Customer Reviews

The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender

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This is the novel in which Ms Day's regular series heroine , Sydney based private eye ,Claudia Valentine made her bow.In it she is asked by an old school friend to investigate the death of her brother.The young man "Mark"was an aspiring novelist and his death is being treated by police as due to natural causes,he having had a history of cardiac trouble,to the extent of having a pacemaker fitted.The sister is suspicious ,pointing out that minute traces of heroin were found in his bloodstream.
Claudia's investigation does not go unnoticed.Her car is bugged and she is attacked and set up on a drunk driving charge relying on police contacts to wriggle out of it
She soons realises that the key to the mystery is Mark's girlfriend the flambouyant and unstable Sally,whose background is not what it is popularly believed to be
The Harry Lavender of the title appears only through a series of taped musings and he is the key player in organised crime within Sydney-a terminally ill manipulator he controls events and people through technology more potently than through control of drugs and prostitution the more traditional mob businesses.
The book is infused with a strong sense of place and an ambivalence towards the city of Sydney-beautiful but built on corruption and crime ,manipulated by Lavender the ultimate puppeteer.It is a cynical book on a global level with the major villains escaping human justice but on a personal level there is held out the possibility of love and hope.
Claudis is engaging and -the ultimate in male fantasy,maybe --lives over a pub.She has unresolved issues in her personal life which has featurd divorce and two choldren, and is searching for her father,once a respected journalist,now a vagrant,having fallen foul of Lavender earlier on.
The people and milieu are fine and my rating is based on some untidy plotting with the last 30 or so pages featuring the rushed gathering together of loose ends
Read it if you like the women PI genre and want a setting somewhat removed from mean streets GB or USA

Claudia Valentine, tough PI in Sydney, Australia, faces a formidable foe in this first book in a series of four by Marele Day. A childhood friend's younger brother has died, apparently of a heart attack. The pacemaker he wore because of a congenital heart defect seems incidental, and yet, his sister questions natural causes as the reason for his death. Claudia agrees to investigate and soon finds herself immersed in a shadier side of Sydney--that of crime boss, Harry Lavender.

Plotting for the book is fairly complex, with a couple of twists and turns; most come to mind, however, before they are carried to their end, with few real surprises. The story requires from the reader several leaps of faith in following Valentine from clues to their interpretations.

More engaging than plot are the characters in the book. Claudia has several sources of information, from the computer expert to a reporter friend, and Detective Carol Rawlings, a school pal now with the police department. On the other side of the coin are associates of Harry Lavender: lowlife small-time crook, Ronny O'Toole; the big Maori with the bigger knife; and Johnny the Jumper, so-named for his method of exacting punishment.

Most enjoyable of all in this book are the descriptions of the Australian city. What Fusilli does for New York City, Day does equally as well for Sydney. I look forward to reading the other three books in this series.

This book is a quick and enjoyable introduction to Sydney private investigator Claudia Valentine. Claudia's usual area of expertise is insurance investigation, but when an ex-school friend calls on her about her dead brother she feels compelled to help determine whether his death was the accidental heart failure it was ruled, or something more sinister.

Not long into her investigation she gets the distinct impression that she is being followed, an impression that is confirmed telling her she must be onto something. Helped by friends and nosy neighbours alike, Claudia learns enough to get herself into more than one dangerous tight spot, mixing it up with the feared Harry Lavender.

THE LIFE AND CRIMES OF HARRY LAVENDER is the first book in the Claudia Valentine series and Valentine proves to be a no-nonsense, tough woman who views the world through a jaundiced eye, ready with a quip to lighten the moment. It's a fast-paced book that is tightly plotted moving logically from clue to clue. On the down side, coincidence seems to play a big part in the story with unlikely interconnections between characters popping up throughout the book.

This is an enjoyable though uncomplicated series introduction.

I studyed this novel in class and it was quite a rereshing change from the bland books usually read. From the very first page Marele Day challenges the stereotypes and ideas set in the responders head in relation to gender issues. Her character, Claudia Valentine, uses karate as a weapon rather then typical violence such as knifes or guns. She is the intellectual equal of any male, completing her job sucessfully and out witting any in her path. She is also the intellectual equal of Harry Lavender, the "evil" character in the story. Not only fighting to seek truth over a murder mystery but also to gain revenge.
Definatly a worhtwhile read, with great twists, it will have you attemtping to solve the mystery right from the first clue.

Marele Day seems extremely apt at definitions. I have heard the word 'wit' said about her books, however, this word is only appropriate if you add 'half' in front of it. The storyline is childish, the characters lack depth and Claudia Valentine is ridiculous in her 'perfectness'. Next time Day is looking up a definition, it may be appropriate for her to look up the meaning of farce.

This book is just great. The best thing is it's so easy to read and you can't put it down!

Accessible to all, with twists and surprises (like the beginning!). An easy read.

This book on the life and crimes of Harry Lavender seems to lack the intesity that books need in today`s society. Set in Sydney the book is written on the basis that the reader has been there. Marele Day seems to have put to much complication into it for th average reader. It is a book which seems to relate in someway to the film "the big Sleep" in that the reader has to figure alot of stuff out by himself. All in all the author has gone into a bit too much detail.