St Kilda Blues

This is Geoffrey McGeachin's third novel in the Charlie Berlin series. The first two, The Diggers Rest Hotel and Blackwattle Creek, won the Australian Crime Writers Association Ned Kelly Award for fiction in 2011 and 2013.

The novel is set in 1967 when Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin is asked to investigate the disappearance of the young daughter of a property developer. She was the latest of nine girls who had disappeared during the previous six months. Charlie Berlin had started investigating the first three disappearances but had then been removed from Missing Persons to the Fraud department. Accompanied by a former protege, Bob Roberts, he is asked to unofficially investigate the latest disappearance though an official investigation would still  be carried out by another team. There is also tension in the police force as an investigation into police corruption is being undertaken.

In the first part of the book, two parallel stories are told - the investigation of the missing girls as undertaken by Charlie Berlin and the account of the early life of a young English boy who is sent to Australia as a child and his development into a killer. The later chapters concentrate on the investigation.

When interviewing the father of the latest missing girl, Charlie Berlin notices a similarity with a German SS officer he had observed murdering a young woman during the Second World War. This forces Charlie Berlin to investigate and confront demons from his past. The book also investigates loss of a loved one, especially the loss of a daughter.

Another well crafted crime novel, set primarily in Melbourne, has been written by Geoffrey McGeachin.

Dead and Kicking

This is the third in a series of books written by Geoff McGeachin about Australian photographer and spy, Alby Murdoch. In Vietnam to shoot stills for a movie he takes a photo of friends which includes, in the background, an image of a man in a cyclo. This photo sets off a series of events resulting in the death of a colleague and attempted murder of Murdoch and his two friends in the photograph as they attempt to locate the man in the photograph who everyone believed had died thirty years previously. Who is trying to kill them and why? The action packed plot takes Murdoch to Hong Kong, Thailand, back to Vietnam, Macau and finally to Canberra and the Northern Territory until Murdoch, with the aid of assorted friends who rescue him along the way, is able to resolve what is happening. This entertaining tale told with humour is well worth reading.

The Diggers Rest Hotel

Charlie Berlin is sent to Wodonga from Melbourne to investigate a series of armed hold-ups of Northern Victorian railway offices by a gang of motor bike riders. Shortly afterwards a local Chinese girl is murdered and left lying in a street. With the help of local policeman, Bob Roberts, and journalist, Rebecca Green, Berlin investigates the cases and comes to know many of the troubled individuals in the town and at the nearby army barracks of Bandiana. The story, written by Geoffrey McGeachin, is set immediately after the Second World War and many of the characters, including Berlin, are struggling to cope with the memories of the horrors of war and with the difficulty of adapting to life after war.

In an interview on ABC regional radio with Geoffrey McGeachin the author talks about about the writing of the book and his memories of growing up in Wodonga.