Review: THE DIGGERS' REST HOTEL, Geoffrey McGeachin - audio book

• first published 2010
  
• #1 in the Charlie Berlin series
• Narrated by: Peter Byrne
• Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins 
• Unabridged Audiobook available at Audible
• earlier review
• Author website

 Synopsis (Audible)

In 1947, two years after witnessing the death of a young Jewish woman in Poland, Charlie Berlin has rejoined the police force a different man. Sent to investigate a spate of robberies in rural Victoria, he soon discovers that World War II has changed even the most ordinary of places and people. When Berlin travels to Albury-Wodonga to track down the gang behind the robberies, he suspects he's a problem cop being set up to fail.

Taking a room at the Diggers Rest Hotel in Wodonga, he sets about solving a case that no one else can - with the help of feisty, ambitious journalist Rebecca Green and rookie constable Rob Roberts, the only cop in town he can trust. Then the decapitated body of a young girl turns up in a back alley, and Berlin's investigations lead him ever further through layers of small-town fears, secrets and despair.The first Charlie Berlin mystery takes us into a world of secret alliances and loyalties - and a society dealing with the effects of a war that changed men forever.

My Take

I first read this novel long enough ago for me to have forgotten the finer plot details. Peter Byrne's narration is solidly done, but it is the author's detailed descriptions that place the reader firmly in post-war rural Victoria. McGeachin takes great pains to mention items and events which put us just after World War II.

In some ways Charlie Berlin is still suffering post-war trauma - events from his experience as a P.O.W. and as a bomber pilot keep sending him reminders. Wodonga is a country town still on war alert even thought the war is long over - a squad of local militia still train "just in case" and there are plenty of reminders of the war, including an army camp or two full of discarded weaponry, tanks, trucks and other vehicles.

But they are not the problem - a bunch of armed Harley Davidson riders is - they conduct raids on banks and other places holding money. The latest is the Wodonga Post office, although this is the first one where someone has been hurt.  Charlie Berlin is sent up from Melbourne to find out what is happening, but no-one expects him to succeed.

An excellent read, whether you tackle the audio book or a printed copy. And the start of an award winning Australian series. See below for the list of titles so far.

My rating: 4.8


Previous reviews
4.8, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL
4.9, BLACKWATTLE CREEK 
4.9, ST KILDA BLUES

Review: ST KILDA BLUES, Geoffrey McGeachin

• published by Penguin Books Australia, 28 May 2014
  
  
• ISBN 9780670075898
• #3 in the Charlie Berlin series
• advance review copy courtesy of publisher via Net Galley

Synopsis (Publisher)

Melbourne's first serial killer is at work and only one man can stop him.

It's 1967, the summer of love, and in swinging Melbourne Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin has been hauled out of exile in the Fraud Squad to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl, the daughter of a powerful and politically connected property developer. As Berlin's inquiries uncover more missing girls he gets an uneasy feeling he may be dealing with the city's first serial killer.

Berlin's investigation leads him through inner-city discothèques, hip photographic studios, the emerging drug culture and into the seedy back streets of St Kilda. The investigation also brings up ghosts of Berlin's past, disturbing memories of the casual murder of a young woman he witnessed in dying days of WW11.

As in war, some victories come at a terrible cost and Berlin will have to face an awful truth and endure an unimaginable loss before his investigation is over.

ST KILDA BLUES is the third novel in the Charlie Berlin series. Both previous novels, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL and BLACKWATTLE CREEK, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Fiction in 2011 and 2013 respectively.

My Take

There is such an assured hand behind these crime fiction novels from Australian author Geoffrey McGeachin. There are plenty of historical details to place this novel in 1967, and to anchor it firmly in Melbourne. 

It is twenty years since the first novel in the series and Charlie's son Peter has gone into the army, and his daughter Sarah has gone to Israel to learn more of her Jewish past. Charlie's wife Rebecca has become a well known photographer with her own studio in the CBD. There's plenty in the novel to fill in the details of what has happened in the Berlin family in that twenty years.

While there are those who recognise Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin's value to the Victorian Police force, there are also those who would love to see him fall flat on his face.

It appears that nine teenage girls have gone have gone missing in Melbourne in the last year. When number 3 was reported Charlie was taken off the case and sidetracked to the Fraud squad. Now somebody has decided that he should take over the investigation again, but on the quiet. The State Premier is Sir Henry Bolte, his own position on a knife edge, and he wants all stops pulled out. Only one of the girls who have gone missing has turned and she was found dead on the shores of the Albert Lake. An observant copper gives Charlie and his offsider Bob Roberts their first clue. 

