 | Reviews of The Broken Shore by Peter Temple. |
Sue Turnbull, in "The Age", states up-front her feelings on the book: "If you only read one crime novel this year, read The Broken Shore. It's not just a good yarn - there are plenty of those - what Peter Temple achieves here is much, much more, capturing a specifically Australian perspective in prose as spare as it is precise. This book is the best yet from a writer who has already won a well-deserved reputation as one of our finest crime writers." And concludes: "In the end, it's all about family: the one you're born with and the one you make. But most of all it's about the writing, and in that regard The Broken Shore might just be a great Australian novel, irrespective of genre. Read it for what Temple does with words." Which can only be read as a ringing endorsement.
Graeme Blundell also reviewed the book in "The Australian" but, as is typical for that paper, the review is not available on the web. A quote for the review: "Temple's work is spare, deeply ironic; his wit, like the local beer, as cold as a dental anaesthetic". Over-stretching a little there I think.
Tim Coronel, on the BoomerangBooks website continues the high praise: "A good crime novel can broach serious issues and tell readers as much about the society in which they live as a 'literary' novel or a work of nonfiction. The Broken Shore is such a book: serious, unflinching, relentless - and often hilarious."
And for the solitary non-Australian reference I can find, you need to visit Jenny Davidson's weblog Light Reading from New York: "I guess the thing that blows me away is what an all-rounder Temple is as a fiction writer (plus his writing's perfectly to my taste, I know some people like more extravagance but I prefer things that look deceptively plain at first glance): he's good at character and dialogue and description and sentence-writing and plot and setting and intellectual heft and politics and just EVERYTHING."
I've got this one slotted into the pile to take away on holidays next week. I'm looking forward to it.
