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The Broken Shore (Broken Shore #1)

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 · rating details · 1,391 ratings · 266 reviews

Broken by his last case, homicide detective Joe Cashin has fled the city and returned to his hometown to run its one-man police station while his wounds heal and the nightmares fade. He lives a quiet life with his two dogs in the tumbledown wreck his family home has become. It's a peaceful existence - ideal for the rehabilitating man. But his recovery is rudely interrupted...more

Hardcover, 357 pages

Published May 29th 2007 by Farrar Straus Giroux (first published 2005)

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Jun 27, 2009 Cam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lent-to-me

I love a good crime thriller, and this is better than your average good. I know I have a connection & I know, I know many of the locations mentioned in the book & that his lead character Joe Cashin - in 'The Broken Shore' has two huge black poodles & every morning Mon - Fri they scare the absolute crap out of my Son & I on our morning walk to school (they have built in stealth (the neighbour & I have discussed) & never hit you at the same point of the fence line). So yes...more

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Aug 13, 2007 LJ rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: police_procedural, mystery, australia, contemporary_post_1945

A BROKEN SHORE (Police Procedural-Australia-Cont) – Poor
Temple, Peter – Standalone
Quercus, 2006- UK Hardcover
*** Detective Joe Cashin is recovering from his injuries at his hometown in South Eastern Australia. He is there to run a one-man police station and is rebuilding the wreck of a home begun by his grandfather. A brutal attack on a local man is quickly blamed on a three young men from the Aboriginal community. When the plan to arrest and question one of the young men goes deathly wrong, Ca...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Agathafrye rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries-thrillers, literary

Wow. A very fine book indeed. With a nice tight prose style, this mystery transcends the genre with the quality of its writing, well drawn characters, and nuanced exploration of racial issues. Main character and homicide cop Joe Cashin returns to his economically depressed home town in Southern Australia to recuperate from a car accident that resulted in a dead partner, an escaped suspect, and chronic crippling back pain for Joe. A wealthy man is murdered in his home, and Joe is forced out of hi...more

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Dec 10, 2010 Deb rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, aussie-authors

I really enjoyed this book. the second I have read by Peter Temple.

Very evocative of Victoria and the seedy side of Australia that never makes Neighbours, Home and Away et al.

Cashin, the flawed hero, is suffering from an injury and has been invalided out to a country town to run a 2 man police station there. It's his home town where he grew up. A big city homicide cop in a small town, trying to find his way back to his life after a near death experience.

This book is more about Cashin, because...more

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Nov 26, 2012 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, mystery

"The Broken Shore" takes place in and around the small town of Port Monro, on Australia's southern coast. It's a threadbare place, populated by fulltime residents resentfully serving the wealthy, who come for the beach during the warm months, but leave as the Antarctic winds signal the arrival of winter.

Joe Cashin is the senior policeman in Port Monro, ostensibly on indeterminate loan from the largest nearby city, Cromarty, minding the shop while recovering from the psychological and physical e...more "The Broken Shore" takes place in and around the small town of Port Monro, on Australia's southern coast. It's a threadbare place, populated by fulltime residents resentfully serving the wealthy, who come for the beach during the warm months, but leave as the Antarctic winds signal the arrival of winter.

Joe Cashin is the senior policeman in Port Monro, ostensibly on indeterminate loan from the largest nearby city, Cromarty, minding the shop while recovering from the psychological and physical effects of an arrest gone wrong that saw him severely wounded, his partner killed, and the perpetrator vanished without a trace. The days are long and largely uneventful - especially during the offseason - but the murder of one of the town elders quickly brings things to a boil.

Three aboriginal youths are identified as prime suspects, but when a rolling roadblock, led by another cop with a very checkered past, ends with all three boys dying in a hail of gunfire, the case surfaces simmering racial and class tensions, and invites interest from politicians looking to either leverage the event for their own benefit or tamp it down in the name of the status quo.

Temple writes beautifully - the sense of place and time in "The Broken Shore" reminded me of nothing more than what James Lee Burke might put to the page were he focused Downunder rather than on Louisiana. The characters are sharply drawn, the dialog crackles with a naturalness and a wit that is rare, and the overall experience is immersive.

