Written by Geoffrey McGeachin — Black Wattle Creek is the second book by Geoffrey McGeachin to feature Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin, a cop on the beat in 1950s Melbourne. The first, The Diggers Rest Hotel, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Crime Fiction in 2011.
This second instalment in the series is set in 1957. There’s hardly a mean street to be found. The country slumbers in a period of post-war peace and prosperity. Indeed, the 1950s are referred to by some as Australia’s lost decade. Or so it appears… Dark shadows are on the horizon, the threat of communism stirs, and there’s growing political instability in South East Asia.
Berlin has a week’s leave owed him but any plans he has to take it easy are derailed when his wife asks him to look into the matter of a dead serviceman, the husband of a friend of hers, who turned up to his own funeral missing a leg and no one knows why. The detective’s off-the-books investigation leads to a dodgy funeral parlour and to Black Wattle Creek, once an asylum for the criminally insane. When his off sider on the force is beaten and left for dead and Berlin is warned off his inquiries by a couple of thuggish Special Branch cops, we assume it is connected to whatever is going on at Blackwattle.
Historical crime fiction is big in Australia at the moment, and this book starts off as a relatively typical example of the sub-genre. There’s an engaging larrikin character, who won’t take no for an answer and is determined to find out the truth even if it means jeopardising his police career. Add some shady characters, a bit of biff, and a dollop of period detail, at times layered on a bit too heavily.
But just when I started to lose interest, McGeachin flips the story on its head, creating something genuinely dark and unsettling involving the Cold War and Australia’s shameful subservience in allowing Britain to use parts of the country’s territory as a nuclear testing ground in the 50s. It’s like a red rag to Berlin, still smarting from Britain’s treatment of Australia during World War II. London more or less cut Australia adrift after the Japanese took Singapore in 1941. Our wartime Prime Minister John Curtin defied Churchill, who tried to stop Australian troops returning from the Middle East to defend Australia.
Another layer to the atmosphere of menace is the lingering trauma of Berlin’s own wartime experiences. He flew Lancaster bombers in the night skies over Germany and was the only survivor when his plane was shot down. The events leading up to this and his subsequent stint in a German POW camp are told in a series of remarkably effective flashbacks. They further mark Berlin out as being more than your average plod. I’m interested to know where McGeachin will take Berlin next.
Penguin Australia
Print
AU$29.95
CFL Rating: 3 Stars
US Readers can purchase for Kindle here.
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