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Detective Jill Jackson #3
Black Ice
Detective Sergeant Jill Jackson is working undercover in Sydney's murky drug world. Living in a run-down apartment and making unlikely friends, Jill sees first hand what devastation the illegal drugs scene can wreak. Meanwhile Jill's sister Cassie has a new boyfriend, Christian Worthington. He is one of the beautiful people, rich and good looking with a great job doing pro bono work. But he is also Cassie's supplier, keeping her drawers filled with cocaine and crystal meth. When Cassie overdoses and is dumped at the hospital her life begins to spiral out of control. Now Jill must try to save her sister without blowing her cover and months of undercover work.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
4 people are currently reading
162 people want to read
About the author
Leah Giarratano
10 books74 followersDr Leah Giarratano has had a long career as a clinical psychologist. Her professional background offers a unique selling point in this genre and gives an authenticity to her writing. Leah is an expert in psychological trauma, sex offences and psychopathology and has had many years assessing psychopaths and treating their victims.
She has worked in psychiatric hospitals, with the defence force, and in the corrections system with offenders who suffer severe personality disorders. She has assessed and treated survivors of just about every imaginable psychological trauma, including: hostages; war veterans; rape, assault and accident victims; and has worked with police, fire and ambulance officers.
In 2009 Leah began her television career, presenting Channel 7’s top rating Beyond the Darklands program, on which Leah was the expert psychologist who delved into the psyche of Australia’s most fearsome criminals.
She has worked in psychiatric hospitals, with the defence force, and in the corrections system with offenders who suffer severe personality disorders. She has assessed and treated survivors of just about every imaginable psychological trauma, including: hostages; war veterans; rape, assault and accident victims; and has worked with police, fire and ambulance officers.
In 2009 Leah began her television career, presenting Channel 7’s top rating Beyond the Darklands program, on which Leah was the expert psychologist who delved into the psyche of Australia’s most fearsome criminals.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 12, 2016
I think I needed to have read the first two books in this series to appreciate a lot of what happened in this book. I found the story dragged on a bit for me and I never really got into it. I did like Detective Jill Jackson's character though. She was strong and courageous. However, I didn't really care for many of the other characters in the book. I know I should have felt some level of empathy for the single mum and Jill's sister, but it just wasn't there. I may go and read the first two books in the series and see if that changes how I feel about this one.
June 24, 2013
Detective Sergeant Jill Jackson worked undercover for the majority of this book, befriending the drug addicts in the streets of Sydney, and helping to set up the take-down of the worst criminals on the streets, the king-pins and suppliers of cocaine, ice and a variety of other drugs. As Krystal, she couldn’t tell her family where she was, or what she was doing, and the derelict apartment she lived in was surrounded by the sadness of the streets.
Seren had spent two years in jail after being set up by her rich, drug pushing boyfriend, and her adorable son Marco had spent that time in foster care. Seren was out for revenge on her release from prison, and she was determined to make him pay.
Jill’s gorgeous model sister Cassie was getting in deeper with the drug dealing boyfriend she was currently seeing, and her drug habit was starting to take over her life. When she ended up in hospital during a psychotic episode, she knew things had to change.
As the drug investigation gathered momentum, the lives of all the players were set to collide. The dangers began to mount and the drug lords seemed like they would win. But Jill and her partner Gabriel would take them down, they couldn’t let them get away with ruining the lives of thousands of innocent victims.
The pace of this novel was intense and I finished it in an afternoon. The characters, from the small players (Damien) right through to the main people were very real! I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it to lovers of a good crime novel.
Seren had spent two years in jail after being set up by her rich, drug pushing boyfriend, and her adorable son Marco had spent that time in foster care. Seren was out for revenge on her release from prison, and she was determined to make him pay.
Jill’s gorgeous model sister Cassie was getting in deeper with the drug dealing boyfriend she was currently seeing, and her drug habit was starting to take over her life. When she ended up in hospital during a psychotic episode, she knew things had to change.
