Peter Temple (1) (1946–2018)

an Australian police procedural. Joe Cashin is a former member of the homicide squad in a city force; after a bad accident in the line of duty, which cost another officer his life, he's been assigned to run a station in a small coastal town where he knows the lay of the land from spending his childhood there. He suffers from chronic pain, PTSD, and survivor's guilt...the back story is parceled out to the reader in fragments as the main plot unfolds. A highly respected member of the community is found dead in his home, possibly the victim of a panicked burglar caught in the act. But a few things fail to add up for Cashin, whose suspicions prompt him to ask questions even his superiors don't want answers to. This is an intense and absorbing story, made a bit difficult for me at times by the uber-natural dialog between characters who clearly share history and inside jokes that might be more easily understood by Australian readers than American ones. (An Aussie slang glossary at the end of the book was helpful, but did not erase all the language mysteries for me.) Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed the rough ride, and everything came together in the end. This one is not for the faint of heart. Gritty, noir, very well done, but trigger warnings are warranted for graphic descriptions of mutilations, racial epithets, sexual abuse of children and general profanity. Some of these elements are ubiquitous throughout, and others come fairly late in the narrative, with the potential to take the reader somewhere they didn't expect to go.… (altro)