Robert GottRecensioni

If you're in the mood for some daft, light-hearted fun, Robert Gott's Naked Ambition may be just what you need to lift your spirits during this rather grim phase in our nation's psyche.

Briefly, the plot is this. A state politician called Gregory takes it into his head to commission his portrait from an ambitious artist intent on winning the Archibald Prize. The larger-than-lifesize portrait, when it is revealed to his startled family, shows him not in the obligatory suit with a tie in the party colours, and not in hail-fellow-well-met casual gear, but naked. Full frontal. Completely naked.

Even before the state premier Louisa Whitely makes a surprise visit to advise him that he's been elevated to the ministry because of some inopportune scandal about to derail the election campaign — there are objections to the mere existence of this portrait. His wife Phoebe, a PR agent, warns against the (pardon the pun) exposure of the portrait; and Joyce, his MIL, a Bible-bashing fundamentalist, thinks it's an abomination. His own mother Margaret amuses herself by sardonically baiting the religious fanatic, and his sister Sally (the only one who knows anything about the cutting-edge reputation of the artist) isn't impressed by depictions of the naked male because she's gay. (Yes, the comedy does rely on stereotypes. The clodhopper copper is another one, completely unfair to the detective who lives next door to me, she's as sharp as a razor.)

The repartee between this lot is full of witty one-liners, which ramp up when the painting is stolen. Who by? Hardly anybody knows about its existence. What's to stop photos of it going viral if it's got into the wrong hands? And how can the artist be placated when the work she's created to win a valuable prize goes missing?

Amid the chuckles, we might ponder some of the questions raised by this comic novel.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/05/25/naked-ambition-2023-by-robert-gott/

If you’ve ever wondered what a crime novel written by Noel Coward might be like, Naked Ambition could provide some clues.  Review at Newtown Review of Books

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from a detective story written by a cartoonist, especially the creator of the rather quaint Naked Man cartoons. I guess I expected something frothy and a bit risqué, like the Phryne Fisher books. I did not expect this; a rather gruesome story set in wartime Melbourne, with a psychopathic Nazi at its core.

Inspector Titus Lambert heads up the newly-formed Homicide division of the Victorian police. On Christmas Eve, Lambert's holiday plans are wrecked when he receives a call to a mansion in East Melbourne. There he encounters a brutal double murder: a young man killed in the living room in the style of the Crucifixion, and his father upstairs, shot in the bath.

Lambert very soon finds himself at loggerheads with Military intelligence: one of the victims was an intelligence agent. MI demand that Lambert give them his sergeant, Joe Sable, to help investigate the Nazi sympathisers that they are sure are behind the murders. Lambert is unhappy with this, given wartime manpower shortages. He is forced to supplement his team with (shock, horror!) a woman - Constable Helen Lord.

Gott's police procedural is certainly intriguing in terms of its setting and concept; there are a few wartime detective stories around, but i can't recall anything set in wartime Melbourne. Gott's descriptions of Melbourne and surrounds are very accurate, and recognisable even today. However there are some problems with this book. Lambert is improbably modern in his attitudes towards women, fostering Lord's career over her male superior in Sable, and running all of his investigations past his wife, even when covered by Official Secrets. The Jewish Sergeant Sable somehow manages to forget that Hanukkah is going on during the investigation; this simply never comes up, which seems an oversight, given the character and title. The right wing group's name - Our Nation - is cutely close to that of a modern right wing group. Gott also telegraphs his punches quite a bit, there aren't really a lot of surprises and the ending is all a bit too neat. These flaws mar the book, but I still think that I'll give the next book in this series a whirl, just to see how Gott develops his promising concept.

At the beginning of this book a synopsis of each of the three preceding titles in the series appears. I hadn't read them all, but it did serve me to bring me "up to speed".

