My book group's latest read was The Broken Shore by Peter Temple. A friend of mine's book group read the same book this month - I think its popularity was due to it winning the 2007 Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Best Crime Novel.
As usual, we were divided in our opinion of the book, almost 50/50. Those who disliked it, really disliked it. Those of us who liked it, were a bit mixed in our feelings, but liked it despite its flaws. As one member pointed out, the book is crammed with detail, to the point that it's a couple of books in one. Novel, detective novel, thriller? I found it hard keeping all the names straight in my mind. And I thought there was some gratuitous nastiness. But I found the main detective character very likeable, despite his cynicism. At one point I thought to myself, 'this is what the pomos mean by 'performing masculinity''. There was a lot of talking tough, to an unbelievable extent. Yet the scenes where he walks by the coast with his two giant poodles are beautiful. And it was interesting that the South-African-born Temple wrote a main character who is white but who has black relatives. The casual racism in the country town seemed very real.
Comments