Author Archive
It’s summer, and like a lot of Madisonians, I’m looking to get out of town for a few days. But since the budget doesn’t allow for much beyond a jaunt to Paoli (a nice town, but still), most of the traveling I’m going to do comes through books, and murder mysteries in particular.
This year, I’m going to Australia on the cheap, courtesy of authors Kerry Greenwood and Peter Temple. Greenwood pens the long-running Phryne Fisher series, set in 1920s Melbourne.* The Honorable Phryne (rhymes with briny) sets up shop as a private detective, using her connections as Melbourne’s most fabulous flapper to puzzle out crimes of both high society and low. In Cocaine Blues, the first in the series, Phryne lands in Melbourne to investigate what’s behind some strange letters from a family friend and immediately gets herself involved investigating a high-level cocaine smuggling ring–and more intimately involved with a Russian from a visiting dance trope. As Phryne pursues the trail through the dark alleys of the city and meets up with some unique characters, opportunties soon arise for Phryne to pull out her pearl-handled pistol. Greenwood’s Melbourne still has a very strong British feel, and aside from a more diverse set of characters and some Aussie slang, readers of English mysteries will find themselves at home. The series is best read in order: the earlier books place more emphasis on speedy plots, the latter ones have a little slower pace, but more fully fleshed out characterization. But the consistant draw is Phryne herself, whose chequered past, cunning sense of human nature and sensual lifestyle makes for a quick summer escape–without the airfare.
Where Phryne is sunny, Peter Temple’s sleuth Joe Cashin can’t shake a gloomy past in The Broken Shore. Banished to his home town of Port Munro on the South Australian/Victorian coast after a botched raid left one of his fellow officers dead, Cashin is called to a local mansion to investigate the severe beating of a well-known philantropist. With only the man’s watch stolen and a painting slashed, Cashin suspects more than just a botched burglery. But his fellow officers are determined to pin the crime on nearby Aboriginal youths, whatever the cost. Probing into Australia’s racial tensions and investigating a suspicious land deal connected with the victim, Cashin gets the message from his superiors that he’d best let the matter drop. But Cashin is convinced the real culprit isn’t done yet.
Temple is acclaimed in his native Australia, and his taut dialogue and sense of place makes The Broken Shore a compelling psychological thriller that can hold its own against other top writers in the genre. Readers of Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus might appreciate the moody atmosphere and the lonely cop mentality, although Cashin displays a cheeky sense of humor that adds a little levity to the proceedings. The Broken Shore is a standalone title, but Temple’s newest, Truth, picks up the story of one of Cashin’s colleagues.
*She also writes the Corinna Chapman series set in modern day Melbourne.
July 26th, 2010
Katie H.
Historian Nathaniel Philbrick has made his name writing stories of the sea, most notably history set near his home in Nantucket. His latest work, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, takes him as far as imaginable from the stormy Atlantic: the deceptively placid landscape surrounding the Little Bighorn River, and the site of the pivotal battle for the American West. Yet even in the unfamiliar territory of eastern Montana, Philbrick’s trademark command of detail and narrative sweep rightfully sets The Last Stand alongside his earlier work, and might even be, in this reader’s opinion, his best work yet.
Although ‘General’ George Armstrong Custer* is one of the most chronicled figures of the American West, his actions on June 25, 1876 and before remain clouded in the haze of battlefield memories or died with his forces on Battle Ridge. The portrait Philbrick creates doesn’t stray far from the prevailing image of most modern histories: a cock-sure fighter whose decisions were based as much on his previous luck as they were on the situation at hand. Sitting Bull, the other well-chronicled player of the day, had the sense to recognize that even with his vastly larger forces at the Little Bighorn, the reality of dwindling buffalo herds meant that the traditional way of life for his people would soon end. But where Philbrick’s narrative really shines is in the detailed accounts of the lesser-known individuals of battalion and the battle itself. Even before the Seventh Cavalry set out from its North Dakota base, the troop was a mass of petty arguments, clashing egos and, as Philbrick speculates, a command that was set up to fail. On Sitting Bull and the Native American side, attempts to cooperate with the U.S. government had only led to hunger, disease and broken treaties. When the fight proper begins, the establishment of each individual and their grievances makes the action read almost like a novel, and the fate of each fighter resonates that much more.
