Kevin Price

* I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *

Art Lazaar teaches creative writing at a Perth university. He also has links to a shadowy spy agency that occasionally asks him to investigate matters on their behalf. He refers to this as his "poetic licence".

This story is set in the lead-up to the 2013 Federal election in Australia. Asylum seekers, specifically boat arrivals, are a huge and controversial issue that threatens to decide the election. In the midst of all this, a female asylum seeker escapes captivity and throws herself on the mercy of Hunter, a street-dweller who calls in Art to protect her.

The plot rapidly thickens, with a heavily influential political player putting pressure on Art to give up the girl, some gangsters putting pressure on Art to hand Hunter over to them, the local cops putting pressure on Art to get a murder solved, and his Vice-Chancellor putting pressure on Art to try and shove him out the door.

I enjoyed this book, because it captured the atmosphere of the 2013 election very well, as well as being a rattling good yarn. The book had a feeling of being a sequel to an earlier Art Lazaar book, but there is no such earlier book that I'm aware of. One of the minor characters appears in another book of Price's, which I thank I will try to track down.

It took me a little while to realise that the chapter headings are song titles, and I got some extra fun out of looking those up and compiling a "Poetic Licence" playlist.
… (altro)

Biographical account of an officer's service in combat operations conducted by one of the most inept armies ever placed into an almost impossible positions of meaningless occupation among people who could not appreciate the trouble taken to oppress them. Individual portraits of the American field officers and fighting men, during their service in the jungles of Viet Nam. Embracing accounts of battles, the unrelenting losses, frustration, anger, and fear experienced by a platoon of soldiers. Touches upon the thin membrane of hopes that steels men in extremis, and the "religion"-- entirely uninformed by any scripture or any experience of any divine being -- which a few men professed.… (altro)