A few cautions: The author includes a glossary of Australian slang - which is highly useful - but the non-Aussie reader may still struggle on occasion to follow every bit of dialog. Likewise, the plot is not entirely about the crimes - there are layers here devoted to loss and memory that are deeper than one will find in the run of the mill whodunnit. Finally, the first half of the book may seem a bit slow for some readers, as it is devoted to frustation and a lack of leads. It picks up momentum quickly, however, as a key clue suddenly begins to unravel what really took place.

For readers looking to go a bit deeper than a simple mystery - and who value "show" rather than "tell", "The Broken Shore" will be rewarding. I loved it and recommend it highly.

Readers looking for a solid I think you'll love this book.(less)

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Nov 19, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A little history of my copy of this novel: I picked up this book in a bookstore along the Great Ocean Road when I was in Australia in 2006. On my flight home, my luggage was delayed and soaked, and the book I bought was damaged. I got the airline to reimburse me for the replacement, which I ordered from Dymocks in Australia (along with another book not available in Canada at the time), but then never read it until now, nearly six years later.
Joe Cashin has had bad experiences in his Melbourne po...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Rivoli Palace rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites

Peter Temple is South African born but Australian claimed, and for good reason. His crime fiction is gritty and real. His treatment of crime, policing and socio / racial issues in the Victorian coastal countryside rang so true I decided then and there Temple must be the best author ever. Add in his writing style and I am enamoured.

I am not a fan of literary prose – any style of writing that gets in the way of following the story doesn’t rock my boat. Temple’s prose is so in tune with the main ch...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: australian, crime, review-books

Joe Cashin is a Detective Sergeant from the Major Crime Squad who has been transferred to the small country station in his childhood home town, while he recovers from physical and emotional injuries sustained in an investigation. He lives, with his two poodles, in the only remaining section of the house his grandfather built and then partially destroyed (because he wanted to), and there's something of that streak of building and destroying in his entire family to this day.

When a wealthy, elderly...more Joe Cashin is a Detective Sergeant from the Major Crime Squad who has been transferred to the small country station in his childhood home town, while he recovers from physical and emotional injuries sustained in an investigation. He lives, with his two poodles, in the only remaining section of the house his grandfather built and then partially destroyed (because he wanted to), and there's something of that streak of building and destroying in his entire family to this day.

When a wealthy, elderly local landholder is found brutally bashed in his home, Joe finds himself dragged reluctantly into the investigation which the local police conveniently decide has to be the work of local Aboriginals boys. There's outright antagonism between the whites and the Aborigines within the town and nobody in the white community seems all that surprised or upset when Aboriginal boys are killed as the police attempt to arrest them on suspicion of the bashing. But the local police seem to have only scratched the surface and Joe and his mates from the larger, Melbourne based crime squad are dragged into the investigation because of the political connections of one of the Aboriginal boys and the bashed man.

This main investigation weaves its way through the lives of Joe; a swaggie who helps to push Joe into decisions about his grandfather's house; and local solicitors and politicians, all of whom are involved in the sorts of secrets that can sometimes remain buried for so long in a small country town.

This is not a book for readers who don't like confrontational writing. The language is strong and pitched perfectly for the characters, their personalities, backgrounds and locations. The characters are starkly drawn and spotlighted so that all their imperfections and virtues are in very clear focus. The landscape contributes to both setting the location of the action and the mood of the characters and events. The mystery is nicely laid out with a final solution which is progressively revealed throughout the story in a way that is fair to the reader. The final outcomes, however, contain a unpredictable twist that prevents the reader from becoming complacent. Peter Temple has a way of writing the Australian story which is stunning in its clarity of vision and its honest, forthright summation of everything that Australia is, or was.(less)

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Aug 03, 2011 Trevor rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A lot of this was very predictable. I mean, Aboriginal kids are killed or harassed to death by police, the local Christian organisers of a boys’ camp for orphans turned out to have been kiddy-fiddlers (it always surprises me how long it takes the police to figure out this connection – you’d think by now the phrase ‘Christian Boys’ Camp’ might ring the same kinds of immediate warning bells as ‘Danger – High Voltage’ or ‘Best of ABBA’ do), the rich and powerful look out for one another and, you’re...more A lot of this was very predictable. I mean, Aboriginal kids are killed or harassed to death by police, the local Christian organisers of a boys’ camp for orphans turned out to have been kiddy-fiddlers (it always surprises me how long it takes the police to figure out this connection – you’d think by now the phrase ‘Christian Boys’ Camp’ might ring the same kinds of immediate warning bells as ‘Danger – High Voltage’ or ‘Best of ABBA’ do), the rich and powerful look out for one another and, you’re never going to believe this, the hero (damaged as he might well be – even though with a good heart) sorts it all out in the end – even when you least expect it.