The novel is a reminder that strange and violent crimes continue even when a country is at war, and so there is need of a police force and even private investigators. Helen Lord and Joe Sable, once part of the Victoria Police's Homicide squad, are now private investigators, but they keep in close touch with their former boss, Inspector Titus Lambert. The other main characters are Tom McKenzie, a former pilot, and Clara Dawson, a doctor at the Melbourne Hospital.

There are a number of linked plots in the book, which makes for interesting reading. For example Tom returns to work to undertake surveillance of a man married to woman in Japan, and therefore under suspicion of espionage. Clara's boss is a doctor who despises female doctors, and she is befriended by his wife. The main plot is the murders that take place in Nunawading on a farm next to one run by a sect.

Between them the plots paint a strong picture of life in Melbourne towards the end of World War II.

Highly recommended. Very readable.½

The fourth book in Robert Gott’s ‘Murders’ series frees its cast from the constraints of the newly formed Homicide Squad and plunges them straight into a baffling case that threatens many of their number. Full review at Newtown Review of Books

This is the third book in a series, and I had read only the second.

The setting is Melbourne 1944. Detective Joe Sable of the Melbourne Homicide division is a Jew and has already paid a penalty for that status in a severe beating at the hands of George Starling and an arson attack on his flat. News of how Hitler is treating Jews in Europe is filtering into Australia but the average citizen finds it very hard to believe.

Although there is a shortage of good detectives there is little belief that women can make good police officers or detectives and already Constable Helen Lord has been suspended from Homicide. Most of the men staffing Homicide are hardly the cream of the crop although Inspector Titus Lambert is a good policeman and a good administrator.

Recognising talent in Joe Sable, Lambert has promoted him to Sergeant causing resentment among other detectives.

And now a prominent Melbourne business man, Peter Lillee is dead, apparently murdered.

For those who haven't read the earlier two books in the series, the author has provided helpful plot summaries to bring you up to scratch. Be sure to read them.

I thought this book took a little while to get going but then I thoroughly enjoyed it. It brought home to me many effects of the war on Australian society.½

As per the blurb, this is a series that started out with THE HOLIDAY MURDERS, then came THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS and now THE AUTUMN MURDERS. At this point it's very much a series that needs to be read in order, as the back story here is really going to be important to a reader understanding the implications of George Starling's plans for revenge.

Starling is a very different sort of villain for Robert Gott to be tackling. He's almost all consuming, particularly in THE AUTUMN MURDERS, and whilst there are the good guys, Detective Joe Sable and Constable Helen Lord in particular, their stories take a bit of a back seat to the all consuming evil that is George Starling. It's also pretty easy to assume that in the 1940's the passion for Nazism wasn't as prevalent here, particularly in the country towns of Australia. Can't help feeling that's the same mistake we're all making again. It's novels like THE AUTUMN MURDERS that help to provide an important reminder that it doesn't take much when it comes to radicalisation, and the pathways to it, and support for it, are often found in mania and mindless following of all sorts of "doctrines". This is an aspect of Gott's writing in this series that I've increasingly come to respect - he's able to tease out the worse excesses of human nature in an low key, almost mannered way, making it all the more sobering, without losing those delicate touches of wit and irony that he's particularly good at.

But mannered, and stylish this whole series has been, although THE AUTUMN MURDERS is more gruesome, more dark and sobering than either of the earlier novels. Perhaps because Starling, his obsessions, his violence and his ruthlessness take such focus away from the better people in the world. Joe Sable and his personal demons, Helen Lord and her difficulties being accepted as a woman in the police force, Titus Lambert and his wife and their support, care and affection for each other, and his staff and friends. Even Helen Lord's personal life comes under direct attack in this outing, and the consequences of a change in her personal circumstances seem likely fodder for upcoming novels in this most excellent historical crime fiction series from one of the genuinely nice authors in the Australian scene.

(American readers note: Robert Gott will be with Sulari Gentill, Emma Viskic and Jock Serong as part of "On the Run, Australian Crime Writers in America tour" to be in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Arizona, Texas and at Bouchercon in October / November 2019 - follow any of them on social media for details (not Robert - it seems he's social media allergic, wise man that he is....)).

