is considerably less clear cut than it initially seems to be.  

Ultimately what THE COLD COLD GROUND does better than anything else is show how complicated life in that time, in that place could be.  How the politics of power, hate and influence play themselves out, how a copper in a small town can hang on and try to make a difference in a world that's - frankly - gone completely and utterly mad.

I really shouldn't get all impressed by a new cover, but having no idea whatsoever of who Essie Davis is, I was really pleased to see her popup on the re-release of Kerry Greenwood's first Phryne Fisher book COCAINE BLUES.  I think the casting people for the upcoming ABC TV series may just have done a very good job!

Re-releasing the books is an excellent idea, not just because of the TV tie in, but also because it gives old fans, as well as a new audience a chance to catch up with the opening onslaught of what is now up to 18 or something books, from which 13 episodes are being filmed.  Which is, however you look at it, an astounding number of books.  

COCAINE BLUES is the first book in the series, and it is going to be an excellent place to start for new readers - to find out why Phryne arrives back in Australia and becomes a private Detective, how she met up with and subsequently employs her companion / maid Dot and her initial encounters with Bert and Cec.  When the books were first released, I confess I was never 100% sure what to make of them, being as they are, substantially different from my normal reading material.  But I've now come to realise that part of the attraction of these books is their sense of humour, and their sheer escapism.  Now that I've got that idea firmly in my head, I have been going back and starting to reread the series as and when I can, and I am certainly coming to understand the attraction of them more clearly.  The TV tie in is just another impetus to keep going with that series revisit.

The Phryne Fisher series is really a combination of sexual frisson, dare-doing, glamorous clothes, outrageous behaviour and slightly manic plots always with Miss Fisher at centre stage, being wonderful, glorious, sexy and fabulous.  Light-hearted entertainment, these aren't books that you're going to be reading if you stay firmly on the darker side of crime fiction, but they are books that could work if you're more of a generalist - looking for something entertaining and amusing.  Perhaps they have to be read with tongue firmly pressed in cheek, lying on what passes as a chaise lounge in your part of the world; sipping a cocktail of some sort and idly wondering if you can even get hold of a Hispano-Suiza for less than it would cost to hock a whole family tree full of Nannas... but that's the whole point of these books.  Delightfully escapist, vaguely absurdist, wonderfully entertaining, Phryne Fisher will be appearing on your TV's very soon.  I'd take the chance to catch up with the series now as well if I were you.

Released in all their new finery will be:

February 2012:

Cocaine Blues
Murder on the Ballarat Train
The Green Mill Murder
Death at Victoria Dock
Raisins and Almonds
Ruddy Gore

March 2012:

Murder in the Montparnasse
Away with the Fairies
Queen of the Flowers
Blood and Circuses
Murder in the Dark

Before everything comes across just a bit gushy, there was a point somewhere in the middle of the Cliff Hardy series where I seriously lost interest.  Whilst there are some elements of the books that are always going to be the same, somehow the sameness became very obvious, there was something slightly flat about the storylines and, to this reader at least, nothing much engaged my interest.  I never totally gave up reading the series, but most definitely didn't shove things aside as each new book arrived.

And then, a few years ago, things changed.  Around the time that Cliff started to really get in trouble, to lose his licence for real, as his health took a downward turn, somewhere in there, the series got it's fire back.  Sure there's still the same basic elements making up the stories, yet somehow or other there's something very engaging happening again.  Maybe it's got something to do with some of the aspects of Cliff's life catching up a bit with current day activities - a mobile phone and even a computer have even made a showing in Cliff's life.  Maybe it's also that somehow Cliff is now starting to show just the slightest glimpse of aging, that's making the series somehow progress, change, move on just a little.

True fans, however, do not need to worry that Cliff is suddenly going to act his age, get himself a nice little runaround, and leap too heavily into the technology age - a mobile phone and office computer do not, a Private Detective, change that much.  The point of COMEBACK is that Cliff is back, he's got his licence back, he's back working as a PI (albeit more because he needs the money and less because of any overt great desire to return to his old life), and he's out and about, old Ford and all, working the mean streets, getting roughed up just a bit and solving the puzzle.  

COMEBACK is the story of Cliff's investigation into the death of actor Bobby Forrest.  The only love interest in sight is Bobby's girlfriend, and the mystery is why Bobby died and how you're going to work out where one white Commodore came from in a sea of white Commodores.

The plot of this book is actually really good, and whilst there's still a bit of the beaten and still functioning PI stuff going on, all in all, Cliff's investigation style seems to have gotten a bit cunning with age (less prodding of the bear and more teasing it from a distance if you like). 

I particularly enjoyed Hardy's "observation" about modern day crime fiction "padded, as a lot of novels are now.  I don't know why."  One thing you can never accuse a Cliff Hardy novel of is padding!  They are sparse, entertaining, tight little capsules of Cliff the Private Detective working the mean streets of Sydney, and have always been thus.

Whilst I'd normally confess to having very little interest in following traditions, the over Christmas read of the latest Cliff Hardy instalment has become... let's call it a rather addictive habit.  COMEBACK is really continuing the fantastic resurgence in this Australian crime fiction stalwart.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  I have no idea how some authors can get themselves involved in a miscarriage of justice, see the case through to its conclusion, write an incisive and revealing book about the state of justice (particularly when it's in the state in which they continue to live), and not develop the odd twitch.  Not, I'd hasten to add, have I had more than a few moments chat with Colleen Egan, but having now read this book I admire both her persistence and her stamina profoundly, and can remember no such twitch.

