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Summer is a great time to sit out on the balcony of a balmy daylight-savings evening and finally finish a few of the very many books I start throughout the year, then leave in an increasingly teetering pile by the bed to 'finish reading later'!
If you've never had the pleasure of meeting Jack Irish, perhaps this summer is the time to settle down with Peter Temple's wonderfully entertaining series of novels - Bad Debts, Black Tide, Dead Point and White Dog (all published by Text). Jack Irish is a Fitzroy-dwelling, old Studebaker-driving lawyer who's moved out of the sharp-suited Collins Street cut-and-thrust into the 'colourful' world of horseflesh, shady deals and the occasional murder investigation.
These are crime books with plenty of nods to the wise-cracking noir heroes (Chandler, Hammett et al), but their fast pace, Melbourne locations and wonderful attention to detail and sense of character make them so much more than just whodunnits: Temple is a master at using the conventions of the crime genre to reveal the corruption and deceit that always lie behind society's screens of decorum.
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