As the drug investigation gathered momentum, the lives of all the players were set to collide. The dangers began to mount and the drug lords seemed like they would win. But Jill and her partner Gabriel would take them down, they couldn’t let them get away with ruining the lives of thousands of innocent victims.
The pace of this novel was intense and I finished it in an afternoon. The characters, from the small players (Damien) right through to the main people were very real! I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it to lovers of a good crime novel.
December 23, 2011
Leah Giarratano's Black Ice is a crime novel that portrays a clash between the glitz-and-glamour of the Eastern suburbs and the underworld of Sydney's west. It follows the exploits of undercover detective Jill Jackson ("Krystal"), her super-model-good-looking party-girl sister Cassie and single mother Seren, a woman with a heart of gold who got mixed up with the wrong people and ended up doing a jail sentence while her ten-year-old son Marco was farmed out to DoCs. Together and apart these women face the threats posed by hot-shot lawyer Christian and thug drug-dealer Nader and their hangers-on.
Sounds unlikely? It is. But Giarratano is an experienced forensic psychologist whose work has given her an entree into the seedy side of Sydney's life, so at one level we have to trust that her characters and plot scenario are authentically portrayed. Yet there was little here I recognised here about the city I grew up in. Much of the language, characterisation, plot and setting came across to me as if they could easily translate into a Hollywood movie.
Maybe to critique Giarratano's book for its lack of distinctive "Australianness" is unfair. Yet I couldn't help thinking that when the author did go for local colour - like her description of the underground food court off Dixon Street - it brought the narrative to life.
There were flashes, too, of edgy, lyrical writing: "Right now, just eleven o'clock in the morning, thrumming beneath the city was Saturday night, waiting to be released. It pulsed and throbbed, biding time, emitting sub-threshold vibrations that caused apprentices to focus for once, to hurry to finish their morning shifts. Fifteen-year-old schoolgirls drilled each other on the elaborate fairytales they'd created for their parents, about who was sleeping at whose house, and what to do if the oldies actually checked. The beautiful people sipped coffees in cafes, waking slowly, apparently languidly, but Saturday night waited beneath them and the beat started an itch they knew would not be scratched until the dark came..." (p207)
It wasn't exactly a page-turner, but it didn't drag either. Part of my problem with it might be because Giarratano's main character, the detective Jill Jackson, is a character regular readers will have met before. That crucial set-up, where a reader is introduced to a character and a bond of empathy is formed, was missing for me. I didn't know enough about Jill and her background to really care what happened to her - until some of her backstory was revealed halfway through. Even then, though, her conflict with her sister and its denouement which could have been - should have been - an emotionally moving scene - coincided with the plot climax in a way that both seemed unlikely and an odd choice by the writer. (Who has an epiphany - and *talks* about it! - at a crime scene?)
The one character I did feel empathy for was single-mum Seren. But I found myself resisting this empathy because I felt the author's manipulations: Seren's character, the naive ex-con, didn't ring true to me. The scenes of her pre-release from prison, however, were among the books most vivid, frightening and memorable. Here Giarratano's background really gives us an insight into a world most of us - thankfully - will never have to know firsthand.
Giarratano chose to distance her main character from the thick of the fray before the climax, a choice which surprised and disappointed me. But maybe that was because, by then, I was expecting her story to adhere to the narrative conventions of Hollywood: I wanted the main character to have something more at stake, something I could get worried about. The ending, while satisfying, didn't deliver that extra bang that such stories usually contrive to create, either. But why should it? There were some neat twists.
Despite the shortcomings and reservations expressed here, I enjoyed this book. Maybe it was always going to be a tough call, reading and reviewing a simple crime novel after having just finished Charlotte Wood's brilliant - though flawed in its own way, too - The Children.
Sounds unlikely? It is. But Giarratano is an experienced forensic psychologist whose work has given her an entree into the seedy side of Sydney's life, so at one level we have to trust that her characters and plot scenario are authentically portrayed. Yet there was little here I recognised here about the city I grew up in. Much of the language, characterisation, plot and setting came across to me as if they could easily translate into a Hollywood movie.