And what of the Last Stand itself? Since the only survivor of Custer’s final fight was a wounded cavalry horse named Comanche and Lakota accounts differ, Philbrick presents a possible scenario based on partial accounts and archeological discoveries. But whether the Seventh had organized a final defense or the day ended in a melee will probably never be known. Regardless of the outcome, both sides knew the events at the Little Bighorn would mark a turning point in the history of West. And indeed, Philbrick notes that Little Bighorn came right at the time America was turning from the internal warfare that characterized its first hundred years to the overseas expansion of the next century. In Philbrick’s recounting of the story, it is a gripping final fight.
*Although promoted to the rank of general during the Civil War, Custer had since been court-martialed and held the rank of lieutenant colonel at the time of the Little Bighorn.
June 10th, 2010
Katie H.
I’ve long held a suspicion that Georgette Heyer is going to ruin romance for me. After reading The Masqueraders, I am convinced. Somehow, any romantic affair that does not involve duels, wild rides on the King’s Highway or large, grey-eyed gentlemen will feel somewhat lacking. Somehow, Heyer adds that extra element of panache to her books that lets it rise well above the standard romantic fare into a realm all her own.
That flair is on full display in The Masqueraders. We meet our hero and heroine Peter and Kate Merriott just as they deliver the wealthy heiress Letitia from the hands of the rogue Mr. Markham, intent on eloping to Gretna Green. Complications, of course, immediately arise. Kate and Peter are really Robin and Prudence, two siblings who have spent most of their lives in disguise and on the run, thanks to their father’s unhappy tendency to side with Jacobite rebels. Mysteriously summoned to London to await the newest twist in their father’s schemes, neither Prudence/Peter or Robin/Kate reckoned on falling in love. As Robin attempts to court Letitia while in petticoats, Prudence’s masquerade comes under the suspicious eye of the large and staid Sir Tony, whose concern for the young ‘man’s’ welfare puts Pru in a dilemma. Is it possible to drop the disguise in the pursuit of love–even if it means risking a trip to the gallows?
Heyer keeps everything moving at a breakneck speed, fitting the precarious state of affairs. She uses period speech, which takes a little getting used to, but allows the characters to engage in wordplay that is as vigorous as the swordplay. With duels, masked balls, high-stakes card games, and devious plotting in the background, The Masqueraders often has the feel of an Errol Flynn technicolor adventure that has collided with an Oscar Wilde comedy of manners–with a healthy dose of swoon-worthy romance. Fans of Jane Austen have always been drawn to Heyer’s excellent Regency-era romances; readers of Lauren Willig’s historical adventures and perhaps Tasha Alexander’s Emily Ashton mysteries might be drawn to the adventuress Pru and the depiction of glittering and gossiping London society.
May 20th, 2010
Katie H.
The other night, as I was mixing up some dough for a pastry recipe, my mind wandered to the 1922 case profiled in Deborah Blum’s entertaining The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York of a Manhattan bakery that unwittingly was the source of a mass case of poisoning. In that particular case, dozens of office workers were ill after the Shelbourne Bakery’s huckleberry pie came served with a dash of arsenic. That case, like the many others profiled in The Poisoner’s Handbook, testifies to the appalling ease with which poisons were available in the early twentieth century.
Readily available poisons yes, but a surprising lack of curiosity about how to identify them–at least until New York City hired its (possibly) first non-corrupt medical examiner, Charles Norris. It is Norris and his team of scientists that are the heroes of Blum’s story. Like any true hero, Norris faced insurmountable odds. Poison was everywhere: arsenic lurked in wallpaper dye, radium illuminated watch faces, and carbon monoxide belched from the exhaust pipes of innumerable Model Ts. With no real government oversight to keep toxic materials out of the hands of unwitting innocents–or those not so innocent–Norris and his band of scientists were essentially left to invent and establish forensic science in the U.S.
That Blum centers her research on Jazz Age New York City is no coincidence: New York was the wettest city in the nation during Prohibition, a fact that gave Norris and his closest associate, Alexander Gettler, considerable practice in investigating poisonings from the illegal hooch people were guzzling by the gallon. As bootleggers turned to more desperate means to give people a buzz, the government nearly outdid them in killing off drinkers in an effort to reform them. With dry advocates lobbying for stricter enforcement, government agencies added more bizarre substances to industrial alcohol (up to and including adding petroleum) in efforts to stymie bootleggers. As a result, Norris’s lab was kept busy autopsying thousands of poisoning victims each year, each one adding to the growing knowledge bank of deadly poisons.