There are, admittedly, some interesting things going on here with the form, both of the writing and possibly also playing around with the genre – the prose is clipped and Spartan and some of the Aussie-isms are at least amusing. But overall I have to say that this hardly carried my interest. Look, at least the hero wasn’t a loveable larrikin (so, at least we are spared one Aussie cliché, mates and sheilas) – but if anything he was a kind of cowboy come home seeking peace and quiet only to be destined to lift the lid on racism, corruption and a child sex ring. I thought the Opera was a little heavy-handed too, though, unfortunately.

Now, listen, far be it from me to endorse having sex with children – don’t get me wrong here – I hate paedophiles as much as your average red blooded Aussie bloke. But I do get a little sick of the endless references to it in novels and how this is invariably then used as a kind of excuse for the most graphic and bloody tortures committed to the bodies of these new fiends and monsters. And - as with the Spanish Inquisition – we lesser sinners, we much lesser sinners, seem to be redeemed, to be washed clean by the blood and screaming torment of these wicked, wicked men.

And isn’t there lots of blood and don’t we get treated to lots of detailed screaming torment?

Thank goodness there is one class of person left to whom no extremity of torment is too much for them to endure to sate our need for revenge, especially now that torturing blacks to death like we used to in the good old days is only approved of by the sorts of people none of US would choose to be seen dead with. No, we cheer when a racist is punched in this – but do we give a stuff if the paedophile lives or dies at the end? If you are into eternal damnation, anal probes of red hot pokers or get-off considering the perfect punishments God has planned for those who transgress his narrow path to righteousness, then this book will give you quite a preview of the entertainment the Elect can expect for primetime viewing from Right-Hand-of-God-TV - after they’ve finished their daily chanting of “Holy, Holy, Holy”, of course.

The metaphor of the ‘broken shore’ is interesting and a nice comparison with the destruction brought upon our society by the all too various forms of corruption the book details. However, I much preferred the more subtle idea in the title, that there is also a homophone working here – the broken sure. This is a book where certainties all come broken.

All the same, with the high-camp local café owner, the suicidal, homosexual brother, the extremely attractive girl from high school who remains just as attractive in midlife and whose knickers just fly off at the very suggestion of party pies (by the way, a lot of the food in this book is utter crap) all this, and the fact there were enough deaths, attempted deaths, suicides and near fatal woundings to make even a writer from Midsummer Murders blush, made this book a little disappointing.

This review is harsher than I had intended. Some of the writing is quite perceptive and some is even quite interesting. But I really don’t think there needed to be quite so much death and destruction. From memory only two people die in China Town – but I left that feeling much more uncomfortable about both paedophilia and social corruption. All the same, I probably ought to read Truth at some stage. Unfortunately, in the end I can’t pretend that I wasn’t a disappointed with this.
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Sep 29, 2010 Nancy Oakes rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I finished this novel I realized two things: first, that I'd just read something outstanding and second, that (as it says on the dustjacket blurb), Peter Temple is a "master writer." This has to be one of the best and most beautifully-written crime fiction novels I've ever read, and I can't wait to get back to his next novel, Truth, which I've only just started and am already loving.

Joe Cashin is a homicide detective who's recuperating from physical and emotional trauma in the small town of...more When I finished this novel I realized two things: first, that I'd just read something outstanding and second, that (as it says on the dustjacket blurb), Peter Temple is a "master writer." This has to be one of the best and most beautifully-written crime fiction novels I've ever read, and I can't wait to get back to his next novel, Truth, which I've only just started and am already loving.

Joe Cashin is a homicide detective who's recuperating from physical and emotional trauma in the small town of Port Monro on the south coast of Australia. Port Monro is not his normal beat; he's been posted there to put some distance between himself and the events that left another policeman dead and himself hospitalized. It's a perfect place for Joe; he spends a great deal of his time with his dogs, and to get his mind off of his recent troubles, he's rebuilding an old ruined house, as well as himself, with the help of a "swaggie" named Rebb. But his peace is shattered when he finds himself smack in the middle of an intriguing crime: one of the town's wealthiest citizens has been found dead and the police in charge of the investigation want very badly to pin the murder on three indigenous teens. Cashin is called to help with the case, but he's not convinced that the racially-prejudiced local police are correct in their assumptions.