Maybe to critique Giarratano's book for its lack of distinctive "Australianness" is unfair. Yet I couldn't help thinking that when the author did go for local colour - like her description of the underground food court off Dixon Street - it brought the narrative to life.
There were flashes, too, of edgy, lyrical writing: "Right now, just eleven o'clock in the morning, thrumming beneath the city was Saturday night, waiting to be released. It pulsed and throbbed, biding time, emitting sub-threshold vibrations that caused apprentices to focus for once, to hurry to finish their morning shifts. Fifteen-year-old schoolgirls drilled each other on the elaborate fairytales they'd created for their parents, about who was sleeping at whose house, and what to do if the oldies actually checked. The beautiful people sipped coffees in cafes, waking slowly, apparently languidly, but Saturday night waited beneath them and the beat started an itch they knew would not be scratched until the dark came..." (p207)
It wasn't exactly a page-turner, but it didn't drag either. Part of my problem with it might be because Giarratano's main character, the detective Jill Jackson, is a character regular readers will have met before. That crucial set-up, where a reader is introduced to a character and a bond of empathy is formed, was missing for me. I didn't know enough about Jill and her background to really care what happened to her - until some of her backstory was revealed halfway through. Even then, though, her conflict with her sister and its denouement which could have been - should have been - an emotionally moving scene - coincided with the plot climax in a way that both seemed unlikely and an odd choice by the writer. (Who has an epiphany - and *talks* about it! - at a crime scene?)
The one character I did feel empathy for was single-mum Seren. But I found myself resisting this empathy because I felt the author's manipulations: Seren's character, the naive ex-con, didn't ring true to me. The scenes of her pre-release from prison, however, were among the books most vivid, frightening and memorable. Here Giarratano's background really gives us an insight into a world most of us - thankfully - will never have to know firsthand.
Giarratano chose to distance her main character from the thick of the fray before the climax, a choice which surprised and disappointed me. But maybe that was because, by then, I was expecting her story to adhere to the narrative conventions of Hollywood: I wanted the main character to have something more at stake, something I could get worried about. The ending, while satisfying, didn't deliver that extra bang that such stories usually contrive to create, either. But why should it? There were some neat twists.
Despite the shortcomings and reservations expressed here, I enjoyed this book. Maybe it was always going to be a tough call, reading and reviewing a simple crime novel after having just finished Charlotte Wood's brilliant - though flawed in its own way, too - The Children.
July 3, 2009
Leah Giarratano, forensic psychologist, crime fiction writer and consummate storyteller has just released her third novel - BLACK ICE. As with both of the earlier books, Giarratano takes the reader deep into a specific world of crime and criminal behaviour, the theme in BLACK ICE is illegal drugs.
Readers of the two earlier books will know about DS Jill Jackson, a survivor of child sexual abuse, she has fought her way back from despair and continues, ever so gradually, to get control of her life and to deal with the memories of what happened to her. BLACK ICE adds another dimension to the story with the introduction her sister Cassie - famous model, one half of a glamorous society couple, a cocaine addict. Her boyfriend Christian, a highly successful lawyer and drug dealer has a past which is about to catch up with him. Cassie inadvertently steps into an investigation into illegal drugs that Jill is working undercover on, and in even more difficult circumstances, Christian's past, when a young mother, just out of jail is hell-bent on vengeance.
One of the strongest aspect's of Giarratano's books is that she is obviously writing about people and behaviours that she knows all too well. DARK ICE draws a picture of both sides of drug addiction. The sheer ruthlessness of the "business" side of drugs - the totally amoral behaviour of the dealers and the people who make obscene amounts of money. The ease with which that money can buy the cooks, the dealers, the trappings of the lifestyle. The craziness that takes over when there's turf to protect and supply and demand chains to maintain. Finally the depths to which the addicts themselves can sink. Even as part of the so called "beautiful people", addicted people do terrible things.
