Reading matters

'Bad Debts' by Peter Temple

Fiction - paperback; Quercus; 336 pages; 2007. 

When I started reading Peter Temple's much acclaimed The Broken Shore last summer I became so enamoured with his writing style that before I'd even reached the half-way mark I rushed out and bought Bad Debts. I could sense it was going to be the start of a beautiful romance. Unfortunately, life got in the way -- along with a few dozen other books that beckoned me -- and it took me eight months to eventually get around to reading Bad Debts. The wait, I think, was worth it.

This book is not dissimilar to The Broken Shore in that it features a damaged protagonist with a slightly dodgy past and a penchant for spirited women. But that's probably where the similarities end.

The main difference is the writing style. Bad Debts, which was written almost ten years before The Broken Shore, certainly feels less polished, the language is tougher, the dialogue more choppy. And in the best tradition of hardboiled noir, the main character, washed-up lawyer Jack Irish, treads a very fine line between enforcing the law and breaking it. You're never quite sure whether you should admire him or despise him.

'The Broken Shore' by Peter Temple

Fiction - paperback; Quercus; 400 pages; 2007.

Crime novels set in modern day Australia are few and far between. In fact, I've never read one before. But then I heard lots of good things, mainly from British critics, about Peter Temple's The Broken Shore and knew it was a book I had to track down.

I picked up a cheap copy from Waterstone's earlier in the year and read it over the course of a dismal weekend in June. The book was absolutely enthralling in a way I could not put my finger on. And because I couldn't quite work out what it was about the book that I loved so much I couldn't muster the creative energy to write a review. I then gave the book to my father, who was about to embark on a long haul trip back to Australia, and kept telling myself I'd write about it ... soon.

Well, two months later I'm finally composing this review-of-sorts. Since my reading of The Broken Shore, it has been awarded  the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (formerly the CWA Gold Dagger for Fiction) for 2007. Temple, who was born in South Africa, is the first Australian to win the award.