What sets this novel apart, making it an outstanding read, is not so much the plot, which is believable and well executed, but the writing. The reader is plunged into an Australia that is divided over racial issues, plagued by corruption among government and local officials, divided between development that would create new jobs but would wreck the environment and the landscape. While a reader can perhaps find those sorts of problems in his or her own country, Temple keeps it Australian through his use of the local lingo (and then puts a glossary of Australian terms in the back for reference-- which is itself quite funny in parts), description of little things like food, and especially in terms of a sense of place. The small community's colorful characters and the small-town problems he's involved with ("a man about a neighbour's tree, the report of a vandalised bench...") set the stage, as do the vivid descriptions of the landscape. Take, for example, the description of Cromarty's Kettle, located in the Rip:

...the huge sea, the grey-green water skeined with foam, sliding, falling, surging, full of little peaks and breaks, hollows and rolls, the sense of unimaginable power beneath the surface, terrible forces that could lift you up and suck you down and spin you...the power of the surge would push you through the gap in the cliff and then it would slam you against the pocked walls...

as well as the descriptions of the small pubs, truck stops, the "roads smeared with roadkill ---" or the road to Port Monro:

the "pocked junctions where one or two tilted houses stood against the wind and signs pointed to other desperate crossroads."

The characters are also very well developed, especially Joe Cashin -- a broken and damaged, yet decent man trying to get it all back together, whose backstory and troubled past (including an unstable childhood) are unfolded little by little, interwoven with his present. He doesn't mind solitude, although perhaps not so completely as he would have you believe, and he's the consummate professional, yet willing to go with his intuition when the situation demands.

This is an excellent book, and although I've focused mainly on the writing here, the story itself will also keep you turning pages until it's over. And then, I think, you'll be left wanting more.(less)

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Apr 19, 2010 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Temple, Peter. THE BROKEN SHORE. (2007). **. The protagonist in this Australian crime novel is a Victoria police detective named Joe Cashin. He has been moved to the countryside where he grew up, in a small town near Melbourne. A local businessman is murdered on his estate. The businessman, Charles Bourgoyne, turns out to have important connections and Cashin is asked to take charge of the investigation. Cashin is a middle-aged policeman, all alone with his two dogs (poodles?!). Cashin is recove...more

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Dec 05, 2007 Bree rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2007, crime-fiction

Ugh, this book was just plain bad...I had to stop. I tried, I really, really tried. The sentences were cut off half the time and I had a really hard time comprehending anything in it...I got about 100 pages in and the plot was moving along too slowly, so combined together, I gave up on the whole thing. I have NEVER, ever done that before.

But, really...do people really talk like that? A lot of what I read were just broken sentences, without proper grammar. I found it very distracting.

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Apr 09, 2012 Tyson Adams rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was having a chat with a friend at a party when Peter Temple came up as a must read author recommendation. I'm rather naive when it comes to new and established authors, I don't seem to have the inside scoop on Aussie writers the way I do with overseas talent. It wasn't long afterwards that Peter Temple was mentioned again at the Perth Writers' Festival. So I bought two of his books, Truth (ebook version) and The Broken Shore.

Now the recommendations for Peter Temple came from literary people,...more

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Apr 07, 2010 Theresa Leone Davidson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pretty good story, by Australian author Peter Temple, about a very likeable protagonist, a detective, working to solve the murder of a wealthy man. I liked everything about the story except that there's a lot of lingo native to Australia that I didn't understand and I'd have to stop to figure it out (there was a glossary in the back of the book, which was helpful), and I admit, I'm a little unsure of the ending. Nevertheless, a good story, and I will look for others he has written.

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Sep 21, 2009 Nicolemauerman rated it 2 of 5 stars

This crime novel is set in rural Australia. An older rich man is murdered and the book revolves around an older detective who is trying to find the murderer. There was a lot of Australian slang, and although the author provided a short dictionary at the end, I found referencing it was kind of hassle. The story also contains a ton of characters and towards the end I was having trouble keeping everyone straight. Also, the main character also has multiple flashbacks, which just adds more characters...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Kristian Olesen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Challenge: review "The Broken Shore" without mentioning how "Australian" it is.

