The Broken Shore: A Novel

Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction (Australia)

Peter Temple is currently being hailed as the finest crime writer in Australia, but it won't be long before he is recognized as what he really is — one of the nation's finest writers, period. Born in South Africa, Temple is writing a dynamic kind of literary thriller that ultimately defies classification.

The Broken Shore, his eighth novel, revolves around big-city detective Joe Cashin. Shaken by a scrape with death, he's posted away from the Homicide Squad to the quiet town on the South Australian coast where he grew up. Carrying physical scars and more than a little guilt, he spends his time playing the country cop, walking his dogs, and thinking about how it all was before. But when a prominent local is attacked in his own home and left for dead, Cashin is thrust into what becomes a murder investigation. The evidence points to three boys from the nearby aboriginal community — everyone seems to want to blame them. Cashin is unconvinced, and soon begins to see the outlines of something far more terrible than a burglary gone wrong.

Winner of the Colin Roderick Award for Australian writing as well as Australia's major prize for crime fiction, the Ned Kelly Award, The Broken Shore is a transfixing and moving novel about a place, a family, politics and power, and the need to live decently in a world where so much is rotten.

"Consider the opening paragraph of Peter Temple's novel 'The Broken Shore' and what we learn from it:

'Cashin walked around the hill, into the wind from the sea. It was cold, late autumn, last glowing leaves clinging to the liquidambars and maples his great-grandfather's brother had planted, their surrender close. He loved this time, the morning stillness, loved it more than spring.'

... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) We don't know who this Cashin is or how he makes his living or even what country he's in. We do know that he lives near the sea, on land his family has owned for several generations, and that he loves the outdoors. What we've really learned, if we are attuned to such matters, is not about Cashin but about his creator: Peter Temple can write, can make magic with words. Of course, if we're not thus attuned, the paragraph will seem pointless and we'll either toss the book aside or start skimming ahead in search of action.

There is, in fact, a great deal of action ahead — murder, rape, suicide, child abuse, police brutality, shootouts — but always in the context of gorgeous writing. The novel is in fact an exceptional blending of first-rate crime fiction and a literary sensibility. This does not come entirely as a surprise. Temple isn't well known in this country, but in Australia, where he lives, 'The Broken Shore' has already won the Ned Kelly Award for crime fiction, as did four of his previous novels.

Joe Cashin is a big-city detective who has been sent to the quiet little town of Port Monro, on the south Australian coast, to recover from serious injuries inflicted by a madman. Needless to say, Port Monro doesn't stay quiet. A wealthy citizen is beaten to death in his home. Three teenage 'Abos,' or Aborigines, are charged with the crime — prejudice against Aborigines is central to the novel — but Cashin, not convinced of their guilt, disobeys his superiors and follows leads that point to several of the region's leading citizens.

This plot is not exceptional, but the novel Temple builds around it is, because of his writing, his characterizations and his vision of Australia as a violent, bitterly divided nation. The characterizations start with Cashin himself, whose injuries have him in near-constant pain. He self-medicates in the evenings with whiskey, Maria Callas and Joseph Conrad, and he takes pleasure, too, in his beloved dogs, which become delightful characters in their own right. ('The dogs arrived from a mission in the valley, greeted Cashin with noses and tongues, then left, summoned to some emergency — a rabbit rescue perhaps, the poor creature trapped in a thicket.') Cashin has an abundance of personal problems, including a troublesome mother, a suicidal brother and an ex-girlfriend who won't let him see their son. In one subplot, the lonely Cashin bonds with a 'swaggie' — we would say hobo — whom he persuades to help him rebuild a run-down house on his property.

Temple presents sophisticated portraits of at least a dozen of Port Monro's citizens — the rich and the poor, the honest and the corrupt — all seen with compassion and without illusion. His story becomes political when the locals fight to stop a proposed luxury resort that will despoil their coast, and a charismatic young Aboriginal leader takes up the cause. Throughout, Temple finds time to please us with flashes of writing that range from poetic to brutal. As Cashin drives in the countryside, we're told that 'farmland had once surrounded the village of Kenmare like a green sea.' At a crossroads, a moment later, 'two ravens pecking at vermilion sludge turned on him the judgmental eyes of old men in a beaten pub.'

Temple introduces nine handmade pots left behind by a murder victim: 'They were big, more than half a metre high, the shape of eggs with their tops cut off, tiny lips. Cashin thought it was a beautiful shape, the shape pots might want to be if potters would let them.' Then we're told of their colors: 'The pots were streaked and lined and blotched and speckled in blacks that seemed to absorb light, in reds that looked like fresh blood leaking through tiny fissures, in the sad and lovely blues and browns and greys and greens of the earth seen from space.'

That's remarkable writing, but if you're afraid this is all sounding too precious, be assured that Cashin soon will have a bloody confrontation with two of the nastiest villains you'll ever encounter — all this in a church, where one man is beheaded and another stabbed to death with a crucifix. In short, 'The Broken Shore' offers both poetry and gore, and it's best if you have a taste for both. Having read the new novels of Michael Connelly and Martin Cruz Smith, I have to say that Temple belongs in their company. Australia is a long way off, but this bloke is world-class.

" Reviewed by Bill Sheehan, the author of 'At the Foot of the Story Tree' and co-editor of the recent anthology 'Lords of the Razor'Thomas Meaney, the literary editor of the New York SunRachel Hartigan Shea, a senior editor at The Washington Post Book WorldPatrick Anderson, whose e-mail address is mondaythrillers(at symbol)aol.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)

"Temple's novel racked up the awards in Australia, and it's easy to see why: this deeply intelligent thriller starts slowly, builds inexorably, and ends unforgettably." Booklist (Starred Review)

"Flinty, funny, subtle, and smart, The Broken Shore sags under the burden of a few too many narrative complications....But this is a hazard of the genre, and Temple ranks among its very best practitioners. (Grade: B+)" Entertainment Weekly

"The Broken Shore offers both poetry and gore, and it's best if you have a taste for both." Washington Post

"Along with giving us mournful scenes of civilization's slow encroachment on an idyllic countryside, Temple offers some provocative and painful views of Australia's inner landscape." New York Times

"Temple's novel racked up the awards in Australia, and it's easy to see why: this deeply intelligent thriller starts slowly, builds inexorably, and ends unforgettably." Booklist

"Australia's finest crime writer." The Observer

Winner of the Colin Roderick Award as well as Australia's major prize for crime fiction, Peter Temple has written a transfixing and moving novel about a place, a family, politics and power, and the need to live decently in a world where so much is rotten.

Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then. He was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you've come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and walk the dogs. And sometimes think about how he was before.

Then prominent local Charles Bourgoyne is beaten and left for dead. Everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community; everyone seems to want it to. But Cashin is unconvinced. And as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go.

Peter Temple is the author of eight crime novels, five of which have won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction. He has worked as a journalist and editor for newspapers and magazines in several countries. He lives in Victoria, Australia.