What Book to Read?

This is a very good thriller, though it’s strong South Australian focus may not appeal to everyone. I can’t remember reading another thriller so intent on giving so much detail about the geography and sociology of the setting – down not just to the suburbs, but to the very streets the characters drive on. A rich background, or too much trivia? I like it, but then I’m a South Australian.

Steve West – Westie, naturally – is a former professional footballer who retired injured and is now a mining engineer working at an outback mine. On a trip to Adelaide for a week off, he is stopped at a police road block and learns that protesters have breached the fences of the Woomera Detention Centre, allowing a number of the asylum seekers interned there to escape into the desert. He is initially unconcerned, but is then persuaded by Kara, one of the protesters, to help Saira, a beautiful young Afghan detainee, to flee to Adelaide.  Soon the police, ASIO and some of the detention centre guards are after them. Why is Saira so important?

This is a traditional hunt/chase thriller where the hero has both to evade capture and turn the tables on the pursuers. Sarre does a good job of raising the tension through an escalating level of menacing incidents, building to a final confrontation. I always like a plot where the hero manages to find a way of counterbalancing the threats against him (or her), and Sarre has done this quite cleverly. I also like the way he deals at the end of the story with the love interest.

West is an ordinary person who gets involved more or less by accident. I am always interested in the capacity of an ordinary person to deal mentally and physically with the trials they face in thrillers. What motivates them to go on? I don’t expect a complete psychological analysis, but I do like motivation and physical prowess to be credible. Sarre is just inside the bounds here. West takes more physical punishment than is completely credible, and just happens to know a professional burglar who provides him with a crucial piece of evidence. His motivation is not openly discussed; it is more a function of the sort of person he is, and as such, is reasonably convincing.

West’s character is revealed through his actions, but the reader believes in him because of the way he thinks and talks. Sarre has a good ear for dialogue. West is laconic and down to earth, as in: ‘Geologically speaking, we’re driving through a boring-as-bat-shit dust bowl’.  He can also verbally quick and clever. ‘Where would you rank me now,’ he asks Kara. ‘Above garden slug, below rat?’ No,’ she says. ‘ Higher. Chimpanzee perhaps.’ Who can’t like him? Sarre’s irreverent writing style reminds me of Peter Temple’s laid back way of saying important things in a droll and sometimes crude way.

I am much more doubtful about West’s friend Baz. His motivation is much less convincing, and his function in the plot remains unclear to me, unless it is simply to prove that ‘plenty of nice people do evil things’ and that power corrupts.

Sarre is clearly interested in the politics of the asylum seeker debate. Kara wants to expose abuses in the Woomera detention centre, and her view is treated sympathetically. Characters who denigrate or mistreat refugees are portrayed as ignorant and brutal. West shows himself to be on Kara’s side more by actions than words, but this carries the message more strongly than words can do.  ‘Maybe you have to fight terror with terror,’ West muses. ‘Or maybe if you do you end up with something that is no long worth fighting for.’ While hardly a profound truth, it is one that seems often forgotten in the war on terror.

Overall I like the story and the way it is written. Given that Steve West played for the Crows – the Adelaide Football Club – and I barrack for their arch rivals – the Port Adelaide Football Club, I think I am being remarkably generous. Sarre is less charitable. Talking about Port Adelaide, West says ‘Mosquitoes were no longer the most annoying creatures there; that honour belonged to supporters of the Port Adelaide Football Club.’ Thanks Alastair. And speaking of being South Australian-centric, calling a dog Warren is purely an Adelaide joke.

There is not a lot about Alastair Sarre on the internet, but you can read a little about him here, and a short interview with him about writing the book here.