Karen Chisholm
REVIEW
COORPAROO BLUES & THE IRISH FANDANGO, G.S. Manson
Reviewed By
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Two novellas, connected by PI Jack Munro, COORPAROO BLUES and THE IRISH FANDANGO are an interesting historical hard-boiled combination of PI, mean streets, fallen women, drinking and the whole nine yards.
The first story, COORPAROO BLUES, introduces Jack, war veteran, ex-cop, nose for trouble, attractor of a simply staggering number of women, PI that you turn to when things are going to get nasty.
The second story, set a few months later, sees the US troop angle switched for political refugees and Communists around every corner, and a suicide that isn't.
So we're not exactly talking scenarios and a counter-hero of a type that we've not seen before. Albeit that Munro comes with a hefty dose of Australian colloquial language (so much so that they've included a glossary at the back of the book for those less used to the way that the common language can divide). He's also walking the seamier side of Brisbane at a period in history that not a lot of dark and noir current day fiction addresses. And it's done very well - the setting feels authentic, right down to the sense of heat and grime that comes with a Brisbane summer. We're also talking, mercifully a couple of intricate plots that were clever and well formed and resolved in two such short novellas.
The thing with this sort of crime fiction is always that there's a sense that attitudes of the time must be clear cut, all women are either whores or saints, all men gangsters or heroes. Even though Munro is a fair bit more nuanced than like hero's of the type, he is, a good bloke to have on your side in a tight spot and a man seemingly irresistible to any female within range. Definitely one for fans of noir, particularly as it's been a long time since Australia's mean streets have been explored in this way.
BOOK DETAILS
BOOK INFORMATION
ISBN
9781891241321
BLURB
Brisbane. Early 1943.
A town under US occupation…friendly though it’s supposed to be.
Macarthur has set up his HQ in Queen St and the Japs are being held at Kokoda, but it’s not over yet.
The Aussie troops back on leave from the jungle don’t like to see their women consorting with the rich and flash GI’s that infest the pubs and clubs. There have been outbreaks of violence between the allied troops.
And that’s just the whites.
An official apartheid restricts Black GI’s to the south side of the Brisbane River on pain of death. It’s a tough Aboriginal and immigrant working class area to start with. They take it over with their jive talk and music. It’s their territory by night. As it is for Jack Munro, an ex-cop with burnt bridges, who keeps himself afloat by working as a small-time private investigator. He doesn’t make waves, and tracks down errant spouses on the cheap.
It isn’t glamorous.
He has few friends left on the force, and no family. A returned man from the First War, he is getting old and slowing down, but still knows his way around the backstreets and alleys of a town wide open to the conquerors and all the vice provided for them.
A woman engages him to find her missing husband.
She’s from down south, posh, and very attractive.
The missing man is a suspiciously sharp operator from Melbourne, and Jack can smell many rats, but takes the case anyway. He has an eye for the ladies and can’t avoid the honey trap.
The trail takes him from the wharves of the wartime port to tin-roof brothels in the outer suburbs as the trail reveals violence and corruption eating away at the foundations of the war effort. Unscrupulous ratbags are waxing fat while honest diggers die in the mud. The smell of murder is in the air, and Yank MP’s are covering up something that is an affront to the morals of an old soldier who did his bit when called upon.
He won’t go back in his kennel when the big boys call him off.
| Review | COORPAROO BLUES & THE IRISH FANDANGO, G.S. Manson | Karen Chisholm
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Tuesday, May 7, 2013 |
| Blog | CR - Coorparoo Blues & The Irish Fandango, G.S. Manson | Karen Chisholm
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Tuesday, April 30, 2013 |