FICTION
The Age
Saturday February 27, 2010
Blood Red Quintin Jardine Headline, $32.99 POPULAR Scottish crime writer Quintin Jardine killed off his Hollywood star detective, Oz Blackstone, a few years ago and decided to start afresh with Oz's feisty wife Primavera as the focus of a new series. It was a winning idea. Blood Red sees Primavera and her eight-year-old son Tom ensconced in an idyllic Catalan village. The scenery is idyllic, anyway. The populace? Your opinion may vary. Primavera's friendship with the parish priest has set tongues wagging. But gossip is soon the least of her worries. When Primavera's friend proposes a village wine fair, an embittered, conservative councillor lays plans to torpedo it. Incensed, Primavera rides into battle. Then the councillor turns up dead in his garden and Primavera is the prime murder suspect. Jardine is a veteran crime writer: Blood Red is cleverly constructed, well-paced and full of surprising twists.The Black Russian Lenny Bartulin Scribe, $27.95 SECOND-HAND bookshop owners don't make likely sleuths. In the case of Jack Susko, crime has a habit of seeking him out. Susko Books is in dire financial straits and its owner heads to an art gallery at Woollahra to sell off a rare catalogue. He arrives just as the gallery is being robbed by masked intruders. The thieves take off with mystery valuables from the gallery's safe, as well as Jack's bag. When the gallery owner refuses to involve the police, and offers to pay a substantial amount of hush money, Jack thinks only of the silver lining. But then the gallery owner turns up to announce that the deal is off €” and, left out of pocket, Jack is drawn to investigate. The Black Russian is the second of Bartulin's crime novels, and he's up to the task. A taut, Chandler-esque detective story, written with a deft comic touch.The Egyptologist Arthur Phillips Scribe, $29.95 ARTHUR Phillips' The Egyptologist is an ambitious satire that combines classic adventure fiction, academic comedy and shades of Evelyn Waugh. It's shaggy as a sheepdog, and from a narrative perspective it bites off more than it can chew. It's still fun, though. Ralph Trilipush is a flaky Egyptologist who has staked his reputation €” and his fiance's father's money €” on a piece of pornographic papyrus. One half of the story sees Trilipush descend on ancient Egyptian tombs in the 1920s, around the time Howard Carter discovered the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. The other strand concerns an Australian detective, Harold Ferrell, recounting his most intriguing case: an inheritance investigation that leads from London to Egypt to the ballrooms of Boston. Phillips' novel is full of sharp wit, amusingly drawn characters and snappy action, although it loses steam towards the end.PICK OF THE WEEKRupture Simon Lelic Picador, $32.99 HIGH school history teacher Samuel Szajkowski cracks at assembly. He shoots dead three students and a teacher before turning the gun on himself. For Lucia May, a young policewoman assigned to the case, it isn't about discovering what happened €” what happened is painfully clear. It's about why. On the surface, Szajkowski was mild-mannered, so what turned him into a spree killer? Through first-person accounts from students, teachers and Lucia's colleagues, we are drawn into an environment where bullying and psychological abuse are pervasive. Rupture is structured as a series of cascading monologues €” a risky gambit but one that showcases the author's talent for creating authentic voices. Spiced with black humour and disturbing atmosphere, Simon Lelic's first novel is grim and engaging.
© 2010 The Age
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