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/autumn-murders-robert-gott

William Power has been "resting" for a long time now, so his re-emergence in THE SERPENT'S STING is a relief for all concerned. For those that haven't read the first three books in this series (GOOD MURDER, A THING OF BLOOD and AMONGST THE DEAD), Shane Maloney described Power thus:

Literature has had its share of heroes, heroes of many kinds: classic heroes, super heroes, accidental heroes, flawed heroes, anti-heroes. And now, at last, it has a dickhead hero.

Readers would be hard-pressed to miss the tongue firmly implanted in authorial cheek in this series. In THE SERPENT'S STING William and his brother Brian are back in Melbourne after their war efforts in the Northern Territory, back to the bosom of home and their loving mother Agnes ... and her inconvenient beau Peter Gilbert and his own children. There's quite a bit of history to this little family tableau, given enough context in this outing to allow new reader's into the secrets.

It also isn't going to take too long for new readers to pick up on the substance behind Maloney's characterisation of William Power. He's gloriously, wonderfully, completely and totally self-involved. As much as he fancies himself a great Shakespearean actor, it's very hard to get that line Richard II out of your head "Infusing him with self and vain conceit". Yet, as surprising as this might seem, there's something touching and quite endearing about William Power. For all his self-regard and self-centeredness, always there's a sneaking suspicion that William is as aware as anybody else that "one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

Obviously character plays a huge part in the William Power series. Despite William being at the core of everything, with his voice being the main perspective into the bargain, his brother Brian, his mother Agnes, Peter Gilbert and his family manage to hold their own in comparison. Somehow they manage to form personalities of their own - perhaps because they so often disappoint or confuse William himself.

Because of the time at which these books are set, all the plots revolve around aspects of life in Australia during the Second World War, always with a strong local connection. This novel creates an particularly curly domestic scenario interwoven with the fallout from the killing spree of Eddie Leonski - the notorious "Brownout Strangler"; the presence of American Serviceman in Melbourne and the changes in society that are concomitant with the pressures of war. It also uses realistic feeling locations around Carlton and the inner city for most of the action to take place in - with casual insertions of walking through parks, past cemeteries and to and from the city to give a real sense of place and atmosphere.

The interweaving of war work and the world of the theatre is elegantly presented, and at the heart of it all there is the wonderful William Power. Of course wonderful is understating his magnificence - as I'm sure he'd assert should you meet in a darkened post-theatre bar, preferably after a performance of high culture and wit. As opposed to the vaudeville and pantomime that alas, even an actor of William Power's worth, has been forced to sink. 

Look for the sly sense of humour in these books (which frequently tipped over into outright laughter for this reader), and past the bombastic outer shell of William Power, because THE SERPENT'S STING is a worthy addition to a series of novels that must come highly recommended. 

The story is set in Melbourne during WWII.
A murder/suicide is investigated by the homicide department, but it quickly becomes obvious that things are not how they've been set up.
Joe Sable, a young detective, gets involved in an investigation that follows a group of thugs heavily involved in National Socialism trying to make their way in the grey area of Australian politics of the time.
I've read others of Robert Gott's books that I've enjoyed more. The story is quite nasty and brutal and while the protagonists are interesting, you seem to be following caricatures of thugs around.
Interesting twist at the end though.

I've discovered that this is the first novel by Robert Gott that I've read. THE HOLIDAY MURDERS was shortlisted for Best Fiction on the Ned Kelly Awards, but somehow I just never got around to reading it. As THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS is a sequel to that title, and the plot takes in some unfinished business from it, it is probably best to read them in order, but obviously I haven't done that. There are plenty of hints about what happened in the first title, and the characters are well developed.

There are some interesting features to the plot of THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS: the historical setting of 1943 which is not only during the Second World War, but also a time when women were not generally employed by Victoria Police except as secretarial staff; the rural location of the murder site; it allows the author not only to explore the restrictions imposed by the war, but attitudes in the general population.