The introduction of Jill's own sister under threat provides Giarratano with an opportunity to explore the relationship between the sisters. There's an age difference, and then there's the problem of the affect of abduction and abuse on the siblings of the victim. The relationship between these two sisters is very fragile, and a lot of the difficulties go back to the way that their family coped with what happened to Jill. Hopefully this is an area that Giarratano's going to get further into as this was a particularly interesting aspect of the affects of dreadful crimes that isn't overly explored in crime fiction. Slightly less successful for this reader was the story of Seren - the young mother jailed for drug offences, who is so keen to achieve revenge. To this reader it seemed the author was seeking to create another character who, despite enormous odds against them, triumphs over circumstances which seemed a little to co-incidental with Jill, despite the specific experiences being very different. Perhaps it was simply a personality thing - but readers who find a connection with Seren will undoubtedly be able empathise with her strongly.
As always with Leah Giarratano's books, the reader is going to come away from BLACK ICE thinking just a little bit more about the consequences behind the headlines on the nightly news. That's a very good thing.
Readers of the two earlier books will know about DS Jill Jackson, a survivor of child sexual abuse, she has fought her way back from despair and continues, ever so gradually, to get control of her life and to deal with the memories of what happened to her. BLACK ICE adds another dimension to the story with the introduction her sister Cassie - famous model, one half of a glamorous society couple, a cocaine addict. Her boyfriend Christian, a highly successful lawyer and drug dealer has a past which is about to catch up with him. Cassie inadvertently steps into an investigation into illegal drugs that Jill is working undercover on, and in even more difficult circumstances, Christian's past, when a young mother, just out of jail is hell-bent on vengeance.
One of the strongest aspect's of Giarratano's books is that she is obviously writing about people and behaviours that she knows all too well. DARK ICE draws a picture of both sides of drug addiction. The sheer ruthlessness of the "business" side of drugs - the totally amoral behaviour of the dealers and the people who make obscene amounts of money. The ease with which that money can buy the cooks, the dealers, the trappings of the lifestyle. The craziness that takes over when there's turf to protect and supply and demand chains to maintain. Finally the depths to which the addicts themselves can sink. Even as part of the so called "beautiful people", addicted people do terrible things.
The introduction of Jill's own sister under threat provides Giarratano with an opportunity to explore the relationship between the sisters. There's an age difference, and then there's the problem of the affect of abduction and abuse on the siblings of the victim. The relationship between these two sisters is very fragile, and a lot of the difficulties go back to the way that their family coped with what happened to Jill. Hopefully this is an area that Giarratano's going to get further into as this was a particularly interesting aspect of the affects of dreadful crimes that isn't overly explored in crime fiction. Slightly less successful for this reader was the story of Seren - the young mother jailed for drug offences, who is so keen to achieve revenge. To this reader it seemed the author was seeking to create another character who, despite enormous odds against them, triumphs over circumstances which seemed a little to co-incidental with Jill, despite the specific experiences being very different. Perhaps it was simply a personality thing - but readers who find a connection with Seren will undoubtedly be able empathise with her strongly.
As always with Leah Giarratano's books, the reader is going to come away from BLACK ICE thinking just a little bit more about the consequences behind the headlines on the nightly news. That's a very good thing.
Read
June 30, 2009I've been waiting interminably for Black Ice. I find that one of the worst things of finding a new favourite author is devouring all they've writen and having to wait for the next offering.
I think what I like most about Giarratano is her attenttion to real crime. The way it really is out there. You can feel she's really seen it.
Black Ice is my favourite in the Jill Jackson series so far. Each of the books tackles a topic: Vodka - paedophillia; Voodoo - child abuse and the creation of psychopaths; and Black Ice looks at domestic violence and drugs. None of these things are attractive or fun to look at, but they're real.
But I don't feel I'm being lectured when I read this author - rather, I'm swept away into another world.
Black Ice is hard crime. Real. Hard to look at, and impossible to put down. Just the way Leah Giarratano writes them.
Next please.
I think what I like most about Giarratano is her attenttion to real crime. The way it really is out there. You can feel she's really seen it.