There is a side story that surfaces in the first half of the novel about a boy who was sent to Australia from the UK shortly after the Second World War, as part of a child emigration scheme. He arrives in Adelaide and is then taken north to a mission station. This is an interesting plot line because the treatment of such children has been the focus of recent investigations, worldwide, into the way children were treated in orphanages. In Australia the investigation has provoked a Royal Commission into Child Abuse.

So there is plenty in this novel for the reader to think about. The historical validity owes a lot to meticulous research, while the principal characters come through loud and clear. There's also a distinctively Australian flavour to the novel.

My rating: 4.9


I've also reviewed
4.4, D-E-D DEAD!
4.8, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL
4.9, BLACKWATTLE CREEK 

2013 Ned Kelly Shortlists announced

http://austcrimewriters.com/content/2013-ned-kelly-awards

The following links are to the reviews created on Fair Dinkum Crime.

Best First Fiction

Steve Lewis & Chris Uhlmann ­ THE MARMALADE FILES
Zane Lovitt - THE MIDNIGHT PROMISE
Paul Anderson - THE ROBBERS
Sue Williams - MURDER WITH THE LOT
Andrew Grimes - THE RICHMOND CONSPIRACY

Best Fiction

Robert Gott - THE HOLIDAY MURDERS
Katherine Howell - WEB OF DECEIT
Geoffrey McGeachin - BLACKWATTLE CREEK
Adrian McKinty - I HEAR THE SIRENS IN THE STREET
Malla Nunn - SILENT VALLEY

The links below take you to various reviews

True Crime

Robin De Crespigny - THE PEOPLE SMUGGLER
Belinda Hawkins - EVERY PARENTS NIGHTMARE
Steve Lillebuen - THE DEVIL'S CINEMA
Derek Pedley - DEAD BY FRIDAY
Mark Tedeschi QC ­ EUGENIA

Review: BLACKWATTLE CREEK, Geoffrey McGeachin

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 404 KB
• Print Length: 253 pages
• Publisher: e-penguin (May 23, 2012)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0085G5AV0
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

From the winner of the 2011 Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel comes a cracking new Charlie Berlin mystery

The insane are running the asylum in this cracking new Charlie Berlin thriller.

It's September 1957, two days before the VFL grand final, and Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin finally has some time off. But there's no rest for this decent if damaged man, still troubled by his wartime experience as a bomber pilot and POW. A recently widowed friend asks a favour and he's dropped into something much bigger than he bargained for.

When he uncovers dubious practices at a Melbourne funeral parlour, it's quickly obvious that anyone asking questions is also asking for trouble. His offsider is beaten and left for dead, witnesses are warned off, Special Branch is on his case, and even Berlin's young family may be at risk.

His pursuit of the truth leads him to Blackwattle Creek, once an asylum for the criminally insane and now home to even darker evils. And if Berlin thought government machinations during World War II were devious, those of the Cold War leave them for dead . . .

A rattling good tale with a dry wit and a sobering core, Blackwattle Creek confirms Geoffrey McGeachin as one of our most entertaining and accomplished crime writers.

My Take

This is #2 in McGeachin's Charlie Berlin series and every bit as good as the first. It is set in 1957, 10 years after THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL; Charlie Berlin appears to be well established in the Victoria Police and working as a plain clothes detective out of Russell St. in Melbourne. The Olympics have been successfully held in Melbourne in 1956 and Australia is still reeling from the after effects, including having to accommodate Hungarian political refugees. The Australian government has agreed to allow British atomic scientists to carry out tests Maralinga near Woomera and the first were held just before the Olympics.

Charlie and his wife have a small family and now live in the Melbourne suburbs. At the beginning of the novel Charlie has been ordered to take some leave accrued during the Olympics. At the very beginning of his leave he gets sidetracked by a lying undertaker.

What I like about these novels is their feeling of historical authenticity and setting. I was a child in the 1950s and so many of the time markers McGeachin uses rang true for me: small things like Charlie polishing his children's shoes; the way the back yard is set up with the chook run and the vegetable plot; and the way his son Peter is storing up crackers for Bonfire Night under his bed. I think McGeachin is clever in his use of icons like these because it certainly gives the setting an appeal for my generation. I'm not sure it will work as well for an international audience.

McGeachin's style is laid-back and easy to read, Charlie Berlin's character is well developed, and his wife Rebecca is a good foil.

My rating: 4.9

See Bernadette's review

I've also reviewed:
4.4, D-E-D DEAD!
4.8, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL

Review: THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL, Geoffrey McGeachin

• Publisher:Viking (Penguin) 2010
• ISBN 978-0-670-07273-6
• 316 pages
• Source: my local library

Publishers Blurb (Penguin Australia)

In 1947, two years after witnessing the death of a young Jewish woman in Poland, Charlie Berlin has rejoined the police force a different man. Sent to investigate a spate of robberies in rural Victoria, he soon discovers that World War II has changed even the most ordinary of places and people.