There are a lot of reviews on this site expressing frustration with The Broken Shore for its dialectical idiosyncrasies. I won't take this opportunity to express my frustration at the way in which shit rolls downhill, obliging Australian readers to maintain a familiarity with British and American dialects, but rendering Australian dialects "unreadable" to our northern cousins. I won't mention that gripe at all.

What I...more

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Nov 26, 2009 Tim Howard rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2009

The Broken Shore is notably bland, like a "gritty" episode of Blue Heelers. The local press make a lot of fuss about Temple "transcending the genre"; in fact what he does is garnish his tepid crime story with elements of equally tepid mainstream "literary fiction". Temple can write - his descriptions can be fine, his dialogue sharp and amusing - but his talent is applied here to stultifying ends.

I want to mention the reviews quoted on my edition (2009, Text), some of which reach new heights of h...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Keith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Unbroken Excellence

Some crime writers are very obvious: there's a crime, an investigator, a criminal and finally a solution that includes a resolution. The prose takes you along briskly with perhaps some incidental commentary on society or the immediate environment in which the story is taking place. The investigator is brave, wry, cynical.

Then there are crime writers who are not obvious, but tangential: the originating crime is perhaps minor, the criminal is unclear, the solution doesn't really...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars

Only dipping my toes back into the detective novel genre, after many, many years absence. Absolutely loved this. Have never been to Australia, nor even seen pictures of the part of it where this novel is set, but having read The Broken Shore, I feel like I know this place intimately. Temple paints a picture of a landscape every bit as dark and spare as his own writing. This is not the land of sunny days, beaches and barbies. That is another Australia. Here, we find ourselves in a cold, wet, tota...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Carolyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites

I don't know how I have been unaware of Peter Temple until now. This is one of the most engaging works of modern Australian fiction of any genre that I have read for a long time.
Basically, it is a detective story, where a homicide detective, Cashin, who is on sick leave in his home town, becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of a prominent local citizen. He has doubts about the guilt of the first "who dunnits" - three boys from the local Aboriginal community - and sets out to uncov...more I don't know how I have been unaware of Peter Temple until now. This is one of the most engaging works of modern Australian fiction of any genre that I have read for a long time.
Basically, it is a detective story, where a homicide detective, Cashin, who is on sick leave in his home town, becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of a prominent local citizen. He has doubts about the guilt of the first "who dunnits" - three boys from the local Aboriginal community - and sets out to uncover the truth, despite the opposition of the local police. Sound familiar?

Wrong. There is absolutely nothing superficial about this novel in terms of themes, plot, characterisation or realisation. This book, a winner of the 2007 Duncan Lawrence Dagger Prize, and at least four others, has far more to it than a standard police procedural or crime thriller. For a start, its big themes of police corruption, child abuse, environmental destruction, complex Aboriginal issues, rural culture, social tensions and even personal and family relations are examined in an almost forensic way. It is no surprise that Temple was a journalist: he deals with these realities with as much authority and depth as any op.ed. writer would, but in a far more emotionally engaging manner.

The best books are true to their cultural and geographical setting. Here, South West Victoria is depicted so accurately with its freezing rain, remnant volcanic landforms and Antarctic winds. The culture is presented warts and all, with its underlying and even overt racism, self interest and parochialism. The characters, especially Cashin, are laconic, ironic and are more likely to express their feelings in action rather than words. Temple has taken some universal themes, mentioned in the previous paragraph, and centred them in a specific milieu.

There are very few false notes in this book. It may not be Book of the Year as far as the Australian Tourist Board is concerned, but its sparse, precise prose, well-paced plot and understanding of the realities of disturbing issues make it an outstanding example of good fiction - anywhere.(less)

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view all 5 comments

Carolyn Hey, that's great that you're coming to Sydney! It's a very photogenic city with its harbour, the harbour bridge and the opera house (designed by a Da...more
Jun 04, 2012 09:54pm

Dagny (OK. numero uno lesson in Australian English: fossick.) Thanks for offering to fossick round for me (the computer underlines fossick with red)

Yes, sho...more
Jun 04, 2012 11:47pm

May 14, 2011 Paula Weston rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, literary

I've never really considered myself a great fan of the crime genre. And maybe I'm still not. But I'm definitely a fan of Australian crime writer Peter Temple.

Temple has been writing tightly-crafted crime novels since 1995, stunning critics, winning fans, and bagging four Ned Kelly Awards (more than any other writer) and a Vogel Award, among others.