Black Ice is my favourite in the Jill Jackson series so far. Each of the books tackles a topic: Vodka - paedophillia; Voodoo - child abuse and the creation of psychopaths; and Black Ice looks at domestic violence and drugs. None of these things are attractive or fun to look at, but they're real.
But I don't feel I'm being lectured when I read this author - rather, I'm swept away into another world.
Black Ice is hard crime. Real. Hard to look at, and impossible to put down. Just the way Leah Giarratano writes them.
Next please.
October 22, 2021
I enjoyed this for the most part. A few sloppy typos we're surprising. The ending felt rushed, and was odd - why was a second, much larger drug deal going down between the same seller and buyer just days after the first?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2022
I read this series completely out of order (1, 4, 2, 3) but it doesn't matter that much. Great story & some similar themes to "Breaking Bad" with drugs (particularly ice) manufacturing & distribution. Fast paced & believable.
June 12, 2010
In BLACK ICE, her third in a series featuring city detective Jill Jackson, Giarratano picks at the scab of Sydney’s murky drugs underbelly; a world where everyone from glamorous A-Listers to addicted streetkids to and vicious gangs, all collide.
The publisher's blurb states: "Living in a run down flat and making unlikely friends Jill sees first hand what devastation the illegal drugs scene can wreak. Jill's sister Cassie has a new boyfriend Christian Worthington. Like her, he is one of the beautiful people of Sydney, rich, good looking, great job, great car and seen in all the right places. He is a high flying lawyer doing pro bono work to keep a drug dealer out of gaol. He is also Cassie's supplier, keeping her supplied with cocaine and ice. When Cassie overdoses and is dumped at the hospital her life begins to spiral out of control. Seren Templeton is just out of Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre. Two years in gaol away from her son for something she didn't do. And now she is ready to get her revenge on the man responsible. Things start to go awry when these worlds collide and Jill and Cassie meet on opposite sides of the law."
I really enjoyed this book, and I found myself enjoying it more and more as it went on. I must admit that initially I wasn't that enamoured with Jackson as a main character - this may have been because I didn't have the full background on her from the first two books of the series, so some of her behaviour seemed a touch eye-rolling/contrived to me, when it may have seemed more organic and believable if I'd known more about her and her past. But Jackson (and Giarratano's writing) really grew on me throughout, and by the end of the book I was keen to read another tale centred on the (overly?) ambitious, complex, and flawed detective.
I particularly liked Giarratano's mix of setting (the gritty urban Australia underbelly), good dialogue, interesting plot, and some unique and memorable characters. BLACK ICE has a real modern, contemporary feel - not just because of the modern lifestyles and drugs involved, but the punchy way in which Giarratano writes, and her fresh evocation of the different layers of Australian drugs culture. Overall Giarratano pens a taut thriller; she excels in bringing the gritty world and her unique characters to life with realism and freshness.
If I have a quibble, it's that at times at times I could see the psychologist in her coming through a little too much, especially when it came to 'excusing' or mitigating the actions of some characters (particularly any female character - whose flaws always seemed to come down to how badly she'd been treated by some man in her past). The consistency of this pulled me out of the story a little at times, as I was left thinking about the author and her approach, rather than being completely and totally involved with the characters and story - you could 'see the author's hand' a little, which isn't a good thing. However, this was a very minor flaw in an otherwise great read.
The freshness of Giarratano's writing, her wonderful scene-setting, her unique characters, and her good plotting, will all bring me back for more. A good read for anyone looking for some very modern and contemporary city-set Australian crime fiction.
This review is a truncated version of a review first published on the
Crime Watch Blog
The publisher's blurb states: "Living in a run down flat and making unlikely friends Jill sees first hand what devastation the illegal drugs scene can wreak. Jill's sister Cassie has a new boyfriend Christian Worthington. Like her, he is one of the beautiful people of Sydney, rich, good looking, great job, great car and seen in all the right places. He is a high flying lawyer doing pro bono work to keep a drug dealer out of gaol. He is also Cassie's supplier, keeping her supplied with cocaine and ice. When Cassie overdoses and is dumped at the hospital her life begins to spiral out of control. Seren Templeton is just out of Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre. Two years in gaol away from her son for something she didn't do. And now she is ready to get her revenge on the man responsible. Things start to go awry when these worlds collide and Jill and Cassie meet on opposite sides of the law."
