It’s always good to be the first person to discover talent — and despite his immense success in Australia (he is that country’s pre-eminent crime writer), Peter Temple has been something of hidden treasure for British and American readers. But Temple’s days as a hidden treasure are disappearing, as more and more readers discover just how distinctive a writer he is (crime celebrity admirers include Val McDermid and Mark Billingham).
Temple (who won the 2007 Crime Writers Association Dagger with The Broken Shore) has, in Shooting Star, another winner. Prickly, fifteen-year-old Anne Carson is abducted — to the horror of her well-heeled family. Disgraced police negotiator Frank Calder is commissioned to pay the ransom, but he has other ideas there was another child kidnapping some years before, and Frank is convinced there is a connection. But the death of Anne Carson may be imminent.
All the things that make Peter Temple’s books such pleasurable experiences are here: the steady, satisfying unravelling of a mystery, the gallery of idiosyncratic characters (notably the dogged — and beleaguered — Frank Calder). But the prime Temple virtue — sheer storytelling acumen — is what makes Shooting Star such a success. —Barry Forshaw
From the Inside Flap
Anne Carson: fifteen, beautiful, wayward. Abducted.
Her rich family has closed ranks and summoned Frank Calder, ex-soldier and disgraced police hostage negotiator. They want him to deliver the ransom money to the kidnappers. Frank wants them to call in the law, but the family refused, since police bungling nearly cost the life of another Carson child kidnapped years before.
But are the two kidnappings connected? And is greed the motivation? Revenge? Or could it be something else? To find out, Frank Calder must go beyond his brief.
As Frank feverishly searches for suspects in the web of Carson family businesses and deals, marriages and indiscretions, rivalries and intrigues, he knows that if his instincts are wrong, the girl will surely die.
About the Author
Five-time winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction, Peter Temple is Australia’s most acclaimed crime and thriller writer. He is the author of four Jack Irish novels: Bad Debts (1996), Black Tide (1999), Dead Point (2000) and White Dog (2003). He has also written three other standalone novels: An Iron Rose (1998), Shooting Star (1999) and In the Evil Day (2002). He lives in Ballarat, Australia, with his family.
Wow! eBook
