Truth by Peter Temple
Quercus, £12.99
The Australian author Peter Temple is known in this country, if at all, for the series of novels featuring the private detective Jack Irish. Because this series revolves around horse racing, and because I am decidedly not a gambler, I have tended to avoid these books. All of which means that Truth came out of the blue as an absolute revelation to me. It is, quite simply, the best thriller I have read in years.
A simple plot synopsis sells the book well short of its true value – many lesser books have been constructed out of similar raw materials. In Melbourne, Steven Villani, a conflicted and flawed police inspector, is investigating murder and corruption in high places as a young prostitute is found dead in a hi-tech, high price apartment block. Villani regards himself, with ample reason, as an inadequate husband and father and feels that, as a cop, he has failed to live up to the standards of his mentor, Singleton. His relationship with his superiors is rocky and he commands varying levels of respect from his squad. He is, you will not be surprised to learn, terminally morose.
So far so generic. But what Temple does with this standard raw material is astonishing. Superb plotting, pinpoint-accurate characterisation, a claustrophobic atmosphere, complex relationships and shifting alliances combine to pull the reader into the story and actually to care about the outcome.
The use of dialogue in this novel is brilliant; spare, terse exchanges in which what is not said often outweighs what is. Temple has stripped back the language to the bare essentials, capturing both the macho culture of the police force and the underlying insecurities of his characters. The exchanges between Villani and his estranged father are especially good, revealing a lifetime of unspoken truths and unheard fears.
There is wisdom here far beyond that which is usually contained within the covers of the conventional police procedural thriller and the climax, as the bush fires in the outback threaten to encroach on the city itself, is masterful. Truth is a novel of the highest order, able to stand comparison with the best of any genre, and, as if that wasn’t reason enough to be cheerful, its predecessors, The Broken Shore and The Iron Rose, are equally good and equally free of racehorses. I know because, inspired by this book, the truth is that I went back and read the others as well. Enjoy!
Peter Whittaker
