What Book to Read?

This is a good title for a book that is about the difficulty of finding the truth, whether it is in a murder investigation, a personal relationship, or even within one’s self.

Inspector Steven Villani is head of Homicide in the Victorian Police Force. And he has homicide in plenty to deal with. The story focuses on two cases: a young woman has died in a luxury apartment in Melbourne’s Docklands and three men are found dead, two of them tortured, in a suburban garage. Other deaths follow. But is it about finding the truth, or improving the clearance rate? The investigation is not helped by interference and obstruction from the rich and powerful of the business and political world. How should Villani respond to the threats and blandishments that beset him?

Villani is as flawed as the system he works in. He has already been party to police corruption. His family life has disintegrated, partly because of the pressures of his job, and partly, he thinks, because he didn’t care enough. His own background is sketched in – too much responsibility too young and not enough love have left him doubting himself, feeling that he lacks courage and has not lived up to his father’s expectations. Other people see him differently, and he is shown as capable of integrity and kindness, as well as intelligence and leadership. But his family situation has the power to destroy him.

This is all very well done, but perhaps the book’s outstanding achievement is the sense of solid reality – or truth – it purveys. This in turn derives from the dialogue. Temple’s thirty years in Australia – he is originally from South Africa – have given him a magnificent ear for ordinary speech, and he uses this to flesh out the nuances of relationships and to indicate the underlying currents of class, power and race which feed into the story.

The dialogue also sometimes serves to lighten slightly the sombre mood of the book. The action takes place over a few hot days in summer, with the smoke of bushfires hanging menacingly over Melbourne. The grim tone is set from the first page, where Vallini, fresh from a horrible crime scene, is crossing the Westgate Bridge. His companion remarks that his grandfather had been on it when a section collapsed during construction in 1970, killing thirty-five workers. Then comes the mitigating humour. ‘Dead?’ asks Villani. ‘No, taking a shit, rode the dunny all the way down’ is the reply.

In a story about corruption, betrayal and revenge, grief and misery are to be expected. And some things do come right for Villani – though others appear irreparably tainted. But there is one death near the end of the book that I found to be unnecessarily unpleasant, particularly given that the circumstances surrounding it are not explained. Truth is a loose sequel to Temple’s previous book, The Broken Shore, in that several of the characters, including Villani, come into both. I wondered if the circumstances surrounding this death have been left deliberately vague to provide a platform for a further book, perhaps featuring one of Villani’s subordinates – some of whom are drawn in enough detail to become major players in their own right.

Before his two most recent books, Temple wrote a series about Jack Irish, a lawyer who no longer practises after his wife’s murder by one of his clients. He makes a tiny appearance in Truth. These stories are also very worth reading, but lack the power of The Broken Shore and Truth.

Truth is the winner of the 2010 Miles Franklin Award, which is given to the best ‘Australian published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. You can see the numerous other prizes Temple has won here.