REVIEW

MURDER ON DISPLAY - Reece Pocock

Reviewed By
Karen Chisholm

If there's one thing I'm a huge fan of it's dialogue that's realistic. Crisp, authentic and realistic. That and plots and the behaviour of characters that are consistent.  

MURDER ON DISPLAY is obviously based sort of loosely (very loosely in some parts) around true events in the not-too-distant past in Adelaide. A number of different elements from a number of different true life cases appear to have sort of been melded together to create the story of an Adelaide cop, DS Dan Brennan.

Therein lies a lot of the problem with MURDER ON DISPLAY as I'm not 100% sure which story was the point of the book in the end. Was it the piles of bodies building up in the Adelaide Hills (? some sort of Truro / Snowtown combination perhaps), something about the homosexual sub-plot (? the Family murders), or the attack on Brennan in a restaurant that killed his wife (by that time I'd given up drawing the lines with real-life crimes)?

Whilst I've got no problem at all with fictionalising facts, especially when it's pretty obvious that's what's going on, the problem is that you've got to tell a solid story along the way. Perhaps avoid some of the overblown crime fiction clichés doing the rounds like the unsupportive boss. But probably what didn't work for me most of all was some of the weird comments made by characters along the way - there seemed to be some sort of dissociative syndrome going on at points that just lost me completely and left me battling to maintain interest. Especially as problems with the dialogue and plot had already given me way too much to struggle with already.

BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
Author
ISBN
9781481044561
Year of Publication
BLURB

As soon as the Flynn brothers lifted their Glocks, Dan was in trouble. Silence descended like a cloak of doom. No confusion crossed his mind... it was clear he wouild die in the next few seconds.

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