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Amazon Review
Something has been happening recently to shake up the perceptions of long-term crime readers. And if you're somebody who thinks you know all the important writers in the field, you may have to think again. Peter Temple (who won the 2007 Crime Writers Association Duncan Lawrie Dagger) has been one of the most prestigious names in the field in his adopted country of Australia (Temple is originally South African), and his breakthrough win (for The Broken Shore) has made it imperative that readers seeking the very best crime fiction investigate his work. The series of books featuring his tough and resourceful protagonist Jack Irish already have a devoted Aussie following, and Black Tide, the second outing for Irish, is an utterly compelling piece of work, full of the quiet observation and acutely observed scene-setting that is Temple’s forte. Jack, adrift in his world of low-rent journalists and shifty lawyers, is asked by a man who is the last link to Jack's father to track down a young man who has disappeared. But as Jack probes into an increasingly murky situation, he begins to suspect that the missing man, Gary Connors, has been leading a very complicated life. His friends and associates in particular are a sinister bunch, and Jack finds that in order to make any progress in the case (as well as, simply, survive), it's necessary to play by some very flexible rules. If you discovered Peter Temple via the wonderful Broken Shore, be prepared for something different here. There is the same deft conjuring of atmosphere (not to mention the astringent characterisation) that was such an important part of Temple’s award-winning novel) but the semi-detached copper of that book is here replaced by a protagonist who is more in the long line of detectives that stretch back Chandler's Philip Marlowe. So a different Peter Temple from that we might be used to, but nonetheless beguiling for all that. --Barry Forshaw
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