Customer Reviews

The Broken Shore

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am glad Harriet Klausner liked this book, but I feel that her description may not give readers quite the right idea. Peter Temple is a truly extraordinary writer. This book has all the pleasures of the best crime fiction (if you like Michael Connelly, Lee Child and Robert Crais, this is a good choice), but it's also written in the most extraordinarily beautiful prose style, with a kind of simplicity and clarity and intelligence that's sort of like what you might get if you crossed Proust with Hemingway and picked only the best of the litter to keep. The Australian settings are also strange and magical--not just crime fiction fans but pretty much anyone who cares about novels should be reading Temple's stuff.

This is my first attempt at Peter Temple. What a truly welcome find this book was. The writing is first rate. Also, difficult to do, but handled with ease was the way author's wove flashback information into the storyline.

This is one special detective story and puts Temple in a class with the best from these authors - Peter Robinson, Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, John Sanford. I can't tell from the DJ, but it seems that the detective, Joe Cashin, is a newly introduced character and he comes with a ton of baggage - ala Harry Bosch. But that is what makes the storyline intriguing. Joe Cashin is very unique man and carries much emotional and psychological damages from the past. That past is beautifully revealed one peel of the onion at a time.

Interesting is the racial tension that is portrayed between the Aboriginal people and the Police. Sometimes we tend to think that is a unique social situation just in the U.S. But here sparks fly and tempers mount in a seaside resort town that makes the seasonal switch from beautiful to ugly as fall gives in to winter. The author is able to pull the reader into the surroundings beautifully.

The characters that surround Cashin are so lifelike that the story reads like non fiction.

The author is Australian and therefore the prose is riddled with colloquialisms that are a little difficult to understand. There is a glossary in the back that will help the first time reader.

This is a wonderfully written piece of literature that happens to be a murder mystery.

Peter Temple is two of the best writers I know.

He's the best novelist writing about crime in Australia, and considering how each of his books wins several awards, he's arguably one of the best crime writers on the planet.

And then he's a terrific novelist, period. Chapters are scenes. Sentences are packed with relevant information, delivered with a style so crisp every word crunches: "She was no more than fifteen, dark hair, pretty, it wouldn't last." He knows every last thing about his characters ("Tired in the trunk, hurting in the pelvis, pains down his legs, he swallowed two aspirins with the first swig of beer") and his setting ("peaty sod the color of chocolate when plowed"). And can he deliver a tale? In 340 pages, he can weave strands as diverse as racism, corruption, big money, family loyalty and personal kinks into a credible story.

Come for the crime, stay for the pure pleasure of reading.

I first encountered Peter Temple a few years ago, when I stumbled into Identity Theory and reeled out dazzled by plotting that was intricate without being confusing, characters so real I thought I was reading non-fiction, and dialogue that was always original but never mannered. Talent? To burn. But also a ferocious commitment to quality: "I fiddle endlessly with the prose, trying to catch speech rhythms, removing words, trying to find what can be left unsaid, trying to capture the look and the feel and the mood of a place."

For a day or so, I thought I could figure out how I could steal Temple's style. What a deluded ambition! Peter Temple owns a franchise, and with each book, he seems to move the bar higher.

Take The Broken Shore, his most recent novel. It starts with Joe Cashin, a police detective currently assigned to a small town near Melbourne, responding to a widow's distress call. Her trouble suggests the scale of local malfeasance --- someone's in her shed.

Cashin apprehends the man, inspects his clearly bogus decade-old identification.

"Could be a murderer," the widow suggests. "Killer. Dangerous killer."

It's a small moment, but let's appreciate the accuracy. That is, the widow's reaction. The way she talks. And Cashin's reaction: He drives the man to a bigger road.

And then this, watching the man walk away, "swag horizontal across his back, sticking out. In the morning mist, he was a stubby-armed cross walking."

A throwaway moment? Yes. Gorgeous? Very.

And, of course, ten pages later, there is a murder. Charles Bourgoyne, old and rich. His assistant, Cashin realizes, is cousin to a kid he went to school with. What happened to him?