I discovered him recently when I read his latest release, The Broken Shore (another recommendation from the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club), which coul...more I've never really considered myself a great fan of the crime genre. And maybe I'm still not. But I'm definitely a fan of Australian crime writer Peter Temple.

Temple has been writing tightly-crafted crime novels since 1995, stunning critics, winning fans, and bagging four Ned Kelly Awards (more than any other writer) and a Vogel Award, among others.

I discovered him recently when I read his latest release, The Broken Shore (another recommendation from the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club), which could just as easily sit on the literary fiction shelf.

The story features Joe Cashin, a former homicide detective, still recovering from severe injuries incurred in a botched Melbourne stake-out. Sent home to run the small police station in Port Monro on the Victorian coast, he expects a quiet life.

Then rich Charles Bourgoyne, the local benefactor, is bashed and everything seems to point to three boys from the nearby Aboriginal community. Cashin is unconvinced and as tragedy unfolds relentlessly into tragedy, he finds himself holding onto something that might be better let go.

Temple's grasp of voice and place is mesmerising, his characters are Australian without being stereotypical, and he creates pervasive, slow building suspense.

It turns out these are Temple's trademarks. While on holidays, I also read Dead Point, part of Temple's series featuring world weary lawyer Jack Irish. I devoured this novel even quick than the other. I particularly liked that the narrative is first person, and Jack is a complex character whose morality is clear, even if the company he keeps is often murky.

Temple's writing has its own rhythm to it. His humour is dry, his violence graphic, and his physical descriptions wryly amusing.

The basis of his novels are crimes that eventually will be solved, or resolved, one way or another, but what you find yourself more interested in are his characters, the choices they make, and the seedy worlds they often inhabit, or must venture into.
As the Sun Herald said, Temple is not just one of Australia's best crime novelists, "he's one of our best novelists full stop.
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Mar 02, 2010 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After giving this book four stars the only thing I can think to say about it is slightly negative. Once a certain element made a fleeting appearance, I knew just where the story was heading (as should any reader of fictional policing). Then with a few more clues revealed the ending almost wrote itself.

This was a longish mystery but the story was complex and well written enough to remain interesting to the end.

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Nov 09, 2012 Rick Skwiot rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although I have not recently read mysteries with the interest I once did, I am rediscovering why I once enjoyed them so – particularly the atmospheric novels of writers like Georges Simenon and Janwillem van de Wetering: Their books took me to the underside of Paris, in the former, and Amsterdam, in the latter, both places I knew and longed to know better.

Add to that list the Marseilles of Jean-Claude Izzo, the Pyongyang of James Church and now, deftly, the small-town Australia of Peter Temple.

I...more

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Sep 08, 2011 Katja rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is clearly a very sophisticated crime novel. Probably a little too sophisticated for my underdeveloped literary tastes. It’s essentially a crime book that isn’t a crime book - up until the final 100 pages, the crime aspect takes a backseat to the life of the protagonist and the community of Australian country characters he occupies. It’s an extremely slow-burning book, and my expectations somewhat ruined it for me - I was under the impression that crime books were scandalous, compelling, ta...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Found this in a used-bookstore, and picked it up because of the cover art! This is not the first time I have done this, and thus I have decided that once in a whilke, you CAN judge a book by its cover. "The Broken Shore" received 4 stars from me for the following reasons:

1. Dialogue--the writer is Australian and there were many phrases that were new to me, which was a treat. Additionally, the dialogue itself seemed realistic and police-officerish, no-nonsense.

2. The style--Peter Temple describ...more

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May 06, 2013 Gabi Coatsworth rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'd never read this author, but I'm so glad I did. A very Australian book, with lots of slang (and a glossary) and a real sense of place. The policeman hero is recovering from an injury sustained in the line of duty, and this made me think that there was a previous novel that explained it. But in fact, this seems to be Temple's way of giving the reader the backstory. He does this often - stops in the middle of a scene to allow the character to remember something about his/her past. It seems to w...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Pamela Hartshorne rated it 4 of 5 stars

It took me a little time to get into this book, but once I did - about a third of the way through - I found it really absorbing. Temple has a laconic style of writing and he's fond of using a comma instead of a full stop - a particular bugbear of mine, so it took me some time to get used to it. It's an effective way to reflect Cashin's thoughts, though ("He crawled into a wall, stood up, went left, groping, knocked over something, a table, an object hit the floor, smashed.") and I ended up admir...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Heidi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, aussie-author, audio-version