Blum builds up her narrative through a host of poisons, blending in specific cases and the toxicologists’ efforts to prove innocence or guilt. She creates a real sense of the long hours and hard work involved. No slick CSI-style labs here; Norris and Gettler’s lab must have appeared to be a chamber of horrors to the uninitiated. But even for those readers who flunked chemistry, Blum creates a vivid, sometimes unintentionally amusing,* portrait of Prohibition-era America and the birth of a culture plunging into a strange new world filled with unknown and potentially deadly new chemicals.
And what became of the Shelbourne pie poisoner? To find out, you’ll just have to read the book. But I would recommend taking a close look at any pastries before you bite in.
*The saga of one street cleaner dubbed Mike the Durable is a prime example.
May 4th, 2010
Katie H.
If it were possible to encapsulate all the suffering, magic and mystery of Appalachia in one spot, Bloodroot Mountain and the surrounding countryside would make a compelling candidate. In Amy Greene’s ambitious first novel, Bloodroot, four generations of Lamb women mark their existance with heartache, poverty, fantasy and hope, always centering on the mountain named for a rare flower whose roots hold the power to heal and to poison.
It’s an apt conceit, as the poison running through the family is objectified in a bloodred ring, stolen by Byrdie Lamb as a wedding ring for her husband. Long thought to carry ‘the touch’ that makes them especially adept at healing, the Lamb women survive in spite of the curse, eking out a tough but sufficient living on the mountain. But with the birth of Byrdie’s wild, otherworldly granddaughter Myra, the full brunt of the curse is felt. Despite her efforts to protect Myra, Byrdie cannot keep her away from handsome John Odom, whose own family carries a legacy far darker than Myra’s. When John attempts to bend Myra to his will, events build that resonate deeply into the lives of Myra’s twins, whose own lives become consumed with righting the wrongs of the past.
It’s hard to go into much more detail than that, but each character is drawn in such a way as to make them charismatic in their own way. Greene scatters the story across generations and through time, with each character narrating their perspective on the story. If some things are lost in plotting (the impetus for the curse gets lost along the way and a few twists are a little improbable), Greene’s ability to spiral into the heart of the story, and her romantic description of the Appalachians’ harsh beauty makes it hard not to get swept along. It is no accident that many of the characters in the story love the poems of Wordsworth; Greene’s writing owes much of its tone to the sensibilities that characterize the great Romantic poets and novelists of another century. Although Bloodroot spans most of the twentieth century, like Wuthering Heights or Lyrical Ballads, there is a suspension of time that places the story outside the everyday world.
I cannot say that I entirely enjoyed parts of the novel: the realities of poverty, alcoholism and some really bad decisions means that ugly scenes will ensue and happy endings might not happen. And the conclusion will likely be at the center of many an animated book group argument. Still, for those drawn to family sagas or novels with a strong sense of place, Greene is an author to watch. Her next novel, tenatively titled Long Man, is set in Depression-era Tennessee.
April 23rd, 2010
Katie H.
With Kathryn Stockett’s blockbuster novel The Help enjoying its 50th week on the New York Times bestseller list, and library copies flying off the shelves, patient readers might begin to wonder what can hold them until that precious copy arrives. To help pass the time, MPL has gathered a list of titles that share similar traits with Stockett’s book, and most are immediately available. Ranging from classic titles (To Kill a Mockingbird) to the recent (Mudbound), each title picks up on Stockett’s themes of strong women. Fans of the novel take note: the movie version of The Help has a director, and Stockett is hard at work on her second novel, set in 1930s Mississippi.
April 7th, 2010
Katie H.
David Grann’s nonfiction adventure/history The Lost City of Z walks a precarious line between worlds. Half the story of Percy Fawcett, a British explorer to disappeared into the Amazonian jungle in the 1920s, and half the account of the many (including the author) who were drawn to the mystery of Fawcett’s fate, the real character is the Amazon itself. Even today, the rainforest resists attempts to uncover its secrets.
