Category: Penguin Viking

Australia, Author, Book review, crime/thriller, David Whish-Wilson, Fiction, Penguin Viking, Publisher, Reading Australia 2016, Setting

‘Line of Sight’ by David Whish-Wilson

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Line of Sight

Fiction – paperback; Penguin Viking; 253 pages; 2010. Review copy courtesy of the author.

Proving that it can take me years to get around to reading books sent to me for review, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that David Whish-Wilson’s Line of Sight has been in my TBR for six years. I know this because tucked inside the front cover I found a note from the author (who sent the book to me in the days when I accepted books from authors) dated 19 October 2010. Oh dear.

Dark noir

Set in Perth, Western Australia in 1975, Line of Sight is a dark, noirish crime novel that doesn’t fit the conventions of the genre. There’s a crime at its heart — the murder of a brothel madam — but there’s no dramatic denouement, no neat conclusion. The story is not wholly focused on finding the culprit. Instead, it shines a wider light on corruption in political, business and legal circles in Perth at that time. It fleshes out the grey areas and the moral ambiguities and looks at what happens to whistleblowers who stand up for what they believe in.

The central character, Superintendent Frank Swann, who is on sick leave, believes that the people responsible for the murder of Ruby Devine are the same people leading the investigation. He’s spoken out against his fellow police colleagues before and the ways in which they profit from organised crime, and he knows he’s a marked man. Indeed, when he attends the Royal Commission into Matters Surrounding the Administration of the Law Relating to Prostitution as a witness he looks around the court room and thinks:

An assassin might already be in the room, waiting for his chance.

Swann’s not entirely squeaky clean himself. He’s not shy about dishing out his own form of justice in the shape of his fists, and he has links with a string of seedy underworld characters.

He’s also had an affair with a younger colleague that ended in dramatic circumstances — his teenage daughter ran away from home when she found out and is still missing when the Royal Commission gets under way. He is plagued by fears she may be in danger because of his outspokenness and spends much of this novel trying to track her down.

The story also focuses on the man heading the Commission, the Right Honourable Justice Partridge, who has come out of retirement in Victoria, on the other side of the country, to take on the task. But before long he begins to realise the process is a bit of a charade and has limited terms of reference. When he, himself, speaks out about this, he can’t quite believe the response, but it does confirm his suspicions about the shady goings on at the highest levels.

Everyone is on the take

Line of Sight isn’t a pleasant read. It’s hard hitting and relentlessly bleak, presenting a world where everyone’s on the take regardless of which side of the law they are on. There are all manner of crimes here — dodgy tax schemes, business scams, drug smuggling, bribery and corruption — and joining the dots between them isn’t an easy task. Indeed, the author is careful not to tell you everything — you’re treated with intelligence and left to figure it out yourself. This makes for a particularly powerful, if occasionally confusing, read.

There are lots of strong, fascinating characters — I longed for a dramatis personæ so that I could keep track of who was who — but what I most liked about the book was its historical setting. There’s never any doubt the story is firmly rooted in the 1970s through the references to cars, clothes, music, food and sport, but it’s done in a subtle, stylish way.

But perhaps the book’s real strength is the claustrophobic atmosphere it evokes. The paranoia, fear and violence practically resonate off the page with only a light dusting of humour to lighten the load. Apparently based on real events, Line of Sight is a heavy, fatalistic look at how Perth has been shaped by events of the past.  I don’t know why I waited so long to read it.

The book is only available in Kindle format in the UK and Canada.

This is my 22nd book for #ReadingAustralia2016. 

Author, Book review, Mark Dodshon, Music, Non-fiction, Penguin Viking, Publisher

‘Beds Are Burning: Midnight Oil: The Journey’ by Mark Dodshon

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BedsareBurning

Non-fiction – paperback; Penguin Viking; 408 pages; 2004.

As far as publicity is concerned, Midnight Oil has always been a closed shop. So to find a book that charts the band’s climb from the Australian pub rock circuit to worldwide critical acclaim is a rare treat.

Midnight Oil are an unusual act, not least because they have always played their cards close to their chest, but because they have been synonymous with so many causes — aboriginal land rights and conservation, to name but a few — while achieving commercial and critical success at the same time.

In Australia, their homeland, they have been elevated to iconic status. In fact I know of no other band anywhere that has tapped into the Australian psyche and culture so well. Listen to their ground-breaking 1987 album Diesel and Dust and I swear you can smell the desert, see the heat shimmering in the distance and feel the sand sticking to your skin.

Their lyrics, rich with descriptions of the Australian lifestyle and landscape, were often attributed to the politically outspoken and charismatic lead singer Peter Garrett, but as this book explains, it was the softly spoken Jim Moginie and the “world’s best drummer” (who mirrored himself on The Who’s Keith Moon) Rob Hirst who wrote the bulk of the words.

This book examines the band’s rise from the suburbs of Sydney to their brief but memorable success in the United States and their subsequent slide into obscurity. It looks at the individual members (but not their home lives — this is not an exposé of their life outside of music) and how they worked (or did not work) together to create the songs and the albums of their long and varied career.

I thought it was an enlightening read, although there is quite a bit of repetition in the book (I expect so that each chapter can be read as a stand alone), but on the whole this is an excellent history of my favourite Australian band. There’s also some great photographs in it, particularly some previously unpublished ones of Garrett with long, flowing locks which are worth the cover price alone!

Interestingly the epilogue entitled As Big as U2 is a thought-provoking analysis of why the band never hit the same dizzy heights as the Irish rockstars, despite the fact Midnight Oil were often compared to them. In light of U2’s current “commercialisation” I know whose shoes I’d rather be standing in right now. Integrity and passion were always Midnight Oil’s stronger points, although not many people “got” that at the time.