The author has left plenty of room for a sequel, for while we know who committed the various murders, there is still some unfinished business.½

The sequel to "The Holiday Murders", the first book in this series, this novel picks up shortly after the events of that first story. The main characters, Inspector Titus Lambert, and his two subordinates, Constable Helen Lord and Sergeant Joe Sable, are still suffering the effects of those brutal events that occurred at the end of "The Holiday Murders".
Two threads run through the story. One follows George Starling who escaped from police clutches in the earlier book. He is both a hunter and the hunted. Although the police are looking for him, George wants to wreck vengeance on Joe and Helen for being a major part in the downfall of the Nationalist group and his mentor.
The second strand, involves domestic lives and tensions in a Port Fairy. Families and small towns have always been more complicated than it seems on the surface.

The author paints an authentic picture of what life was like in Melbourne and country Victoria (Port Fairy and Warrnambool) during the second World War. The attitudes of people towards women in the workforce and well-established prejudices especially religious tensions, between Catholics and Protestants and attitudes towards intellectual disabilities, homosexuality and
The characters in this story are interesting and the historical and political setting is very well established. The tension around whether or not George Starling will succeed is compelling. The Port fairy murders take quite a while to happen and the final dénouement interesting.
It is a good read but better if you have read the first installment and there is certainly enough left for more about the burgeoning Homicide Department of the Victorian Police.½

The first book, THE HOLIDAY MURDERS marked a change in series, but not style, for author Robert Gott. Much of this author's crime fiction writing has concentrated on historical time periods, in particular around the second world war.

This reader was very impressed with the first book. It introduced a range of new characters in the newly formed Homicide department of Victoria Police, from Inspector Titus Lambert (and his wife), Detective Joe Sable and Constable Helen Lord. Events from that book physically and mentally scar Joe Sable, scars that he carries forward, along with a serious threat, into THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS.

Linking the small seaside town of Port Fairy on Victoria's Coastline with the team back in Melbourne are elements of the very real threat that the villain George Starling poses, as he hides away there, plotting and planning finishing the job he started in the first book.

"George Starling hated jews, women, queers, coppers, rich people, and his father. He loved Adolf Hitler and Ptolemy Jones. Hitler was in Berlin, a long way from Victoria, and Jones was dead. He knew Jones was dead because he stood in the shadows and watched the coppers bring his body out of a house in Belgrave. One of those coppers had been a Jew named Joe Sable and that meant one thing, and one thing only - Joe Sable's days were numbered."

Which he nearly manages to achieve late one night in Melbourne. The second connection emerges when a brutal double murder happens in Port Fairy, which allows Lambert to put Sable and Lord into that town, the investigation and inadvertently the firing line yet again.

There are many strong elements from the earlier book that carry forward to this one. Gott draws a very detailed and yet entertaining portrait of war-time Country Victoria and Melbourne. The example of Lord's difficulties as a woman in the police force nicely illustrates the attitude of workforce participation prevalent at the time. The behaviour of the branches of an established family in Port Fairy a particularly telling demonstration of the outcomes of snobbery and favouritism.

"She didn't have a much higher opinion of her niece. She was pretty, but insufficiently interested in her appearance to do herself justice. Her voice was irremediably awful, beyond surgical help because it wasn't just a question of adenoids. Timbre, tone and pitch were all off."

"Her feelings about her nephew, Matthew, were, if not extreme, at least extravagant. She adored him. He was beautiful - others less smitten admitted to his being good-looking, nothing more - and his decision to live within minutes of her had raised her flagging spirits."

Even the way that the main suspect in the double murder in Port Fairy is an intellectually handicapped man, gives the author the opportunity of drawing out the way that some society and families reacted to people with disabilities at the time.

