The Scholar

This second book by Dervla McTiernan about police detective, Cormac Reilly, is set in Galway Ireland.

Emma Sweeney works as a scientist at the laboratories of Darcy Therapeutics, next to the Galway University. One dark evening when she discovers the body of a young woman on the road outside the university she immediately calls  Cormac Reilly. Cormac then takes charge of finding out who murdered the young woman, but the case is complicated as he lives with Emma who is now implicated in the case.

The only identification on the victim is a security card for Darcy Therapeutics found in the pocket of her cardigan. This identifies her as Carline Darcy. However when Cormac visits her apartment a short time later he discovers that there has been an error so the hunt for the victim's identity continues as well as the reasons as to why she has been so brutally murdered.

Carline's grandfather, John Darcy, makes it clear that the protection of the research being undertaken at the laboratories is imperative placing obstacles in the path of the police carrying out the investigation. Cormac cannot believe that Emma is involved with the murder however as the investigation continues evidence mounts that she may indeed be involved. It is therefore imperative that he remains objective and finds evidence that may initially have been overlooked.

River of Salt

Blake Saunders was working as a hit man in Philadelphia in 1961 when his brother was killed. In order to save his own life he decided to try his luck following a surf lifestyle first in California, the Hawaii and finally settling on the Australian coast in northern NSW. His new home is at Coral Shoals where he runs a bar, the Surf Shack. He learns the guitar and plays regularly in a band. There is always time to surf in the river of salt, his other passion.

His life changes when the body of a young woman found in a motel is believed to have had a connection with the Surf Shack. At the same time some heavies from Brisbane decide to set up a protection racket in the region. Part of the life he had hoped to escape forever re-emerges and forces him to reaccess his life and the person who he really is.

This crime novel by Dave Warner, contains many twists and turns as Blake investigates the murder when he believes that the wrong person has been arrested for the crime.

Australian Crime Fiction

Stephen Knight has written a 200 year history of Australian crime writing dating from the early 1800s until 2017. Early Australian crime writing, not surprisingly, featured convicts and bushrangers.

However it was Fergus Hume's book, The Mystery of the Hansom Cab (1886) that first captured the attention of the reading public in England and Australia.

This study of Australian crime writing is divided into five time periods - 1818-1914, 1915-1945, 1946-1979, 1980-1999 and 2000-2017. Perhaps the best known Australian crime author after the First World War was Arthur Upfield who set most of his books in an Australian rural landscape with the main character being Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force. But it is particularly since 1980 that Australian crime fiction has become established.

Authors such as Peter Temple have won overseas awards. Temple published nine novels including four in the Jack Irish series.One of the features of Australian crime fiction is the Australian setting which is recognisable to Australian readers but very different environments for readers from overseas.  Peter Corris set his private eye books in Sydney with the main character being Cliff Hardy. Gary Disher sets his crime investigations in Victoria, often around the Mornington Peninsula region. A writer who often, but not always, sets his novels in Western Australia is Dave Warner. Jane Harper is a recent author whose books have received critical acclaim. The first three have been set in country Victoria where the atmosphere created by the setting is definitely important part of the novel. Kerry Greenwood has set her Corinna Chapman series in inner Melbourne. Geoffrey McGeachin has set his novels focusing on Charlie Berlin in Victoria.

Stephen Knight divides each section of his study into types of crime writing. For example in section 5 (200-2017) he divides categories of books into private investigators, police, amateur detectives, psychothrillers, indigenous crime fiction historical crime fiction, other voices as well as the crime novel.

Writers of historical crime include Kerry Greenwood with her Phyrne Fisher series and Marshall Browne with his series of books set in Melbourne at the end of the nineteenth, early twentieth centuries. Sulari Gentill has written a series of books about her main character, Rowland Sinclair, and his friends set in the 1930s.

For anyone interested in Australian crime fiction this book by Stephen Knight provides an excellent intoduction to the genre which should encourage readers to find and enjoy books by Australian authors.

Stone Country

In this book, Nicole Alexander has written a family saga about the Grant family during the first forty years of the twentieth century.

The main character in the story is Ross who we initially meet as a young boy largely being manipulated by his older brother Alastair. They live with their parents and grandmother in Adelaide. The family owns large land holdings in South Australia and the Northern Territory and it is Ross' wish that, when they grow up, he and Alastair should visit the northern property, Waybell. However World War I intervenes and Alastair joins the army. The family will not allow Ross to go too, a decision he comes to regret. When Alastair is wounded and then disappears he is eventually presumed dead.

Then a woman arrives at the house from England claiming to be Alastair's fiancee and the family decides that the right thing for Ross to do is to marry Alastair's promised bride, even though he does not know her. Ross eventually agrees but only if he can go north as he originally planned.

The book is therefore about family relationships, relationships between Darcey and Ross and also between Ross and Maria, a young girl he meets in the Northern Territory. Themes revolve around the effects of the First World War on men who served and on their families as well as on men who did not join the army. The major theme, however, is the outback and its affect on individuals. Nicole Anderson describes vividly the countryside and life on the property, Waybel, isolated from other properties in the region. She also provides vivid descriptions of the harsh landscape through which Ross wanders when he is trying to rediscover himself.