Living in Australia has transformed my reading habits. I’ve dived headfirst into Australian literature, hungry to understand this culture from every angle possible.
This quest led me somewhere unexpected: crime fiction. Genre I’d usually dodge completely. But I made a promise to myself to let more stories into my life. So here I am, happily working through Australian crime writers.
My current favourites are Gary Disher and Chris Hammer. Now I’m adding Michael Brissenden to that list after reading his gripping “Dead Letters” — a book that takes aim at political corruption in Australia.
The protagonist is Detective Sid Allen, tasked with solving the murder of a high-ranking politician in Sydney. He teams up with journalist Zehyr White, and together they stumble into a web of conflicting interests. Could it really be true that Sydney’s neo-Nazis are working with Italian and Lebanese mafia? And the police? With puppet masters pulling strings from Canberra?
Sounds mad. But Brissenden makes it work, driving the story forward until the very last page.
This is a proper page-turner. The story grips you, the dialogue brings characters to life, and Brissenden proves himself a sensitive observer and storyteller. Anyone reading “Dead Letters” will learn volumes about the Australian psyche.
Highly recommended, though you probably can’t get it in Germany. I searched amazon.de — not even available as an English ebook there.
After finishing books or longer articles, I always leave myself a little audio note. Usually not meant for public consumption (and the quality’s ordinary since I just talk into my Apple Watch). But this time I thought I’d share it. In this unedited note, I talk through what happens in the book and what I think of it.
First published in German at reinergaertner.de, where I’ve been at it since 1997. AI did the heavy lifting on the translation. I did the heavy squinting at the result.