The action, however, does move backwards and forwards between the investigation in Port Fairy and the threat to Joe Sable posed by George Starling. Unfortunately this leads to one of the major downfalls of THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS in that the two elements never seem to quite jell, spending instead a lot of time competing for attention. Whilst there's something inevitable about the double murder investigation (and not just because the reader knows the truth right from the outset), the potential for Starling to succeed also seems quite high. That threat is constantly being shifted around in focus to allow for much rushing backwards and forwards between Melbourne and Port Fairy, and a series of rather odd coincidences that are a tad heavy handed in execution.

Frankly the Port Fairy component didn't seem to contribute an awful lot to the overall story. The threat of Starling, the investigation of his activities, the further exploration of Sable's Jewish background and the affect that will have on him as well as the expansion of the bone-headed behaviour of so many towards women in the workplace were really involving. The complications of Lord's personal life and how her work impacts on her home life, particularly when Sable needs somewhere to live were particularly engaging. That background, and the search for Starling had some sense of genuine threat and menace to them, and it felt like they could have supported a larger concentration. At the very least, there was something more to say there than some daft old lady with a fetish for a loser nephew to the exclusion of her obviously well-meaning niece, all of which came with a sense of overwhelming inevitability. By the end of this book it was hard to ignore the big question, which was why somebody hadn't done away with many of that family a lot earlier.

Having said all of that, there's enough here to make you wonder if THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS is "the difficult second book" that's got some positioning of characters sorted out, kept a major element of threat in play, set up some ongoing relationships and provided a path into "the series moves forward third book".

This reader certainly hopes so. For the elements of THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS that did disappoint, these are still such an interesting group of characters, and the historical background is so informative, you'd hope there's a further outing in the works.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-port-fairy-murders-robert-gott-0

This novel is very much linked to its predecessor which probably explains why the author has included a helpful summary of the first novel at the beginning of this one. When it opens the main characters are all still reeling from the brutal events that ended the first book, two in particular are struggling with the physical and psychological damage inflicted on them by Nazi sympathisers. One of the people responsible for that brutality is George Starling who eluded police then and is now set on finishing off the job he started and generally causing havoc and death. To that end he is on the trail of Joe Sable, a sergeant with the newly formed Victorian homicide squad and a man Starling didn’t quite manage to kill in the first novel.

In a completely separate thread we meet a Port Fairy family. There’s an elderly lady with a mentally disabled brother and their adult niece and nephew. In a manner that resembles the Golden Age of detective fiction the novel takes the time to establish these characters and their small community with its religious and social tensions before ripping apart the family with a brutal death or two. Although it is an interesting thread in its own right there is no real connection between this story and the hunt for George Starling, aside from the fact that the homicide squad are involved with both investigations, which gives the book a slightly disconnected feel.

The characters are a real strength of this novel. The way Joe Sable is dealing with his feelings of guilt over the events depicted in the first novel combined with his dawning awareness of what it means to be Jewish make him compelling. One of his colleagues is Helen Lord who is struggling to be taken seriously. Although her boss recognises her skills and intelligence almost everyone else thinks she is good for not much more than making cups of tea. We see more of Helen outside the office in this installment and learn something of her family history and see her complicated relationship with her mother. I also found the family at the heart of the Port Fairy thread engaging in a ‘my family’s not so bad after all‘ sort of way.

I really like the way Robert Gott writes and puts together a story. The combination here of using an interesting time period in our history, filling it with compelling characters and telling a story that unfolds in unexpected ways makes THE PORT FAIRY MURDERS an above average read. I’d recommend the book to anyone but do think it would make for a more satisfying reading experience after having read the first novel in the series.

Set over the Christmas to New Year holiday period at the end of 1943 the book opens with police being called to a crime scene. Xavier Quinn has been brutally tortured and murdered by, on first appearances, his father John who subsequently committed suicide. However it is soon clear that both men were murdered though a motive for the gruesome crime is not immediately obvious. Mary Quinn, Xavier’s sister, is an actress in radio dramas and has discovered the bodies on coming home from work with her friend Sheila. She can’t seem to provide the police with any leads as to who might have committed the awful crime though she does admit that the family was not close. She describes Xavier as a religious zealot of unsound mind who didn’t really communicate with anyone while she and her father were at odds over her choice to work as an actress. The police wonder if there might be some religious motive to the crimes but then discover some reading material that suggests a political motive. This in turn leads to the involvement of the military’s Intelligence boffins and leads the investigation into the path of Australia’s very own (and very real) Nazi-sympathising fascists.

