Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Despite widespread acclaim for his breakout novel The Broken Shore (2005), Temple's fine body of work has been only intermittently published in the U.S. Fortunately, Text Publishing last year began the welcome and long-overdue project of ensuring that Temple's entire backlist, which includes four Jack Irish novels and five stand-alones, is available on these shores. A Melbourne lawyer whose life went into a tailspin after a convicted client murdered his wife, Jack Irish now collects debts, helps horse-racing mastermind Harry Strang with gambling schemes, and tries to maintain his self-discipline and sobriety. In this series opener first published in 1996, Irish gets a message from a client he doesn't even remember representing during his drinking days. He fails to return the call, the ex-client is killed, and Irish's guilt that he may not have given the man the defense he deserved drives him to find out what happened. The trail leads to crooked real-estate deals and sexual scandals implicating high-ranking politicians, and, despite danger, setbacks, and mistakes of his own making, Irish is determined to see it through. There's a lot going on here. In addition to a main plot that would satisfy most crime novelists, Temple works in a thoroughly satisfying subplot in which Irish helps Strang with a plan to race a good, unknown horse at terrific odds, and, because Temple often gives his characters a handicraft, we learn something about woodworking as Jack plies a therapeutic apprenticeship at a cabinetmaking shop. (Irish's allegiance to an Australian-rules football team will be harder to follow for those unfamiliar with the sport.) Temple ties it all together with cool panache, his pace swift but not hurried, leaving time for delightful exchanges between his characters he writes terrific, deadpan banter and giving us a wintry sense of place that has nothing to do with our sunbaked stereotypes of the land Down Under. Irish is tough and resourceful, yes, but it's the way Temple brings out his fear, desire, humor, and self-doubt that ranks him among the most interesting series heroes. Read the seven-page opening chapter, as entertaining an introduction as you are likely to find in crime fiction, and you'll be hooked.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
