The Red Hand

March 23, 2020
Ned Kelly Award winner Temple (1946–2018), who was born in South Africa, considered himself an “Australian by rebirth,” as Michael Heyward notes in the introduction to this welcome collection of miscellany. The six short stories, 16 essays and reviews, and an unfinished novel about Melbourne people finder Jack Irish provide a wonderful tour of Temple’s work. Perhaps the highlight among the stories, which celebrate the Australian character and landscape, is “Crossroads,” a brilliant character study of women factory workers who escape from dreary, depressing routine. The reviews and essays, which discuss such authors as Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, John le Carré, Kathy Reichs, and James Ellroy, abound with striking similes (“The book is as thick as a tax manual”; “the plot sags like a boarding-house mattress”). Of less appeal to an American audience may be the concluding item—a made-for-TV movie script filled with staccato Australian dialect. This volume is a must for Jack Irish fans, as well as a good place to start for readers new to Temple.

April 15, 2020
The world lost one of its finest crime writers when Peter Temple died in 2018. Though he immigrated to Australia from South Africa in his thirties and didn't start publishing fiction until his fifties, his nine novels read as though he were born to the place and the task. Collected here are High Art, an unfinished Jack Irish novel; thoughtful essays and fearless book reviews; and a half-dozen short stories revealing a preoccupation with sudden friendships, new beginnings, and escape. Rounding out the book is the complete script for Valentine's Day, a light but engaging made-for-TV movie about the reluctant coach of a hopeless Australian rules football team. Readers new to Temple will be better off starting with either Bad Debts (1996), the first Jack Irish novel, or his stunning stand-alone The Broken Shore (2007), but the author's incisive, exacting, elegant prose offers rewards for newbies and diehards alike. Publisher Michael Heyward's introduction will make readers regret not having known Temple personally?this rich collection will make them regret they didn't start reading him sooner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)