It’s difficult to know where to start with the list of things I loved about this book but I think the characters (just) edge out everything else as my favourite element of the novel. Titus Lambert is the Inspector in charge of Victoria’s newly established Homicide squad though with manpower shortages the squad is not teeming with numbers. He is an unorthodox fictional detective in several ways, most notably due to his very happy marriage. Indeed his wife, Maude, is really an extra member of his squad as he discusses all his cases with her and, on occasion, even shows her evidence. This could have come across as hokey but Gott does a great job of making the relationship seem very realistic, to the point that I did wonder if it isn’t a jolly good idea to have married police detectives. Rather than having a host of awful memories and images turning him into the usual angst-ridden, alcoholic mess Lambert is able to share his burden and also gain a fresh, intelligent perspective on the cases he confronts. It seems eminently sensible.

The Homicide squad is rounded out by freshly trained Sergeant Joe Sable who is keen but lacks confidence and some of the skills he needs and Constable Helen Lord who seems more suited to the role but as a woman is ineligible to rise any further in the ranks. She is, not unreasonably, a little bitter about this and sometimes her frustration affects her work. Joe is Jewish, though without a very religious upbringing, and is struggling to come to terms with the news that has started to come out of Europe regarding the Nazis’ treatment of the Jewish people. His feelings of guilt and impotence over this lead him to jump at the chance to assist the Intelligence people with the infiltration of a local group suspected of having National Socialist sympathisers and this work, in turn, tests his loyalties to Lambert and the Homicide team.

Early on we meet the menacing brute responsible for the murders but, rarely, this doesn’t lessen the tension and suspense of the novel for readers. Partly this is because we’re worrying who will be the next victim and partly because this isn’t one of those books in which you know the police will triumph over the bad guys. The depiction of the band of hate-filled bigots for whom violence comes as naturally as breathing is all the more chilling because Gott not only makes you believe in these particular fictional people but also that they have real life counterparts, even today. But not all the bigots are Romper Stomper style thugs; the book forces readers to reflect more generally on the many insidious small ways that bigotry was, and is still, allowed to flourish in the wider community.

In addition to all of this the novel has an authentic historical feel, with loads of references to real world people and events and a million little details that make you feel as if you’ve been transported back in time, and a thoroughly gripping plot. Every time I thought I had worked out how things would resolve another element or twist came to light and the resolution, which I stayed up long past my bed time to get to, was a stunner. I’m hopeful this is the first of a series of novels featuring these characters and I highly recommend it.

Robert Gott’s GOOD MURDER is, if you need a genre label, a comic historical caper. It introduces William Power, possibly the world’s most out-of-place Shakespearean actor, who in 1942 is touring rural Queensland while war wages across the globe. He and his fellow actors, touring under the name of the Power Players, are able to engage in their artistic pursuits because most are physically disabled in some way, with Will’s own flat feet being the least disfiguring ailment, and the remaining members are just plain unsuitable for conscription (one is a woman, the other ‘a queer’). With an allotment of fuel coupons they are allowed to drive the country bringing entertainment to the masses, though it seems from the outset that the people of Maryborough would much rather visit the circus or see a popular play than Will’s planned production of Titus Andronicus.

Amidst searching for lodgings and a suitable venue for their performances and undertaking rehearsals and some alarming alterations to the script to account for the number and limitations of the actors on hand, Will and his fellow actors quickly become embroiled in the town’s activities. In return for a reduced room rate one of the troupe takes over cooking duties at a run-down hotel and Will squires a young local girl to the pictures. Unfortunately for Will the girl, Polly Drummond, disappears soon after his date with her and when her body is discovered in the local water tower Will is the prime suspect in her murder. He is not overly surprised at the suspicion of the police and other locals but is a bit put out by his own troupe’s seeming willingness to accept his guilt. In attempting to clear his name he spirals further and further into desperate farce as the bodies, and the evidence of his guilt, mount.

