Frank Calder is a bit of a maverick. Ex-cop / ex-soldier - current day "mediator". He's the sort of bloke that gets called in to sticky situations where unusual solutions are required. He's worked for the Carsons before. When a crazed gunman took store staff hostage, Frank wandered into the situation to save the hostages. Which he did. Quietly, efficiently and unusually.
So when Anne disappears on the way home from school and a ransom demand is received by the family, the Carsons again turn to Frank. He wants them to call in the police, but they did that once before and one of their own very nearly died. This time they want to do exactly what the kidnappers ask and once they have Anne back, they'll deal with the kidnappers themselves. Frank finds himself having to wade around in the families dirty French soap smelling laundry to get to the bottom of a possible motive.
SHOOTING STAR is classic Peter Temple. The prose is sparse, the central character is a bit of a maverick with a heart, he has connections, he uses them. The Carson families skeletons are all a bit on the unsurprising side - large, very wealthy families seem to have these little peculiarities, but the methods of uncovering them are fast, tight, and often quite funny.
All of the characterisations are interesting - Calder himself, his offsider Orlovsky, the Carson patriarch Pat, his sons, their sons, the wives, the granddaughters - the hired help. And throughout the story there are those standout little passages that you can expect from Temple - the observational points. Orlovsky as an immigrant in his own country, Calder as a man who only smokes when bad things are about to happen, Pat Carson and his whiskey bottle - all that money and that compound.
Wonderfully paced, with a good resolution, SHOOTING STAR is already a classic of Australian Crime fiction.
Shooting Star
Introduction by Adrian McKinty
Pat Carson’s old eyes were on me, looking for something.
‘Man is born unto trouble,’ he said.
I said, ‘As the sparks fly upwards.’
Deep lines at the corners of his mouth. ‘Know your Job. Soldier. Policeman. Haven’t been a bloody priest too, have you?’
Anne Carson: fifteen, beautiful, wayward. Abducted.
The rich Carsons have closed ranks and summoned Frank Calder, subject to strict instructions. This is not the first kidnapping in the Carson family and hard lessons have been learned.
But are the two events connected? And is greed the motivation? Revenge? Or could it be something else? To find out, Frank Calder must go beyond his brief.
And his every step into the darkness may end a girl’s life.
First published two decades ago, this standalone crime novel is Peter Temple at his brilliant best.
Add comment