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THE BROKEN SHORE
by Peter Temple
Quercus, June 2006
352 pages
12.99GBP
ISBN: 1905204434


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

If you thought Australia was all bronzed hunks on Bondi Beach, or cheerful folk popping in and out of each other's houses in Neighbours, you're about to have your preconceptions shattered by THE BROKEN SHORE.

Peter Temple's novel is set in the sticks where casual racism and homophobia are as natural as breathing. And the former is consistently shocking as it's assumed three young Aboriginal men had to be behind the attack on a wealthy businessman who is left for dead in his own home.

Homicide detective Joe Cashin isn't so sure, though, and this is where the book gets special. Cashin is back in his home town in South Eastern Australia after his previous case in Melbourne went horribly wrong.

So he's running the tiny police station in Port Monro as he tries to deal with his mental and physical scars. His colleagues aren't exactly in tip-top shape either. Kendall Rogers was beaten up and sexually assaulted in the city by a youth she'd previously arrested. And youngster Carl Wexler isn't a bit happy about being posted to the back of beyond.

But they're a vast improvement on Hopgood and his chums, detectives in Kenmare, the next town along, who seem determined to pin the attack on Charles Bourgoyne on the Aboriginal lads. And it takes a sinister turn when a police operation to question the young men goes horribly wrong. Cashin's investigations take him back to the past, as well as to Melbourne.

There's a heck of a lot going on in THE BROKEN SHORE, but Temple is an outstanding storyteller. The book was slightly slow to start with, and then I couldn't put it down. It's easier to say what its weakness is (cliched love interest -- bleugh!), as the rest of it is top-notch.

The small town setting comes across as depressingly realistic. And Temple's deadpan, laconic style keeps the reader hooked throughout this complex and intelligent book.

Best of all has got to be the cast of characters, observed with deceptively casual acuteness by Temple. Um, where to start . . . There's Cashin's dodgy 'fell off the back of a lorry' cousin Bern. The drifter Rebb who helps Cashin rebuild his almost derelict family home. Inspector Villani whose backchat with Cashin is one of the highlights of the book. Their mentor Singo, who provides one of the book's most poignant scenes. And Cashin's weird family -- mother, stepfather (who doesn't seem to be playing with a full deck) and troubled brother Michael,

THE BROKEN SHORE is a fabulous, fabulous book, and without doubt one of my reads of the year.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, June 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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