Reece Pocock

"Part One

The Dump

Constable Mark Jenkins woke and gazed at the stars.

He sensed a presence and lifted his head.

Someone with large eyes was staring at him. Maybe he was dreaming. At first, Mark did not perceive the danger. A face, covered in night-vision glasses, sighted down the long barrel of a handgun. Something was odd, and then it hit him.

The weapon had a silencer."

The opening sequence of THE POLITICS OF MURDER continues from here for a few paragraphs, and then rapidly shifts focus to a Major Crime Squad in South Australia, leaving quite a few questions in the readers mind. "The Dump - what?" "Large eyes / night vision glasses / starlight - how?" and "Constable Mark Jenkins / Senior Constable Brian Cross (not included in the above quote) - who?"

Switching the focus from there to the Major Crimes Squad and more titled cops means that there's a lot happening in rapid succession. Obviously intended to get the reader hooked, and interested instantly. Which meant very much that the success or failure of THE POLITICS OF MURDER hinges on maintaining that interest and the hook living up to any potential flagged.

Unfortunately for this reader, it didn't. Starting out with a vaguely confusing "what" question, which didn't seem to get answered quickly enough to provide context, or a "how" question that didn't quite jell and a "who" which did eventually fall into place meant that from the start of this book, try as I might, I couldn't get with the program. Immediately it felt a bit like I was processing continuity problems, although it could simply be a question of taste, as I will plead a preference for less decoration and more cutting to the point (for example I'm not at all sure what the handset has to do with anything in the following quote).

But given that taste is so particular, if that opening and the start of Chapter One immediately following:

"The intercom sounded in the Major Crime Squad of the South Australian Police, Detective Sergeant Dan Brennan took the call. 'Will you and Mac step into my office, please?" said Detective Senior Sergeant Rachael Anderson.

'Okay', said Dan.

'As quickly as you can.'

Part Aboriginal Detective Senior Constable Ben McLean, known by all as just Mac, replaced the handset in the cradle.

Dan walked up and tapped him on the shoulder 'Rachael wants us.'"

appeal than this second book by SA based Author Reece Pocock should go on your reading list.… (lisätietoja)

If there's one thing I'm a huge fan of it's dialogue that's realistic. Crisp, authentic and realistic. That and plots and the behaviour of characters that are consistent.

MURDER ON DISPLAY is obviously based sort of loosely (very loosely in some parts) around true events in the not-too-distant past in Adelaide. A number of different elements from a number of different true life cases appear to have sort of been melded together to create the story of an Adelaide cop, DS Dan Brennan.

Therein lies a lot of the problem with MURDER ON DISPLAY as I'm not 100% sure which story was the point of the book in the end. Was it the piles of bodies building up in the Adelaide Hills (? some sort of Truro / Snowtown combination perhaps), something about the homosexual sub-plot (? the Family murders), or the attack on Brennan in a restaurant that killed his wife (by that time I'd given up drawing the lines with real-life crimes)?

Whilst I've got no problem at all with fictionalising facts, especially when it's pretty obvious that's what's going on, the problem is that you've got to tell a solid story along the way. Perhaps avoid some of the overblown crime fiction clichés doing the rounds like the unsupportive boss. But probably what didn't work for me most of all was some of the weird comments made by characters along the way - there seemed to be some sort of dissociative syndrome going on at points that just lost me completely and left me battling to maintain interest. Especially as problems with the dialogue and plot had already given me way too much to struggle with already.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/murder-display-reece-pocock… (lisätietoja)

What reviewers are forced to use for the "blurb" on this book is actually a prologue, a glimpse into events that took place three years earlier, that have become the driving force in Adelaide police investigator Detective Sergeant Dan Brennan's life.

Readers who live in Adelaide or who have taken an interest in the macabre events in Adelaide's recent past like the operations of the the "Family", the Truro murders and the "bodies in the barrels" cases will recognise the fictionalised background in this first novel from Reece Pocok. For me it was all a bit too close to the truth and not sufficiently original.

Where I thought it might have got a bit interesting was in the premise that the police might not have tracked down all the perpetrators of the earlier crimes - the culmination of which, the attack by the Flynn brothers on Dan Brennan and his wife at a restaurant, is the opening page, and the backcover blurb, for this novel. But the author seemed to lose sight of this thread and to embark on too many others.

The main story opens promisingly enough with the body of a the wife of a courtroom defence barrister being found in the parklands that surround the city. But then more bodies begin to turn up in nearby Kuitpo forest in the Adelaide Hills. The sniffer dogs turn up more in shallow graves and at that point it feels like the investigation is wallowing in blood, too much blood, not enough connecting threads. The main plot is complicated by the connections, homosexual and otherwise, between the police hierarchy and the judiciary. When the author tried to add a human interest to Dan Brennan's life, in the form a daughter who returns home and becomes an assistant to the pathologist, and then a relationship with one of his staff, he lost me.The narrative seems to get away from the author, and the twist at the end is quite bizarre.

In short, a novel with promising passages but not quite my cup of tea.… (lisätietoja)