Will isn’t a traditionally sympathetic character, being somewhat arrogant, self-absorbed and even dimwitted at several key moments. But his biting humour alleviates the worst of his traits and I couldn’t help fut feel sorry for his various predicaments. That a man with ambitions of producing memorable Shakespeare should end up playing in a still-operating skating rink in the cultural wasteland that probably was rural Queensland in 1942 seems a harsh punishment just for being a bit of a narcissist. The fact it is his own lack of social skills that provides most of the reasoning behind him becoming an object of suspicion is something I can personally empathise with.

There are a lot of other characters in the novel, almost too many really for any to really shine, who collectively add local colour and some depth to the story. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Peter Topaz, the one local cop who doesn’t make snap judgements about Will’s guilt, though Will’s most trusted fellow actor Arthur (who has only one arm and one testicle) is also quite engaging. There is a melancholic overtone to his relationship with Will towards the end of the novel when Will is quick to suspect Arthur’s own role in things criminal and fails to see the irony of his own rush to judgement after having been on the receiving end of similar vilification. I liked the fact that Will didn’t suddenly shed is self-absorption or suddenly develop psychological insights beyond is capabilities as might have happened if this were a different kind of novel.

GOOD MURDER’s atmospheric depiction of wartime Australia alone is worth reading it for, offering a myriad of small details that bring the period alive. The various means people have of circumventing austerity measures imposed by the government, the way some towns thrived due to being able to provide infrastructure for the war effort and the many ways that normal life goes on regardless of the dire state of world affairs all play out here. Its combination of satire and farce won’t appeal to everyone but if you do like that kind of humour and can handle a bit of judiciously placed crude language then I highly recommend this novel.

Ok. Liked the references to an older Melbourne but really didn't gell with the lead character or anyone else in the book. Maybe the mother and brother? Couldn't believe that the lead character could be so stupid and not end up in more trouble than he did. Too many loose ends. Loved the artwork on the cover.

This title was reviewed for the Newtown Review of Books

This novel of murder and military intelligence in wartime Melbourne is inspired by history.

While The Holiday Murders isn’t, sadly, a new William Powell book, Robert Gott has delivered another masterful crime novel steeped in Australia’s past.

For the full review: http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2013/02/26/crime-scene-robert-gott-the-holiday-m...

Title: AMONGST THE DEAD
Author: Robert Gott
Publisher: Scribe
Edition released: April 2007
ISBN: 978-1-921215-24-7
270 pages
Review by: Karen Chisholm

AMONGST THE DEAD is the third novel in Robert Gott's William Power series. William is an "aspirational" but failed Shakespearean actor, turned Private Investigator who finds himself in very unusual circumstances in the Top End of Australia during World War II in AMONGST THE DEAD.

William and his brother Brian are called upon by Australian Military Intelligence to find out the truth behind the suspicious deaths in a crack, very secret squad. William, of course, thinks, that they need him for his superior powers of detection, and because they are to be infiltrated into the squad as part of an entertainment troupe. The North Australia Observer Unit (or Nackaroo's) are a small group of soldiers and their Aboriginal assistants who patrol the Top End of the country, watching for any sign of the Japanese invasion from the Islands of the South Pacific into the Australian Mainland. Intelligence believes that the deaths of three Nackaroo's were highly suspicious, but the level of secrecy of the NAOU means that they cannot trust the investigation to just anybody, and when it comes to somebody stroking his ego, William will volunteer for just about anything.

William is not sure if it helps or complicates the investigation when they discover their third brother - Fulton - is a member of the suspect squad. The inclusion of the entertainment troupe is further complicated by the fact that William's Shakespearean recitation is not exactly the entertainment most appreciated by the troops and that doesn't help William's overall mood, somewhat strained already by the persistent rain, mould, heat, mud, long days walking through the Top End bush, encounters with Crocodiles, Dengue Fever, and murder.

