Charlie Berlin

Following on from the excellent THE DIGGER'S REST HOTEL, BLACKWATTLE CREEK sees Charlie Berlin and now wife Rebecca, 10 years on. Married with two kids, they are struggling to make ends meet on a policeman's wage, living in the glaringly new suburbs of Melbourne. With a solid but unremarkable career in the police behind him, Berlin's refuge from the demons that continue to haunt him after WWII, is his happy little family unit, despite his sometimes fractious relationship with his son Peter, despite their difficult financial circumstances, despite the sideline that Rebecca asks him to get involved in when on leave.

When a recently widowed friend tells Berlin a very odd tale of her husband's body being tampered with in a Melbourne funeral parlour, Berlin accidentally sets off down a path which proves dangerous to him, and to his family. It's the threat to his family, and his home and their pet dog that most riles Berlin, and a riled Charlie Berlin might still be a taciturn, quiet man, but he also becomes a very determined, taciturn, quiet man.

Coming straight to BLACKWATTLE CREEK without having read the first book, I think, is likely to be a big problem for some readers. Berlin is a very haunted, troubled, damaged man, and the difficulties he has with coping with the memories of what happened in WWII are particularly dwelt upon in this book. Without an understanding of how he came to have Rebecca and his family, how he struggled to get his life onto some sort of even keel in the opening to the series, possibly makes the level of angst appear all-consuming in the second book. Personally, I find Berlin a profoundly likeable man (and not just because the family own an Aussie Terrier!). He's flawed, but not unaware; questioning but not mired in self-pity; realistic and often startling honest.

He also doesn't play a solo-lone-wolf role. Wife Rebecca is refreshingly realistic - a mean hand in the kitchen, an enthusiastic lover and supporter of her husband, she's also an ex-journalist with a growing career as a photographer. She's combined with amongst others, Lazlo Horvay, an erratic and somewhat elusive Hungarian immigrant hearse driver, fleshing out a supporting cast of characters, including a colleague that pays a dreadful price for helping Berlin.

Underneath the characters and in particular, Berlin's struggle with life in general, there's an interesting Cold War style plot going on, with a disconcerting line in nasty characters doing unmentionable horrors all in the name of "research", all seemingly condoned by politics of the very worst kind.  

Whilst the plot is strong, and Berlin and his family fascinating characters, one of the supplementary attractions of this series has to be the sense of place and time that they invoke. Even for a country kid, the milk bars, the bags of lollies, and fish and chips wrapped up in newspaper bought back memories, to say nothing of jumping jacks, tombola marbles, and great big lumbering Studebaker cars. Heaven help me if McGeachin leaves another 10 year gap in Berlin's life before the next book - then we're dangerously close to complete recall. Perhaps that's one of the great strengths of this series - as we're working through the book, feeling a decided sense of nostalgia for a society that's not that far away in terms of time and experience, you suddenly realise that the nostalgia is being chipped away by a realisation that there could have been some very nasty things going on, right under our rose-coloured glass view.

It's always interesting to see a favoured author head off in another direction, and THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL is a big directional switch for Geoffrey McGeachin.  Moving away from the madcap all-Australian James Bond of the Alby Murdoch books, we are introduced to a new character, a new timeframe and a very different approach.

Set in post World War II Victoria THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL introduces Charlie Berlin.  A pilot during the war, back to the police on his return, Charlie is deeply traumatised.  Sent to Albury-Wodonga to investigate a series of robberies that have suddenly become violent, this is also a story of the after-affects of war.  Alongside the robbery, a subsequent murder and Charlie's own story, there are glimpses of the damage done on the home-front as well.  The man whose son was a victim of a brutal death, and the brother who survived.  The young Australian photographer and would-be newspaper reporter, who has her own family tales of difficulty for her German-born parents.  

The information that came with this book highlights how the author has used the stories of his own father's wartime experiences as both an airman and a POW in Europe, as well as his childhood recollections of growing up in country-town Australia.  It's a very realistic portrayal of country Australia - be it in the late 1940's or even more recently (well in this reader's memory anyway).  Balance that small-town, closed environment, and the changes that are coming over a society traumatised and profoundly changed by the war and those who did and didn't return, against the individual story of one man who was so profoundly affected by events in Europe, and well, you end up with something that's entertaining, moving and affecting.

THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL isn't a straight up police procedural, this book is about a man who, as damaged and fragile as he is, is an observationist.  Along with the personal perspective that this book is built upon, there is also an investigation - finding the motorbike riding gang who have terrorised and robbed multiple Railway locations, and then the horrific murder of a young Chinese girl in the town.  There is also a fragile and tentative love story.  There is also some stark examples of the differences between acceptable social conventions then, and now.  Domestic violence, racism, thuggery, sexism, double standards - they are all touched upon, displayed but not dwelled upon.  

Undoubtedly the great strength of THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL is the character study of Charlie Berlin, followed very closely by the affects of war on everyone, even in a small country-town deep within Australia - on the border of New South Wales and Victoria.  Charlie Berlin is a wonderfully flawed human policeman, doing his duty, falling apart and picking himself back up again.  THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL really does remind you that in the days post World War II there wasn't counselling, there wasn't retraining, there wasn't support.  There was just the demons, and the jobs that had to be done, and alcohol and there were those that found a way to fit back in, and those that never did.