Peter Klein (4)

Big Oakie White is a successful Melbourne bookmaker. When his daughter is kidnapped he doesn’t tell police because another bookmaker’s wife was recently kidnapped and killed when the ransom payment, being handled by police, went wrong. Instead he turns to several mates, including John Punter, to help get his daughter back in one piece. Punter is the son of a trainer, a successful professional gambler and something of a reluctant amateur detective. In addition to the kidnapping he becomes involved in an investigation into a series of unexplained events in one of Melbourne’s racing stables.

Peter Klein has been involved with Australian racing for decades, including as a strapper and trainer, so he has been able to create a very credible world for John Punter and friends. My own father has successfully supplemented his regular income by systematic gambling on horse racing for as long as I can remember so I’ve had a fair bit of exposure to the racing world in one way or another and the characters, small details and even the story threads themselves in Punter’s Turf all felt pretty realistic to me and the incorporation of real life identities such as well-known trainers adds to the authenticity.

As the protagonist Punter is very likable, largely believable and wholly Australian. He does as much work as he needs to get by but takes plenty of time for leisure (specifically surfing and eating pizza), helps his mates without question, has a vague disregard for authorities and has a soft side that is displayed a unwillingly but inevitably. He’s also intelligent, though he does make a couple of stupid mistakes of the kind plot advancement demands, and I rather enjoyed meeting him. There are a plethora of minor and colourful characters, surrounding Punter though none of them are terribly well fleshed out. The females in particular are a little light on the development front.

The plot speeds along for the most part (there were a couple of points at which I thought there was a bit to much detail provided on some esoteric aspect of racing) and there are lots of threads to keep readers’ interest. There is some level of predictability with these though there were plenty of surprises to keep me entertained. Although the book has an overall light tone there are points at which it becomes quite poignant and Klein displays a lot of skill in depicting emotional situations, for example when someone is revealed to be deliberately stopping a particular trainer’s horses from winning. This really was quite a gripping part of the story which made me feel sympathy and anger towards the culprit. The resolution of the main thread too is darker than I expected, though people’s actions were in keeping with the way they’d been portrayed which is all I can ever ask.

What about the audio book?

David Tredinnick (Aussies might remember him as Simon in The Secret Life of Us) does a great job of the narration, giving full voice to an array of typical and very suitable Australian accents and also manages to portray just the right note of wry humour for much of the tale which is entirely appropriate. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the story told in voices that are representative of the real-life people the characters must have been based on.

My rating 3.5/5… (más)

I'm still reeling a bit from the information that RING OF FIRE has been removed from Pan Macmillan's publishing schedule. I think it is a nice solid read by an established Australian author and certainly hope it gets placed somewhere.

Peter Klein has branched out a bit in RING OF FIRE. The central character is not the gambler John Punter who featured in the three titles in the Punter series (see below). Ryan Carlisle is a steward and so we see horse racing in Australia from a different and largely unfamiliar perspective.

The publisher's information that I was sent also says

Australians are terrified by fires; they take no prisoners, have no conscience, and destroy lives indiscriminately. Klein was heavily influenced by the tragic Black Saturday bushfires of 2009 and after visiting the worst hit areas of Kinglake and Marysville some months afterwards, he decided to write a novel about a fire starter.

At first it is thought that the fires that engulf training stables, and kill both trainers and horses, are accidental or perhaps even insurance scams. But as the number of fires rise, then the authorities realise there is an arsonist at work targetting those connected to the racing industry.
Perhaps a weakness in the plot structure is that I worked out who the arsonist was about half way through the story. Klein attempted to lay a couple of red herrings in my path, but they just didn't really work.

Peter Klein also gives Ryan Carlisle a great interest in fishing, like himself, and these passages have an authentic ring to them.

RING OF FIRE is a nicely paced novel. It attempts to get past the "who" and to explore, less successfully and credibly I thought, "why". The ending was a bit predictable.
Peter Klein still isn't Australia's answer to Dick (and now Felix) Francis but he is doing well.… (más)

Finding Wombat's sister Judy dead was the last thing Punter had expected when Judy phoned him about his old surfing pal Wombat's apparent disappearance. Judy usually saw her brother Vinnie (aka Wombat) at least a couple of times a week, but he hadn't been around for at least a week, and when he failed to turn for a regular Friday night hook up she had got worried.

John Punter, former strapper and son of a well known trainer, makes his living by betting at the races, and to a large extent can do as he pleases. Through a racecourse detective Punter learnt that there were some heavies looking for Wombat. Rumour said that Wombat had been betting big and losing heavy and that the loan sharks were after him. Wombat was employed as a strapper and his room at the stables had been trashed and it looked very much like he'd done a runner.

The search for Wombat leads Punter and his friend Kate, an investigative journalist at the Age, from Melbourne up the coastal road as far north as Brisbane, uncovering connections with big money and illegal drugs.

PUNTER'S LUCK is Peter Klein's debut crime fiction entry. (I read and reviewed the second, PUNTER'S TURF a month or so ago). Klein is certainly an Australian writer to watch.
There are many characters in PUNTER'S LUCK who reappear in the second novel: Kate the journalist, Punter's father DJ and his brother David, Beering the racecourse detective, Punter's cat Chan, even a reference to big Oakie White who is a central character in PUNTER'S TURF

There's an Australian flavour to this novel that comes from the settings, places, and colloquialisms. You come away feeling that Klein has laid an excellent foundation on which to build a series. His writing is polished and assured, and story flows easily. A satisfying read.… (más)

John Punter is a professional gambler and private investigator, estranged son of one of Australia's top horse racing trainers. He once wanted to be a jockey himself, but his size got in the way. He makes his living at the racetrack betting, winning enough to keep him going. His father regards him as a pariah, feeding off gambling rather than doing the honest work of training.

Punter numbers bookmakers, trainers, jockeys, and journalists amongst his friends. He has already had some success in finding out 'unexplained' occurrences both on and off the track such as tracking down a drug syndicate, nailing an insurance scam, and supplying information for stewards, and assisting racecourse detectives.

And so it is to John Punter that Big Oakie White, a well known Victorian bookmaker, turns when his daughter is kidnapped. Oakie doesn't want to go to the police because of what happened to a fellow bookie's wife, but now his daughter Michelle's ear has been delivered to him, earring still attached. Oakie wants Punter to deliver the ransom money. The kidnappers lead Punter a merry dance, but he successfully rescues Michelle, although an attempt to follow the kidnappers with a tracking device fails. Punter has a pretty good idea of who the kidnappers are though, and tracking them down becomes an ongoing thread in PUNTER'S TURF.

Kate is a crime reporter with The Age, and an avid racegoer. Her request to Punter to investigate the form of a horse she is thinking of raising a syndicate of friends for begins the second major thread in PUNTER'S TURF. The horse unexpectedly stops running on its first syndicate outing. By that time Punter has joined the syndicate himself so his interest is also personal.

Some of the reviews of PUNTER'S TURF are claiming that Peter Klein is Australia's answer to Dick Francis. Well, I don't think he is yet, but he could be. If you enjoy reading Dick (partnered recently by Felix) Francis, then I think you'll enjoy PUNTER'S TURF. Klein has a bit of work to do with dialogue, I thought some of the minor characters were a bit two-dimensional, and one of the elements of the ending a bit soppy and predictable, but the novel has a good Australian flavour to it, a feeling of knowledge and authority, and I'll look for another.… (más)