Books for Xmas 2009

For those whose tastes run to the literary, the crime novel to die for this Christmas is Peter Temple's Truth. The fictional underbelly of the Victorian police, dry as the crackle of eucalypt leaves in the moment before the fireball hits.

A stripped-down, elegant and elliptical story of hard men and violence on both sides of the law, where Truth is a lovely little grey who "won at her second start, won three from twelve, always game, never gave up. She sickened and died in hours, buckled and...