(3.5 stars)

Joe Cashin, a middle aged policeman stationed in a small Victorian country town, is sent to investigate the brutal attack and subsequent death of a wealthy local businessman in his home. When three local Aboriginal youths are being reported whilst trying to sell the victim’s watch in the city, an elaborate trap is set up to catch them and charge them with the man’s murder. However, things go terribly wrong, and two of the young men are shot by police the same night, whilst the other c...more (3.5 stars)

Joe Cashin, a middle aged policeman stationed in a small Victorian country town, is sent to investigate the brutal attack and subsequent death of a wealthy local businessman in his home. When three local Aboriginal youths are being reported whilst trying to sell the victim’s watch in the city, an elaborate trap is set up to catch them and charge them with the man’s murder. However, things go terribly wrong, and two of the young men are shot by police the same night, whilst the other commits suicide a short time later after allegedly having been harassed by police. Disturbed by this turn of events, Cashin digs deeper into the murder and finds out that there may be more to the story than originally thought – and discovers the town’s terrible secret which has been hushed up for years.

I was a bit divided whilst reading this book, between really liking it and losing interest. Joe Cashin is an interesting, well-rounded character with an intriguing past, which is gradually revealed as the story progresses. Due to his somewhat flawed personality and his demons, he makes the perfect archetypal cop protagonist – which reminded me of Michael Connelly’s character Harry Bosch, but with the additional bonus of being Australian. The setting, a small coastal town in rural Victoria, is perfectly portrayed by the author, with its small-town politics and its unique characters. Even the prose, short and clipped and very much to the point, was perfect for the story. So why only 3.5 stars?

My disappointment with the novel partly had to do with the audiobook version (which is hardly the author’s fault). Whilst the narrator’s Aussie dialect was a refreshing change, I found his narrative lacking in inflection for the different characters he was impersonating. This made the storyline extremely hard to follow, and I was often left wondering which character was speaking at any given time. It also made the story drag in parts, which may not have been the case had I read the print version of the novel.

However, as far as murder/mysteries are concerned, the author did an excellent job of slowly unfolding the story, like a stained roll of carpet in which a horrible burden has been concealed. In its dark undertones, the story captures the sinister, seedy elements of small-town living – to a point where you feel like having a good cleansing shower when all is finally revealed. Cashin, with his depressive moods and loneliness, fits perfectly into this landscape – with small glimmers of hope as he forms fragile friendships with a swaggie and a pretty female lawyer (elements which never distract from the grittiness of the story). His fight for justice seems to have more to do with his desire to find the truth, rather than fighting for the rights of the young Aboriginal men – and yet it is refreshing to see how Cashin resists to be drawn into the prejudices that seem so prevalent in town. It also prevents the novel from becoming too preachy and political, and allows readers to feel anger over the injustices for themselves rather than having them spelled out for them.

Temple’s sparse prose makes a nice change from some of the verbose thrillers I have read recently – I did love his style. The ending is not for the faint hearted, and left me reeling in shock and disgust – though the author gives enough clues to see it coming by that point. All in all, a well-rounded, original thriller with believable characters and a unique setting.
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Nov 11, 2010 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-australia

I still can't be sure I hadn't read this back in 2007 when it came out. I remembered the cover but the plot on the dust jacket didn't sound familiar. As I started it "again" some parts sounded familiar, others completely alien, but I had the thought that I loved this book even before I picked it up "again." And I was right. This book is one of those mysteries that transcends the genre and can be called literature. Vivid imagery of the place and emotional introspection are all over this work. The...more

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Sep 11, 2010 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was expecting a typical American style pulp mystery crime novel a-la Coben or Patterson. What a pleasant surprise. This book is a complex, intelligently and stylishly written murder mystery set in a small town along Australia's southwest coast. It was remindful of the best in Amerian noir style mysteries such as The Big sleep, Maltese flacon, or The Glass Key. Peter Temple mixes excellent dialogue, interesting characters, and complex plot lines while not over explaining things as you go. What...more

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About Peter Temple

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Peter Temple is an Australian crime fiction writer.

Formerly a journalist and journalism lecturer, Temple turned to fiction writing in the 1990s. His Jack Irish novels (Bad Debts, Black Tide, Dead Point, and White Dog) are set in Melbourne, Australia, and feature an unusual...more

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