REVIEW

WASHED UP - Tony Berry

Reviewed By
Karen Chisholm

There are some books around that may not be good for your health. Since finishing WASHED UP I've had this nagging feeling that all problems should be resolved with a glass of Lagavulin malt in one hand and a shot of espresso in the other.

WASHED UP is the second book from UK / Australian author Tony Berry featuring reluctant sleuth, travel-agent and welded on Richmond resident Bromo Perkins. In this outing Bromo finds himself poking around in the trail left by a verdict of least resistance - that the drowning death of a bright young student in the Yarra River was suicide.

WASHED UP is set mostly in trendy, real-estate obsessed inner-Melbourne Richmond, and it seems extremely appropriate therefore that the story involves devious real estate agents, developers and town planners, as well as lurking underworld figures and prostitution rings. Not only do the action and players fit within the location, the way that Bromo works the neighbourhood is extremely realistic. I remember the first book in the series combined a lot of action with some travelogue aspects of the location that, whilst fascinating, had a tendency to bog things down a bit. That observation doesn't apply to WASHED UP. The location is blended into the action very well, there's a real feel for the suburb, the cafe's, the street furniture (and the pest that it can be), the narrow laneways and streets. Even when Bromo goes bush there's a good feeling of where he is, without bogging down why he's there. And an observation that sums up the climate change divide in a nutshell (I swear if one more southerner tells me the drought is over .....)

"You townies have no idea what life's like out in the bush, even almost on the city fringe where we are. Bloody climate change doesn't mean watering our lawns on alternate days or hand-washing our cars. It means droughts and floods one after the other and nothing in between. If our cattle aren't being swept away by the rivers then our sheep are falling over for lack of feed and water."

The plot of WASHED UP is nicely complicated, without being overdone, and the characterisations are good and solid. Bromo Perkins is exactly what you'd expect from a bit of a lone-wolf type, and the idea that he's one of those accidental investigator's doesn't tinkle a bell, let alone clang. It's perfectly understandable that he's the sort of bloke that would do a favour for a mate - male or female. That he'd get the job done and still maybe not get the girl (any of them really), is a given. The thought that he's out there stalking the narrow laneways, glaring at the street furniture and chucking the odd wry comment at a daft t-shirt slogan is quite believable.

WASHED UP is available from a number of Australian online book sellers, or as an ebook from Amazon. 

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
Author
ISBN
9780987281562
Year of Publication
Series
Book Number (in series)
2
BLURB

Some people don’t need to go looking for trouble – it will always find them… 

All former British secret service agent Bromo Perkins wants is a quiet life as a travel agent in Melbourne, Australia. 

But he has hardly had time to dust himself off from his first roistering escapade before a sensitive earlobe – the result of an old wound from his previous career – ominously warns of more bother ahead. 

It arrives in the shape of call from an attractive female client, Liz Shapcott, who claims that a young woman found washed up in the city’s river did not commit suicide as newspapers reported – but was a murder victim instead. 

Bromo – who survives on a diet of coffee and malt whisky – cannot resist Liz’s pleas to help her prove her claim, though he is never quite sure what her body language implies. 

What unfolds rips away the veils of respectability that mask the evil and corruption beneath appearances and behind closed doors in bustling metropolises such as Melbourne. 

Who is the mysterious blind man who can walk briskly when he wishes and who watches from a distance through binoculars? 
What really goes on at the much-visited but prison-like Number 85 in a select street of gentrified Richmond? 

What will happen to the two young feminist activists who are bundled by heavies into a black limo along with Bromo? Can Bromo’s old flame Delia, a high-ranking police officer who works undercover, pull him out of the fire that threatens to consume him? 

Review WASHED UP - Tony Berry
Karen Chisholm
Monday, March 25, 2013
Blog CR - Washed Up, Tony Berry
Karen Chisholm
Wednesday, March 13, 2013

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