In the early 20th century, the challenge was even greater. Fawcett, a former soldier turned gentleman explorer, epitomized the Victorian ideal of manhood, to the extent that even his wife thought him incapable of succumbing to the diseases of the jungle. By the time of his last expedition in 1925, the world was changing. Fawcett’s greatest rival was using an airplane for surveys and sending his dispatches via radio. The butchery of World War I shattered any illusions Europe had been harboring of its own superiority. And the point of exploration was shifting from the discovery of elaborate ruins to an understanding of indigenous tribes. Still, Fawcett set his sights on the grandest prize of all: the lost city of El Dorado, the capital of a great ancient Amazonian civilization. Suspicious that rival explorers would steal his idea, Fawcett referred to his goal as ‘Z’ and obscured his route with fake coordinates and false itineraries. Amidst great fanfare, Fawcett, his son and a few other travelling companions plunged into the Amazon for the last time. They never returned.
In the following years, numerous parties set out to solve the mystery of Fawcett and his vision of El Dorado. Grann’s account of his own journey is paired along that of Fawcett’s, and it’s easy to understand why so many have been drawn to tackle what often becomes a suicide mission. Grann, a writer for The New Yorker, sets the pace of the story at a good clip, without sacrificing a sense of the characters involved. Sprinkled in are details about the study of the Amazon, including the ongoing question of whether this inhospitable paradise–so full of life, but yet deadly to even modern explorers–was ever capable of supporting the large populations that other parts of the Americas boasted prior to Columbus.
With a considerable amount of notes and a substantial bibliography, The Lost City of Z offers more opportunities for exploration. Readers fond of history and adventure narratives along the lines of Simon Winchester or Candice Milliard’s River of Doubt might be drawn to Fawcett’s story. A movie starring Brad Pitt is currently in the works.
March 2nd, 2010
Katie H.
In one of the most anticipated and followed book contests of the year, United Kingdom based Bookseller magazine has announced its longlist for its 2009 Diagram Prize. Yet another list of books for the harried reader to consider, you ask? The beauty of the Diagram Prize is that the reader has to go no further than the cover: merit is awarded entirely on the oddity of title. Hence, books such as The Theory of Lengthwise Rolling, Versailles: The View From Sweden or The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification can finally get their due recognition.
The prize, the result of an especially boring afternoon at the Frankfurt Book Fair, was first claimed in 1978 by Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice. Since then, Bookseller has allowed the public to vote on the worthiest of titles. Not surprisingly, winners have skewed towards the somewhat suggestive–If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs took a whopping 30% of the vote in 2007. However, voters have given due to classics like Bombproof Your Horse and (my personal favorite) How to Avoid Huge Ships.
This year’s longlist includes a well-known bestseller, but the inclusion of such titles as The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin reminds that such humor is relative–and that there truly is a book for every reader. The Diagram’s award of a bottle of middling claret goes not to the author of the book, but to the original submittor. Alas, most titles are too specific to be included in LINKCat, but it is never too early to begin thinking of next year. Suggestions, anyone?
February 23rd, 2010
Katie H.
The Queen’s throne is in jeopardy. Surrounded by advisors who may or may not be trustworthy, Elizabeth faces rebellion from overseas and rivals within her own court. Faced with constant challenges to her claim to royalty, Elizabeth has to rely on her wits and her special powers to ensure the crown for herself and her sons.
Sons? Philippa Gregory departs from her usual fictional intrigues of the Tudor Court to focus on the Virgin Queen’s great-grandmother: the Yorkist Queen Elizabeth. With The White Queen, Gregory finds particularly fertile ground for her imagination. The widow of a Lancastrian knight, Elizabeth Grey captures the heart of the Yorkist usurper King Edward IV. Married in secret, their marriage is defined by the feuding houses of Lancaster and York, placing Elizabeth and her children in constant danger. Like her other books, Gregory refreshes a well-worn story by bringing to life the women at the center of the upheavals. Rejected by her husband’s family and eager to consolidate her position, Elizabeth and her mother use marriage and a bit of witchcraft to put her family in high places–and insure a generation of enemies. As Elizabeth’s ambition grows, the danger to herself and her children mounts, leading her royal sons to a fate that remains unsolved to this day.
Like her other books, Gregory grounds her fiction in solid research (The White Queen includes a bibliography for further reading). In some ways, that is the problem: Elizabeth’s life was so eventful that plot sometimes gains the advantage over character. However, there’s enough momentum in the plot to keep readers’ interest, and the hope that future books in the trilogy will flesh out intriguing characters that might not get their full due in this installment. The real treat here, like Gregory’s other court novels, is experiencing history through the eyes of England’s powerful and often fiercely ambitious women.
For those who want to explore more about this especially tumultous and addictive period in English history (or need some help sorting out the tangled threads of loyalty), check out some of the fiction or nonfiction titles on the subject. Mystery lovers might try Josephine Tey’s classic The Daughter of Time, while those who like a little romance with their history might pick up Anne Easter Smith’s new trilogy on the era, starting with A Rose for the Crown. Gregory’s next installment, tentatively titled The Red Queen, hits shelves this August.
February 6th, 2010
Katie H.
Wolf Hall is not to be taken lightly. This year’s winner of the Man Booker Prize is not the sort of Tudor pageant most fiction treatments make of Henry VIII’s reign, nor does it dwell on the clandestine couplings that Philippa Gregory has built her reputation on. A reader picking up Wolf Hall will be first confronted with several pages of names (an inordinate amount being either Thomas or Anne) and a couple of tangled royal lineages, all preceeding 500 plus pages of dense, detailed prose. But even though some commentators sighed resignedly at the thought of another Tudor tome on the market, be assured that Hilary Mantel has created a suprisingly modern character study, richly deserving the accolades and recognition as one of the best novels of the year.
At the center of Henry’s court is Thomas Cromwell, a man of mysterious and humble origins, whose brilliance comes from years of surviving Europe’s wars and its banking houses. Mantel reimagines Henry’s court from Cromwell’s point of view, and under his Machiavellian gaze the court seethes with intrigue. Beginning as Cardinal Wosley’s right hand man, Cromwell senses the Cardinal’s declining status and slowly maneuvers into the King’s good graces. Before long, he is Henry’s head minister, uncannily capable of gauging the king’s moods and other’s rising (or falling) fortunes. Henry’s desire to wed Anne Boleyn becomes Cromwell’s mission, and his targets, be it Queen Katherine or Thomas More, create a power struggle against the Catholic Chruch that could place everyone connected with Cromwell in danger of burning.
Although Mantel has plenty of plot to work with, her characterization of Cromwell is what really makes Wolf Hall worthy of praise. His powers of observation–a glance at a glove tells him a family’s financial status–pegs each individual and what they might do for the Crown. Growing up in the harsh realities of Renaissance Europe, Cromwell’s shrewd methods masks a need to protect those close to him, even as his rise exposes everyone to greater risk. Still, the promise of a new Europe–one ruled not by old families and the Church, but by those with the largest coffers–relentlessly drives Cromwell and makes him a character who would be as much as ease in modern Washington as in Tudor London.
It’s unlikely that everyone who picks up Wolf Hall will stick with it to the end. In some ways, it reminds me of The Name of the Rose, another book that had me disoriented at first and completely hooked by the end. For those who stick with Mantel, the payoff is worth it. With so much material to work with, Mantel is already at work at a sequel–and as those familiar with Henry’s reign know, it promises to hold as much tension as Wolf Hall.
January 7th, 2010
Katie H.
Judging from David Small’s award-winning children’s books illustrations, it’s hard to imagine that the same man is behind the dark tale recounted in the graphic novel memoir Stitches. Best known for his work with wife Sarah Stewart and his Caldecott Award-winning artwork in So You Want to be President?, Stitches reveals a painful past, yet one that Small somehow weaves a sense of hopefulness through with his art.
It’s no easy feat. Small grew up in postwar Detroit, the son of an oft-absent radiologist and an emotionally cold mother. A sickly boy with sinus problems, his father treated him with repeated doses of x-ray radiation. By the time he was in his early teens, Small had a lump on his throat that had developed into full-blown cancer, although his parents made a point of never telling him the true nature, or cause, of his condition. Waking up after an operation, Small discovers that not only does he have an ugly row of stitches down his neck, but one of his vocal chords was entirely removed. He was almost completely mute.
Small always found solace in drawing as a child, and his ink-washed artwork captures an extraordinary range of emotions, especially in capturing the subtleties of facial expressions. His use of lighting to strategically shade features and the inclusion of nightmare sequences lends a quasi-Hitchcockian cast to the story. It’s apt for this very internal story, filled with the effects of repression and silence.
Stitches was recently nominated for the National Book Award in the Young People’s Category, a choice that has generated some controversy given the dark subject matter, and the fact that graphic novels rarely get recognition by major awards. It is a haunting story, but there’s nothing that would be objectionable in Small’s story compared to many other modern-day young adult novels. In fact, anyone who hasn’t picked up a graphic novel may find Stitches to be the perfect way to get into the genre. Along with recent graphic memoirs such as Fun Home and Blankets, Stitches demonstrates brilliantly how image and text can blend into a powerful, captivating experience.
(Publisher’s Weekly article via Powell’s)
November 17th, 2009
Katie H.
Alexia Tarabotti is a hopeless case. Half-Italian, outspoken and–at the advanced age of 25–too old for marriage, she’s hardly presentable in fashionable Victorian society. Of course, it doesn’t help Alexia’s tactfulness that she’s entirely soulless, a preternatural being in a London filled with werewolves, vampires and ghosts living side-by-side with normal human beings. Thanks to her assiduous reading of Greek ethics, no human is the wiser to her soulless state, but Alexia’s status brings her to the attention of BUR (Bureau of Unnatural Registry), since all preternaturals have the ability to turn supernaturals into humans by touch.
Of course, supernatural beings or not, decorum must be maintained. Alexia is annoyed when a vampire accosts her at a ball and even more put out when she accidently kills it with her brass parasol. A BUR investigation reveals the vamp was a new creation, even as reports of registered supernaturals mysteriously vanishing begin to trickle into headquarters. With the begruding aid of Alpha werewolf Lord Maccon and the flamboyant vampire Lord Akeldama, Alexia uses her special talents to find out who is behind the new creatures and why. But she has to do it while fending off shadowy figures prepared to manhandle her person into dark carriages–and increasingly from Lord Maccon’s attempts to manhandle her, although she’s growing to tolerate his attentions.
There really isn’t any good way to categorize Gail Carriger’s new novel Soulless. It’s a sort of paranormal romance steampunk-fantasy alternative history screwball comedy that conjures up images of Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossed with a foul-temptered Mary Poppins. Alexia’s conscious efforts at tactfulness coupled with her willingness to wield the brass parasol keeps the action tripping along blithely. And while Soulless definitely follows many of the tropes of romance novels (there’s no shortage of rustling taffeta and untied cravats), Carriger writes it all very tongue in cheek. Like a good treacle tart (Alexia’s favorite dessert), Carriager’s new series is one of those delights that has one wishing for seconds. The next installment, Changeless, is due out next March.
November 3rd, 2009
Katie H.
Previous Posts
This year, I’m going to Australia on the cheap, courtesy of authors Kerry Greenwood and Peter Temple. Greenwood pens the long-running Phryne Fisher series, set in 1920s Melbourne.* The Honorable Phryne (rhymes with briny) sets up shop as a private detective, using her connections as Melbourne’s most fabulous flapper to puzzle out crimes of both high society and low. In Cocaine Blues, the first in the series, Phryne lands in Melbourne to investigate what’s behind some strange letters from a family friend and immediately gets herself involved investigating a high-level cocaine smuggling ring–and more intimately involved with a Russian from a visiting dance trope. As Phryne pursues the trail through the dark alleys of the city and meets up with some unique characters, opportunties soon arise for Phryne to pull out her pearl-handled pistol. Greenwood’s Melbourne still has a very strong British feel, and aside from a more diverse set of characters and some Aussie slang, readers of English mysteries will find themselves at home. The series is best read in order: the earlier books place more emphasis on speedy plots, the latter ones have a little slower pace, but more fully fleshed out characterization. But the consistant draw is Phryne herself, whose chequered past, cunning sense of human nature and sensual lifestyle makes for a quick summer escape–without the airfare.
Where Phryne is sunny, Peter Temple’s sleuth Joe Cashin can’t shake a gloomy past in The Broken Shore. Banished to his home town of Port Munro on the South Australian/Victorian coast after a botched raid left one of his fellow officers dead, Cashin is called to a local mansion to investigate the severe beating of a well-known philantropist. With only the man’s watch stolen and a painting slashed, Cashin suspects more than just a botched burglery. But his fellow officers are determined to pin the crime on nearby Aboriginal youths, whatever the cost. Probing into Australia’s racial tensions and investigating a suspicious land deal connected with the victim, Cashin gets the message from his superiors that he’d best let the matter drop. But Cashin is convinced the real culprit isn’t done yet.