"Dead," she said. "Drove his truck off a bridge thing near Benalla. Overpass."
"I'm sorry. Didn't hear about that."
"He was a deads--t, always drugged up. I'm sorry for the people in the car he landed on, squashed them."
She found cigarettes, offered. He wanted one. He said no.

This cross-cutting between the personal and the professional is not just the literary pattern of "The Broken Shore" --- it's the subject. The novel is set on Australia's "Blue Balls Coast," where tourism is the dream of the future and not much happens. The murder might have a bit to do with land development; it might also involve the theft of a Breitling watch. It definitely involves kids from the slums, an Aboriginal politician and the usual assortment of bent cops who sell the drugs they confiscate. And what are we to think about surveillance that ends in a shootout because Cashin was assigned --- might have been assigned --- a car with a faulty radio?

Even the minor characters get their moment, There's a lawyer who once, in school, kissed Cashin, and now, as his new neighbor, kisses him again. The barista is a former dentist whose lover --- whose male lover --- was knifed to death in a park, "possibly by policemen." And these detailed memories go way back --- Cashin recalls, as a boy, learning to surf on a board with a big chunk missing. "Shark. Chewed the bloke in half."

In "The Broken Shore," lives get chewed in half too. But not dreams. On this quiet, seemingly idyllic coast, they died long ago. Read it and weep --- and, also, cheer.

Former Victoria Police Detective Joe Cashin almost died during a homicide investigation. As he physically heals, he mentally is no longer the confident sleuth he had been. He quits the metropolis force and returns home to be a rural cop in South Australia.

His quiet job reverts back to his previous work when local millionaire Charles Bourgoyne is beaten to death. The evidence points towards three Aboriginal teen males who were pawning the elderly victim's watch. However, the cops end up killing two of the boys. To Joe's shock, the department says case closed on the three deaths. Unable to let it go Joe investigates unofficially only to be buried in the slime of child pornography and sexual abuse.

THE BROKEN SHORE uses a relatively easily solved murder to provide readers with a deep look at social class in Australia. The story line is filled with plausible twists and turns as Joe cannot back off from learning the truth about the Bourgoyne murder, the official homicide investigation, and the inquiry into the sue of force. Police procedural fans will want to read this strong mystery that brings to life rural Australia.

Harriet Klausner

Although I have not recently read mysteries with the interest I once did, I am rediscovering why I once enjoyed them so - particularly the atmospheric novels of writers like Georges Simenon and Janwillem van de Wetering: Their books took me to the underside of Paris, in the former, and Amsterdam, in the latter, both places I knew and longed to know better.

Add to that list the Marseilles of Jean-Claude Izzo, the Pyongyang of James Church and now, deftly, the small-town Australia of Peter Temple.

In The Broken Shore detective Joe Cashin--wounded both physically and mentally--leads us through a grungy South Australia nothing like that touted in travelogues. Peopled with perverts, racists, druggies, thugs, thieves, opportunists and police from across the corruption spectrum--all acid-tongued--this dysfunctional quasi-rural purgatory vibrates with a believability not likely found in more polite Australian novels.

A good part of that plausibility rests in the sharp, darkly humorous, colloquial banter between characters, all seeming disgruntled. The rhythmic rendered dialogue is so pure Australian that the author has thoughtfully added a glossary to help Americans and other non-native speakers sort it all out. But it is the dialogue that distinguishes this novel, revealing the characters (for better or worse) and the culture (likewise).

In most all literature, setting determines character and character, in turn, determines plot. Same here, particularly in Joe Cashin. He is of the land and of the people, a people who at heart largely adhere to a moral code not as mobile as it might first appear. Cashin's inability to ignore that code--as much as he might want to or is counseled to--makes of him someone we root for and, in our better moments, identify with.

Though nominally a mystery, this is a well-crafted novel that has deservedly won awards, not only as a mystery but as a mystery novel qua novel.

First do not be fooled this is book by an Australian written in Australian. His use of the cadence of the Australian language, the slang (or strine) is deeply embedded in this book. As Ken Bruen would do Ireland Temple does Australia very true to form. Having lived there I could not have enjoyed the dialogue more. The banter is pure Australian. The murder mystery is really secondary to the book and really starts to roll towards the second half. Its very much about the place on the shore of Australia. You should not believe this is "Australia" in total. To me its meant more as a dramatization of a small segment. Similar to a portrayal of a small American town near an Indian reservation. People are tough and gritty. I would of given the book five stars accept the author spun too many characters to quickly and I ended up with a crib sheet to keep track of who's who. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy Ken Bruen and Mankrell Henning...very enjoyable book.

Temple is an instinctively powerful writer, the abrupt violence of a murder the setting for a plot riddled with the ill-intentions of secrecy and the domination of the helpless, police brutality, racism, class-consciousness and the poetic beauty of the wild Australian continent. Detective Joe Cashin has left the city after near-fatal injuries, his battered body slowly healing in the more quiet environment of south Australia's Port Monro, Cashin's home ground. When he gets a call from a superior in Cromarty- an elderly philanthropist has been tortured and brutally murdered- Cashin is reluctant to be drawn into the politics of city police work. But Charles Bourgoyne has been killed in his territory and Cashin has no choice but to cooperate. The few clues are enigmatic, something strange about the murder scene, but the authorities in Cromarty are quick to suspect three poor aborigine youths with records and in possession of Bourgoyne's stolen watch.

A wild chase ensues and two of the three boys are killed in a shootout before Cashin and his temporary partner, Dove, arrive at the scene. The third boy doesn't last much longer, released on bail after a public outcry of police brutality and the oppression of the aborigine community. With little hard evidence and no witnesses, the city cops indicate they want the case to go away, the dust to settle. But that isn't Cashin's way; he continues the investigation, uncovering a bizarre cult that casts a pall over years of good works done in the name of an organization that ministers to poor and unfortunate boys. Living in the remnants of a home he is slowly rebuilding with the help of an itinerant handyman, Joe is determined to maintain his independence, constantly on guard against the manipulation of other officers with more sinister motives, men dabbling in the corruption that dogs law enforcement.

Contrasting the beauty of this harsh land with the petty cruelties of ambition and graft, Cashin is a noble character, reliable in his honesty and determination, attending to the grievances of his personal life and family issues, yet tormented by pain and nightmares of his recent ordeal. Racism is a powerful factor in this society, the scape-goating of those with few resources by fearful, angry men looking for an excuse for action. Yet, in spite of the human depravity at the heart of this novel, Temple's prose is inspired, creating a vivid sense of race, class and politics, deftly blending the sacred and the profane, Cashin riding the wave of violence to its inevitable, brutal conclusion, remembering finally that "being alive's a present". Luan Gaines/ 2008.

Joe Cashin is a Homicide Detective who has been reassigned from Melbourne in Australia to his quiet coastal hometown after a near brush with death on the job. He is investigating the killing of a high profile local businessman. Initially clues point to local Aboriginal boys and after a shoot out with police leaves two of the three suspects dead, the case seems closed. But Cashin feels guilty about the shoot out and is unconvinced about the conclusions being drawn, so he keeps investigating.

This is an interesting and well written book that is part mystery, part social commentary and part character study. It is not a traditional crime novel and most certainly not a fast-paced thriller. Personally, I would have preferred more emphasis on solving the crime. (I also found the eventual solution to be pretty sordid and unpleasant, as it involves pedophilia - consider yourself warned.)

But the book is richer than a mere murder mystery. Peter Temple is a wonderful writer who uses words carefully and sparingly. Cashin is a complex and satisfying main character and the lesser characters are also rounded and interesting. I felt immersed in the remote seaside town and I was intrigued by the racial tensions.

I would recommend this book to those who enjoy Ian Rankin - I felt it was similar in style.

I have long believed that quality crime fiction, the kind built around a sense of place and well developed characters, can give the armchair traveler a better feel for a country and its culture than all but the best written travel books. Books like Peter Temple's The Broken Shore always remind me how true that is.

Big city Australian cop Joe Cashin has been exiled to the little police station responsible for the security of the small South Australian coastal town he grew up in - not that the citizens there have much crime to worry about. He has ostensibly been sent to the area to recover from a serious physical injury, but Cashin is the kind of cop whose superiors sometimes need a break from him, and no one seems in a hurry to call him back. Perhaps that is because he is not much into political correctness or going out of his way to make his fellow policemen look good when they do not deserve it.

When local millionaire Charles Bourgoyne is discovered in his mansion with his head bashed in, Cashin soon finds himself at odds with others in the department who are determined to pin the crime on a group of aboriginal teens caught trying to sell the man's watch. After the case is officially closed, Cashin, ever the introspective loner, decides to investigate the crime on his own. His investigation, made more difficult by the town's instinctive racism toward its aboriginal population, will lead him deep into a part of the community's past tainted by child pornography and sexual abuse.

Joe Cashin is not a perfect cop. In fact, he sometimes tends to make the kind of careless or lazy mistake that can place him, his fellow cops, or the success of an investigation in danger. The older he gets, the more Cashin questions what he has done with his life. He is close to no one, including his mother and only brother, but despite not being happy about the situation, he does little to remedy it. But the man has a good heart, and a very big one, at that. He is a staunch defender of the underdog and he believes in second chances, two qualities that mark him as a misfit among his fellow policemen.

The Broken Shore is filled with memorable little moments, unforgettable characters, and complicated personal relationships. It is about much more than the murder of one old man with a past of his own to protect. Peter Temple uses dialogue to develop his characters much in the way that Elmore Leonard has become so celebrated for doing. It works well for Temple, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting into the revealing conversational rhythms of his characters. Readers will be well advised, however, to familiarize themselves with the Australian slang terms in the book's glossary before beginning the novel (a fun, standalone read, that is) in order to keep the conversation flowing at the pace at which it is meant to be read.

This, my first Peter Temple novel, is actually the author's ninth, and I look forward to reading the others.

Seriously injured in the line of duty in Melbourne, Joe Cashin returns to the coast of southern Australia where he grew up. There he enjoys being a small town cop while his body slowly heals.

An elderly local millionaire is bludgeoned to death, and the investigation turns up three aboriginal boys trying to pawn the victim's watch. An ambush is put in motion, two of the boys die, and the police close the case. They are satisfied that the killers have been brought to justice. Only Cashin feels that something's not quite right, and he goes about putting the pieces together on his own time.

The first half of this book is a subtly written character study of many layers and its own inexorable pace. There is humor. There is a puzzling back story. There is the casual violence of well-entrenched bigotry. There is a depiction of place so atmospheric you can taste the salt spray and hear the surf crashing on the rocks:

"Even standing well back from the crumbling edge of the keyhole, the scene scared him, the huge sea, the grey-green water skeined with foam, sliding, falling, surging, full of little peaks and breaks, hollows and rolls, the sense of unimaginable power beneath the surface, terrible forces that could lift you up and suck you down and spin you and you would breathe in icy salt water, swallow it, choke, the power of the surge would push you through the gap in the cliff and then it would slam you against the pocked walls in the Kettle, slam you and slam you until your clothes were threads and you were just tenderised meat."



By the time Cashin has gathered the pieces of truth and is beginning to put them together, there is no way you can stop reading. It doesn't have a thing to do with the time you have invested in the book. It has everything to do with the strength of Temple's writing and the siren song of the story he has to tell. You are well and truly hooked, and even though you have guessed where the clues are pointing, and you dread the outcome of it all, you can't stop turning the pages until every last word is read and you're light-headed and slightly queasy and stunned by the power of The Broken Shore.

After I'd finished the last page, all I could do was sit there and let my breathing slow down...let the dizziness pass...think about what I'd read. I felt as though the Kettle had just spit me out.

This is the first book by Peter Temple that I've read. It won't be my last.