Despite Egan's involvement in the long drawn out attempts to take the conviction of Andrew Mallard for the 1994 murder of Pamela Lawrence to appeal or somehow to be reconsidered by the WA Justice System; despite the glaring inconsistencies in both the evidence and the conduct of the trial that she found; regardless of how suspect the conduct of the investigation seems to have been, she has written a book in which her involvement isn't overly emphasised and the conclusions drawn throughout seem to be extremely reasonable and consistent with the evidence encountered.  To be fair, there is a difference between an author writing as an investigative journalist, working actively to reverse a miscarriage of justice, and one who is simply reporting on a case, but for some reason I've read a few books recently where reporting authors have seemed all to keen to insert themselves into the story - which frankly is becoming increasingly off-putting.  Egan has, possibly, gone the opposite way and almost downplayed her impact on the case, and the impact that the case has had on her. There are some passages which do explain some of the impact of the frustration and the effort required in staying with what was obviously a conviction that was highly suspect had on everyone in the team that eventually came together to fight for Andrew Mallard's innocence.

This wasn't just a family refusing to accept that a son could not have done this terrible murder.  Egan herself was convinced to get involved based on evidence from the police and the conduct of the trial.  John Quigley, WA barrister, solicitor, member of State Parliament, currently, I believe, Shadow Attorney General paid a heavy price, going from being the lawyer for the WA Police Union for 20 years, and an honorary life member, to the man who stood against the Police in questioning their conduct of Mallard's case, and ultimately to an accusation of bringing the legal profession into disrepute.  

Regardless of what slings and arrows were thrown at Mallard's team during their pursuit of justice, ultimately, leave to appeal the conviction before the High Court of Australia was granted.  That Court bought down a ruling that was extremely critical of the West Australian courts, and ultimately, Andrew Mallard's innocence was proven once and for all, when a WA Police Cold Case review found hard physical evidence that showed the killer was another man, already found guilty of a similar murder, and dead from a suicide in the WA Penal system.

Leaving aside the appalling situation of his conviction, the saddest, most profoundly disturbing thing about this book is how a young, fragile and vulnerable man had his life taken away from him, and how he still struggles to make something of what is left to him.  The state of Compensation for such a blatant miscarriage of justice in WA makes your blood boil.  The appalling situation that Pamela Lawrence's family were placed in stays with me, as does the effect on Mallard's own family.  

The upside of the book is that final line in the blurb of the book:  "It is about justice, survival and what can happen when good people take on the system".  

The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, Past Justice of the High Court of Australia is quoted on the back of the book:  'Even great courts and independent judges can sometimes get things wrong.  Reading this book, we should resolve to strengthen our defences against miscarriages of justice.'  Exactly.

When it comes to writing military intelligence, covert operation styled thrillers there have been some particularly well known authors over the years.  Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton come to mind immediately.  Until Mark Abernethy created Alan (Mac) McQueen, there have been fewer options to choose from set in this part of the world, seen from an Australian perspective.  Mac is our super-spy, the covert operative who knows everyone, works in our geographical region, is fearless in pursuit of the goal of whatever operation he's sent on, and frighteningly able to land himself in extremely deep water at just about every outing.

COUNTER ATTACK finds him dispatched to Singapore to oversee just such a covert mission.  Which goes pear-shaped.  Which takes Mac from there to Saigon, and onto the former killing fields of Cambodia, all the while dodging the bad guys, and the good guys (they are somehow interchangeable yet again).  Along the way he meets up with new allies, some old compatriots and uses every ounce of his nous, guile, guts and glory to avoid yet another world-wide crisis.

The fourth in the Alan McQueen series, these books are exactly what the covers are trying to tell potential readers.  Big action, loud explosions, much rushing about, Mac-jep (well everyone-jep really), adrenaline fuelled, maniacal action, badder than bad baddies and a resolution by the skin of the world's teeth.  We're talking thrillers here - we're definitely not talking nuanced and considered psychological analysis, although Mac isn't just an Energiser Bunny about everything.  He has a wife, children, people he cares about, people he feels guilty about, people who can make him doubt himself, feel responsible.  He is, however, refreshingly bullet-proof for a man of his age.

Aside from the character of Mac who is not just a man's man, he's dangerously close to a bit of a SNAG sometimes, part of the attraction of these books is that the action does take place in our region.  The settings are moving around from book to book, throughout Asia, backwards and forwards out of Canberra - the politics, the military, the relationships with our immediate neighbours are woven into the action in the books in what feels like a a very realistic manner.  There's a fair bit of tongue in cheek dialogue along the way, as well as quite a bit of blokey talk which personally I found quite realistic, but which could provide an unexpected tone for anybody who thinks that Australian's under pressure are all going to sound like Crocodile Dundee....

I've always been a fan of the Mac series.  Whilst they are exactly what they promise to be - big, bold, loud, mad, bad and slightly out of control, there's a little bit more than that.  There are some nice little human touches, there's more than just Mac in the character line up and then there's the localised settings which are the icing on the cake.  Even with the reoccurring character set, you wouldn't have to have read the earlier books in the series to dive into COUNTER ATTACK.  But summer's on the way and these are perfect lazy summer day reads - so why not catch up with Mac in the earlier books and really get an idea of where he's coming from?