A Deadly Game, Laraine Stephens

The third novel in the Reggie da Costa series, DEADLY GAME is set in 1920's Melbourne featuring the celebrated, well groomed crime reporter da Costa, and the brave, and very determined Ruby Rhodes.

da Costa has a habit of gathering beautiful woman in his life, with problems and complicated lives of their own. None of which stops da Costa looking upon a lot of them (except perhaps the one he should be looking towards) as potential love interests. Needless to say, this never quite works out as he'd hoped. A DEADLY GAME introduces him to Rhodes, a quiet, studious museum assistant, not at all like her glamorous identical twin sister Katherine, who has died in very mysterious circumstances. Ruby, and their brother Dusty, had no idea quite how different a life she had been leading. Separated from the family years before, Katherine's death has come as a shock - but her life has come as a bigger one. Leaving her house, car, expensive jewellery and clothes to them, Ruby and Dusty feel compelled to search for the truth about their sister.

Along the way da Costa finds himself taking on the mantle of protector and facilitator to the brother and sister team - with Dusty as his new apprentice reporter, and Ruby, having assumed her sister's identity, using his connections and guidance, to infiltrate the gambling dens, social clubs and darker corners of 1920s Melbourne. The trio unearth corruption, murders, smuggling rings, a very dodgy customs officer and gangsters galore. All in a day's work for da Costa, frightening and sobering new ground for Ruby and Dusty.

New readers to this series would be able to jump in at any point as each of these books stands alone reasonably well. Having said that, the back story for da Costa is a good one, and it doesn't hurt to read the first two novels if you're new, if for no other reason than to get an idea of what a hamfisted potential love interest identifier he is. Plus there's a bit of water under the family bridge in his background that is backstoried in each novel, although a more fleshed out past will help understand him better.

The evocation of 1920s Melbourne is really good in this series - not so much a travelogue through the seedy and dodgy, but a walk through the way that life happened in the time, and location. It's really well done as it relies on the characters interaction with the world around them, adding a level of reality to the viewpoint and experience for the reader.

The characters, with a shifting set of female sidekicks are well fleshed out, and da Costa is a fascinating combination of the most unlikely set of character traits. A high profile, almost flashy, reporter who is more than willing to share the limelight, a decent and kind man with a slightly lovelorn air about him, he's a man of very fine tastes, with his exquisite attire and flashy fast cars, yet he lives a surprisingly quiet, contained sort of a life, possessed of a contact book that would be the envy of many. A man who absolutely adores his mum, and will never forgive his father who treated her poorly indeed. 

A series that is developing into a really fascinating combination of character study in historical crime fiction, with a central protagonist that is not straight out of casting 101, and a hefty dose of murder, mayhem and fun and games - it is most definitely one I'd recommend, in particular, to fans of historical crime fiction.

DISCLAIMER: I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy of A DEADLY GAME for the purposes of this review, and to provide a quotation for the cover.