AMONGST THE DEAD has a lovely comic twist with William Power undoubtedly being one of the most over-developed "theatrical" egos doing the rounds. He is, unfortunately, also a bit of a twit, which means that his concept of solving the deaths of the soldiers and two more deaths in the squad after he and Brian arrive, seems to involve a lot of blundering around, an awful lot of shooting his mouth off at the most inappropriate times and an enormous chunk of the investigation feeling well sorry for himself. He also, alas, can't see the woods for the trees, and when he is ultimately accused of killing the two men who died after he arrived, rather than see the wood for what it is, he's too busy feeling righteously indignant followed by madly accusing everyone else around him, to really see what's going on.

Of course, the point of AMONGST THE DEAD is that William doesn't really solve anything - he's the method by which other people sort out a mess that has to be sorted out. But the book doesn't suffer at all from this variance from the norm in crime fiction - if anything it adds a different dimension. In William you have a "hero" that you can truly laugh at - that you just want to sidle up to and whisper "dear me, old chap, put down the Shakespeare script, have a peek over the chip on your shoulder and I suspect you'll see something to your advantage". Having said that - he's marvelously awful - you just can't disagree with Shane Maloney's quotation on the press release. "Literature has had its share of heroes, heroes of many kinds: classic heroes, super heroes, accidental heroes, flawed heroes, anti-heroes. And now, at last, it has a dickhead hero".

The fatally over-confident hero of Good Murder returns to pit his meagre detective skills against military intelligence, belligerent in-laws, a town full of Gis and a creepy conspiracy to bring on an Australian sectarian nightmare. Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private detective Will Power returns to Melbourne in disgrace after his disastrous brush with theatre and murder in Maryborough. Bloodied, broken but somehow unbowed, he arrives in a town struggling under war rationing and full of cocky American soldiers, and lands squarely in the bosom of his childhood home in Carlton - a home now dominated by his sister-in-law, the odious Darlene.
But even Will's contempt is tempered when, in the early hours of the morning Darlene is kidnapped, and Will finds his mother's kitchen splattered with blood and scattered with broken crockery. Needing to escape the maternal home and the growing police investigation, Power rents a room in the spacious, Parkville home of wealthy, charismatic, and obsessively neat Paul Clutterbuck and is introduced to his strange society of bohemians, black marketeers and neanderthal henchmen. Will Power is fascinated - but before he can begin to enjoy his new home, a savage murder is discovered. Just when modesty and good sense threaten to intervene, Will realises that only he can solve the murder, the mystery of his kidnapped sister-in-law, and save the nation from impending catastrophe. A Thing of Blood is a brilliant, wry sequel which perfectly recreates the tension and fear of wartime Australia.

It'€™s 1942, and war is raging in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese army is on Australia'€™s doorstep, and the small coastal Queensland town of Maryborough is on full war footing. The engineering plant is churning out battleships, and pilots are being trained at the airbase. The people are prepared to meet Hirohito'€™s army head on. What they are not prepared for is the arrival in the town of a troupe of incompetent actors whose over confident leader, William Power, is determined to bring his daring production of Titus Andronicus to the barbarians of rural Australia.

Unfortunately for the Power Players, the only gift William Power has is a capacity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When a young woman goes missing and is found floating dead in the town’s water supply, Power becomes the prime suspect in her murder. With every misplaced step he takes, he becomes more and more embroiled in a series of crimes which baffle the police and horrify the locals. Having no confidence in the constabulary, Power decides that his only option is to solve the crimes himself. His acting skills are not good; his detection skills are worse. As he stumbles towards a solution and as his injuries mount up, he never wavers in his belief that he alone can bring the killer to justice. But, with every day that passes, he tightens the noose around his own neck until, on the night of a violent storm, everything changes. And not for the better.