An ex-bomber pilot and former POW, Berlin is struggling to fit back in: grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder, the ghosts of his dead crew and his futile attempts to numb the pain.

When Berlin travels to Albury-Wodonga to track down the gang behind the robberies, he suspects he's a problem cop being set up to fail. Taking a room at the Diggers Rest Hotel in Wodonga, he sets about solving a case that no one else can – with the help of feisty, ambitious journalist Rebecca Green and rookie constable Rob Roberts, the only cop in town he can trust.

Then the decapitated body of a young girl turns up in a back alley, and Berlin's investigations lead him ever further through layers of small-town fears, secrets and despair.
The first Charlie Berlin mystery takes us into a world of secret alliances and loyalties – and a society dealing with the effects of a war that changed men forever.

My take:

For me, Geoff McGeachin has hit on a winner with this new series and I hope we see more of Charlie Berlin. It appealed to me on several fronts - historical, crime fiction, Australia.

Set in post-war Australia, this time post World War Two, with a policeman returning to work in a world that will never be the same, THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL reminded me a lot of the Charles Todd series. Like Ian Rutledge in that series Charlie Berlin was in the police force before the war. Although the police force was an exempt trade he volunteered for service and was posted to the RAF in Britain. He took off on 30 missions over Germany, but, in his words, landed only 29 of them and ended up a P.O.W.
Now two years after the war he has returned to work, and found that those who didn't go are now in charge, in positions he should be occupying. He feels like a square peg in a round hole, and, like Rutledge, is sent from the city to the country to solve a crime. He is still suffering from post-war stress and has blackouts and nightmares. Like Rutledge too Charlie is met with local suspicion and hostility and demands for quick results from his superiors back in Melbourne.

McGeachin has taken care with the historical detail and it gives the novel a great feeling of authenticity. (You get the feeling that McGeachin is describing a world he knows well.) Berlin has come back to a world fractured by the war. Australian society is trying to absorb the returnees, women who took on men's jobs during the war are expected to relinquish them, and for some of the returned servicemen there is no work. There is no excitement either. Areas like Albury-Wodonga where THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL is set are littered with munitions and equipment from abandoned army camps and weapons stashes. Some of the ex-servicemen do not believe the government is doing what it should and private militias appear to provide an answer to many problems.

You can probably tell that I very much enjoyed Charlie Berlin's initial case and hope we see more.

My rating: 4.8

This is a very different novel to McGeachin's D-E-D DEAD! which I also reviewed.

Other reviews of THE DIGGERS REST HOTEL to check

• Weekly Times Now
• Good Reads

Geoff McGeachin's website

Review: D-E-D DEAD! Geoffrey McGeachin

Published by Viking (Penguin Group)2005
ISBN 0-670-02931-9
283 pages
Source: Local Library

From the back cover:
From the moment Alby drops his gun on a St. Kilda tram he knows he is in for a bad day. Then his partner Harry is gunned down in a Double Bay coffee shop. By lunchtime Alby realises someone wants him dead - and they want him dead now.

My take:

Alby Murdoch is a famous photographer working for WorldPix International, a front for an Australian ultra-secret government department  D-E-D, the Department for Extra-territorial Defence. He and his partner Harry are supposed to be doing the biannual positive vetting on US personnel at Bitter Springs, a US-Australian Joint Defence Facility out in the middle of nowhere. Harry it seems found something wrong with the CIA's list of 300 names and dates of birth of people working at the Springs.

On the surface D-E-D DEAD! has all the hallmarks of a conventional spy thriller - assassins, bombs, car chases, and the obligatory beautiful female CIA agent. But the irreverent and comedic treatment that emerges at times shows that it is a spoof. Alby and his new friend Mary Travers flee to Bali and hitch a boat ride to Broome.

An unconventional and enjoyable read if you don't mind a bit of Australian laconic humour and slang mixed into your thriller. Not entirely my cup of tea, but I still rated it at 4.4.

McGeachin's first novel, FAT, FIFTY & F***ED! won the inaugural Australian Popular Fiction Competition and was published by Penguin in August 2004.

D-E-D DEAD! introduced Alby Murdoch and was nominated for a Ned Kelly Award.
It was followed by SENSITIVE NEW AGE SPY in 2007, also nominated for a Ned Kelly Award.
In 2009 #3 DEAD AND KICKING was published.

I am including D-E-D DEAD! in my list for this year's Aussie Author Challenge