I really enjoyed this book, and I found myself enjoying it more and more as it went on. I must admit that initially I wasn't that enamoured with Jackson as a main character - this may have been because I didn't have the full background on her from the first two books of the series, so some of her behaviour seemed a touch eye-rolling/contrived to me, when it may have seemed more organic and believable if I'd known more about her and her past. But Jackson (and Giarratano's writing) really grew on me throughout, and by the end of the book I was keen to read another tale centred on the (overly?) ambitious, complex, and flawed detective.
I particularly liked Giarratano's mix of setting (the gritty urban Australia underbelly), good dialogue, interesting plot, and some unique and memorable characters. BLACK ICE has a real modern, contemporary feel - not just because of the modern lifestyles and drugs involved, but the punchy way in which Giarratano writes, and her fresh evocation of the different layers of Australian drugs culture. Overall Giarratano pens a taut thriller; she excels in bringing the gritty world and her unique characters to life with realism and freshness.
If I have a quibble, it's that at times at times I could see the psychologist in her coming through a little too much, especially when it came to 'excusing' or mitigating the actions of some characters (particularly any female character - whose flaws always seemed to come down to how badly she'd been treated by some man in her past). The consistency of this pulled me out of the story a little at times, as I was left thinking about the author and her approach, rather than being completely and totally involved with the characters and story - you could 'see the author's hand' a little, which isn't a good thing. However, this was a very minor flaw in an otherwise great read.
The freshness of Giarratano's writing, her wonderful scene-setting, her unique characters, and her good plotting, will all bring me back for more. A good read for anyone looking for some very modern and contemporary city-set Australian crime fiction.
This review is a truncated version of a review first published on the
Crime Watch Blog
March 22, 2014
The author obviously has a very detailed knowledge of the darker side of life in Southern Australia and this makes for a very convincing detective story
The number of characters means this requires fairly close reading and the only reason it did not get a five star was the final wrap up left some of these characters in limbo
If you enjoy a drug related crime thriller with believable characters add this to your list of to read
The number of characters means this requires fairly close reading and the only reason it did not get a five star was the final wrap up left some of these characters in limbo
If you enjoy a drug related crime thriller with believable characters add this to your list of to read
February 21, 2013
Another great one by Leah Giarratano.
I'm not usually a big fan of undercover stories, I like my cops to behave like cops, but this one was excellent: all the secondary characters felt real and I found myself caring for everybody in "Krystal"'s life.
The ending was a bit too good to be true, but hey, a little feel-good moment in such a grim story, I won't complain.
I'm not usually a big fan of undercover stories, I like my cops to behave like cops, but this one was excellent: all the secondary characters felt real and I found myself caring for everybody in "Krystal"'s life.
The ending was a bit too good to be true, but hey, a little feel-good moment in such a grim story, I won't complain.
August 13, 2013
Another great book by Leah Giarratano. She uses her experiences as an Australian psychotherapist to create real gritty and gutsy characters.The action keeps you turning the pages. Detective Jill Jackson is growing. The only bad thing I can say about this series is it's only 4 books.
October 31, 2014
No 3 in the Detective Jill Jackson series and I am devouring these books, having read the first 3 in 5 days! Now I have to order number 4 in at the library which is going to be a frustrating wait I can tell you!!!
Leah Giarratano has become one of my favourite authors.
Leah Giarratano has become one of my favourite authors.
July 6, 2011
An enjoyable crime fiction.
Read
August 5, 2011Terrifying. Tense. If even only half of this reflects the reality of a drug culture, it makes me realise how lucky I am.
Read
December 28, 2014#aww2013 no.7
February 3, 2016
Another great book in this series.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews