From Text Publishing on 7th November 2008:
Peter Temple has been shortlisted for the Swedish Crime Writers Academy’s 2008 Martin Beck Award, for his multi-award-winning novel The Broken Shore(link is external).
One of the most prestigious international crime-writing prizes, the Martin Beck Award is given annually to the best crime novel in translation. The other shortlistees for the 2008 prize are John le Carré, Robert Harris, Deon Meyer and Andrea Maria Schenkel.
The award is named after Martin Beck, a fictional police detective in a Swedish crime novel series written by Sjöwall and Wahlöö. It was initiated in 1971 and has been won by such luminaries as Ruth Rendell, John Le Carré, Len Deighton and Alexander McCall Smith.
The winner will be announced on 30 November.
Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you've come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs. And sometimes think about how he was before.
Then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is bashed and left for dead. Everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community; everyone seems to want it to. But Cashin is unconvinced.
And as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go. Peter Temple's gift for compelling plots and evocative, compassionately drawn characters has earnt him a reputation as the grand master of Australian crime writing.
The Broken Shore is Temple's finest book yet; a novel about a place, about family, about politics and power, and the need to live decently in a world where so much is rotten. It is a work as moving as it is gripping, and one that defies the boundaries of genre.