Brolga Publishing

Review - NO WITNESS, NO CASE by Bill Robertson

Author Information
Book Title: 
No Witness
No Case
Author Name: 
Bill Robertson
Author's Home Country: 
Australia
ISBN: 
9781922175243
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Location: 
Victoria
Publisher: 
Brolga Publishing
Publisher Website: 
Brolga Publishing - No Witness, No Case
Year of Publication: 
2014

No Witness, No Case is about dirty business and dirty politics, greed, corruption and a callous disregard for the environment, the law and the community. A black waste scam is concealed within a legitimate waste business; the business owner is in league with the Mafia; the owner's son is a corrupt and ruthless politician; and the Russians are trying to muscle their way in and oust the Mafia.

Book Review: 

It's hard not to have certain expectations of crime fiction when it's written by a former Victorian Assistant Police Commissioner, as unreasonable or unfair as that may seem.

The first expectation is that the plot should have a strong sense of realism about it. NO WITNESS, NO CASE explores Mafia activities in a way that seemed uncommon in crime fiction. Looking at the machinations behind a Mafia boss attempting to turn an illegal, and dangerous business, into a legitimate activity. That needs influence from the bottom of the chain - the workers in a company through the company management, right into the centre of Victorian politics. It also requires a high level of ruthlessness, hence the awful death of a truck driver that first brings attention to the illegal side of the operation. Drawing these elements together is cleverly done in this novel, with a high, and somewhat sobering level of believability.

The second expectation is that the characters be believable. Here NO WITNESS, NO CASE takes a couple of people from very different backgrounds - one an ex-military widower, farming quietly on his block in Central Victoria. The other the trusted confidant of the Mafia boss. Then he manoeuvres them onto the same side. Which, despite a horribly predictable romantic element, worked reasonably well. Helped by a great surrounding cast though - from the country cop and his wife, through to the Mafia plants in the company, and a particularly slimy politician. There's a bit of heavy lifting in some of these elements - the romantic predictability and the pairing of what's essentially an amateur investigation and some official police work. That lifting is helped by the occasional dare-doing hero type actions that you'd expect in a thriller.

The final expectation is the way that the details are outlined. The investigative techniques are interesting, the threats and difficulties of the lives of the characters done well. The added bonus was the complications of witness protection.

The only minor quibble is by far the most common encountered - dialogue. Way too formal, and often too wordy, there's something about some of the exchanges between characters that clanged.

Around the time of the Underbelly saga in Victoria, somebody somewhere said that the biggest problem with the downfall of the well known crime gangs is that it left a big window open for more ruthless, less obvious players. Given that this story explores a turf war between the Mafia and the new kids on the block - Russian gangsters, there's enough here to make this reader stop and think about the ramifications of that observation.
 

The Seduction of Power

Submitted by Karen on July 27, 2011 - 1:29pm
Author's Home Country: 
Australia
Category: 
Crime Fiction

From the tiny Italian village of Montebello, to the leafy Melbourne surburb of Toorak, a war of honour, greed, crime, vendettas and merciless codes is fought in the name of La Famiglia.

Special Interests: 
Mafia
ISBN: 
9781921221767
Location: 
Melbourne
Publisher: 
Brolga Publishing
Year of Publication: 
2008

THE SEDUCTION OF POWER - Sergio Scasioli

Author Information
Book Title: 
The Seduction of Power
Author Name: 
Sergio Scasioli
Author's Home Country: 
Australia
ISBN: 
9781921221767
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Special Interests: 
Mafia
Location: 
Melbourne
Publisher: 
Brolga Publishing
Year of Publication: 
2008

From the tiny Italian village of Montebello, to the leafy Melbourne surburb of Toorak, a war of honour, greed, crime, vendettas and merciless codes is fought in the name of La Famiglia.

Book Review: 

THE SEDUCTION OF POWER is Melbourne based author Sergio Scasioli's first book.  According to an article in his local newspaper, it was inspired by a passion to write, spurred on by a chance meeting with an inspirational character.

The book is the first in a planned trilogy, described as an "epic tale of the Calabrian Mafia in Australia".  Given that it is a debut book, and the first in this trilogy it became important to keep that in mind when reading this opening instalment.

THE SEDUCTION OF POWER is best described as the story of one man - Paolo Valente - who we follow from a difficult childhood in the small Italian Village of Montebello through to his immigration to Australia, and ultimately, his insinuation into the Calabrian Mafia already ensconsed firmly in Melbourne's society.

Less of a story about the Mafia as a whole, although there are cameo appearances of wider La Famiglia components, this story builds a lot of the background of Paolo (or Paul as the Anglicised version of his name becomes).  Paul has an unusual childhood to say the least - neglected and very poor, the book gets into his sexual exploits very early on.  And they continue right through the story.  Constantly.  At one point it seemed less about the Seduction of Power and more about the Seduction of everyone Paul came into contact with!  Set mostly in Melbourne Australia, although the start of the book is in Italy, there is much that will seem familiar, particularly for a Melbourne based reader - there are references to many locally known landmarks in the Italian community areas throughout the suburbs.  There is even some action that seems faintly familiar - perhaps based loosely on real life events, perhaps it is just that there was a feeling of reality about those descriptions.  There are some illuminating little glimpses into the mindset of the Italian immigrants, from the insider point of view.  Their attitudes and relationships with, in particular, those communities and people already here, was quite an interesting twist.

In terms of the actions of the Mafia themselves, this aspect of the book was perhaps a little lighter on than I was expecting.  There are certainly aspects of the activities of the Mafia within the book, but they are very much seen from the aspect of Paul's positioning in that society.  This also makes reading this book an interesting challenge - Paul's somebody that is basically amoral.  To read this book, you're following his story, and he's not a "hero" or one of the good guys, or even somebody for whom there seems to be much hope of change. 

The book does show some promise for the rest of the trilogy but I do confess I would have liked less of Paul's sexual antics, which all got very predictable, and a lot more of the Mafia aspects - the actual goings on in La Famiglia.  Hopefully that's where the rest of the trilogy is heading, as I'll keep an eye out for the second book.