Shane MaloneyReseñas

Maloney's wit really accords with my sense of humour. It helps that this novel is about a political hack in Melbourne, navigating the city's arts scene. As a political hack in Melbourne who spent my entire 20s in the city's arts scene, it hits rather close to home; there are even sequences that take place in conference rooms in which I whiled away countless hours, and on balconies from which I have imbibed far too often. Great fun.

A deeply biased four stars. Murray for PM.

Deeply enjoyable Aussie crime novel; a high 4 stars.

I had never previously read Shane Maloney, and that was clearly to my discredit! Murray Whelan, a down-on-his-luck State political fixer finds himself caught up in political, personal, and criminal drama when he finds himself investigating a corruption case that involves at least one dead body.

I've never been a big fan of "hard-boiled" crime novels. Perhaps because I grew up on the golden-age cosy crimes of Christie, or perhaps because of negative early experiences (cf the Claudia Valentine books). But it's fair to say the wit and pace of Maloney's writing has drawn me back to this world. Or perhaps it's that I'm now a Melbourne-based political worker with a useless personal life and a sense for the macabre? Maybe Murray Whelan is my spirit animal. Here, Murray attends his local branch meeting, and this experience hasn't changed in twenty years (will it ever?):

"Thirteen attendances and fifteen apologies out of sixty-seven members on the books. It was the usual crowd - true believers, unreconstructed Whitlamites, reliable booth captains, handers out of how-to-vote cards, knife-sharpeners, has-beens and wannabees. Laurie's son Barry, a forty-seven-year-old bachelor draftsman at the State Electricity Commission took the minutes on a concertina pile of computer paper salvaged from the SEC recycle bin."

Good times.

A light but pleasant end to this classic Aussie detective series. For those of us whose key interests are politics, history, Australian life, and perpetual sarcasm, Maloney was one of the best.

Around the year 2010, Maloney indicated that he was working on a seventh and final Murray Whelan novel. Alas, the trail went cold; it has never appeared. I recently emailed Maloney and he was kind enough to reply. Although I won't share his correspondence, it does sound as if Murray has grimaced his last. Like the real Australian Labor Party of which he is such a loyal member, his glory days are far behind him.

I seem to begin a very high proportion of my reviews with a caveat about why my review shouldn't be taken too seriously. I think that's just because I am mostly reviewing these things for myself, so I have a record of how I felt about a book, and I hate the thought of being responsible for someone else passing up a book they might love or wasting hours of their lives on something that isn't for them. Having said all that, I don't read a lot of crime fiction and so this review should be taken with a grain of salt because I might just be criticising or enthusing about elements that come with with the genre.

I really enjoyed this novel. It is fast-paced, energetic and quite funny in parts. Murray Whelan is a classic reluctant hero, a man with more important things to do who nevertheless finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery. This role is a classic because it works. I found I was on Whelan's side very quickly as he navigated Labor Party machinations, ethnic tensions and dodgy business practices in Melbourne's north while the real problems lie at home, with his son, his house and his failing relationship.

The only part of the book I didn't enjoy was the ending, with the last fifteen or twenty pages trying to wrap up far too many loose ends. Once again, I'm not sure if this is a genre thing, but I would have much rather the story ended with the solving of the crime, rather than finishing off the story of every relationship and every character that the book had explored.

Written in the first person, Maloney's prose is at it's best when Whelan is wisecracking and slandering. Otherwise it's clear and direct, driving the story with just enough embellishment to paint the picture.

I'd highly recommend this book, but then, when it comes to crime, what do I know? There might be much better stuff out there. But if you think your enjoyment of the genre might be enhanced by a bit of political colour, this could be a good way in. It was for me.

'What's funny about Swedish comedy?' my sister-in-law wanted to know after going to an opening at the Melbourne Film Festival. Evidently the entire audience was left with that sense of right-cinema-wrong-film. It made us speculate as to whether Swedish humour is particularly impenetrable. This, even though Australians have a particular affinity for Abba and Ikea.

And yet.

I read the first three Shane Maloneys in a 3-in-1 edition. I carried it with me everywhere, laughed out loud every page. It made people stop me on the street. My friends formed a queue to borrow it. Hey, some of them even forked out for their own copy. It was about the funniest thing I'd ever read.

I gave it to somebody in the UK. Anxiously awaited their verdict. Meh was about it.

So, maybe it was a culturally specific book and I didn't realise, being attuned to that culture as it happens. Maybe.

But gee. Maybe not. This series is the most brilliant fun. I think it would even make people who don't get enough sun happy.

Another entry in the Murray Whelan series of crime mystery novels, set in Melbourne. "The Brush-off" sees the Labor Party functionary Whelan get mixed up in shady dealings of the art world following his boss's rise to Minister for the Arts.

There's the usual Whelan shenanigans, plus a new love interest, some more obscure references to internal Australian Labor Party doings and, best of all, lots of references to Melbourne (it's great to be reading book and think "hey, I've drunk in that pub!"). It's not the strongest entry in the Murray Whelan series but still worth a read.½

As 2 fish friends are racing to school, they see something strange above them in the water, and thinking is Walter the whale. However, it isn't, but what could it be?

Another fine entry in the Murray Whelan series by Shane Maloney, this time focusing on Whelan's adventure dealing with various union and political figures in Victoria, as well as dealing with his now teenage son Redmond (and his friend Tarquin).

Lots of amusing lines and situations here and Whelan is one of the funniest writers in Australia. As soon as you finish you want to move on to the next book in the series.

"Something Fishy" is one of Maloney's lesser entries in the Murray Whelan detective series. This entry sees protagonist/politician Murray Whelan still searching for his partner (and unborn child's) murderer, while getting involved with a shady restauranter's disappearance and wanting to get involved with a certain lady.

Meanwhile, Murray's son continues to get himself into peril, and Murray does some political work on behalf of the restaurateur's wife. Most of this all ties together at the end, but not overly satisfactorily.½

Murray Whelan is back and this time he is mired in politics. As mired as the recently discovered skeletal remains of which appear to be a union official Murray had dealings with; who disappeared, feared drowned over twenty years ago.
Things began to get complicated when Murray found himself sharing breakfast with fellow MP Charlie, Charles Joseph Talbot, MHR, only for Charlie to succumb to a sudden heart attack.
Murray and Charlie had electorates that shared many of the same constituents in the multicultural northern suburbs; thus it fell to Murray to organise the funeral arrangements. At the service Murray is inveigled into assisting with a clean and fuss free pre-selection for Charlie’s replacement. Normal Labour factional ructions and skulduggery ensue, so far so normal. What soon becomes apparent is that Charlie was on the boat that the unionist fell from during an ill-fated fishing venture. Also on the boat was Senator Barry Quinlan.
The police start investigating, questions are asked and people start to get nervous. Murray recalls the day of the heart attack and realises Charlie was reading the small article about the remains that were found in the lake. Coincidence?
Should the past stay buried along with the remains or will skeletons now out of the lake create havoc with reputations and the lives of the living. Murray battles with conflicting loyalties as he copes with the upcoming by election, relationships and teaching his teenage son to drive.

Murray Whelan is back but this time politics takes a back seat while Murray battles personal issues. Maloney sets up Murray’s trial with a literal bang. You know the two story arcs are going to come together just not in such a powerful and emotional way.
We jump forward eighteen months and Murry is inveigled into helping out a colleague by attending a committee on marine sustainability in San Remo. He and some of the committee members accompany one of the coast watch officers on a routine patrol looking out for abalone poachers. What with the boiling, churning waves reacting with the long lunch, things on the boat get very messy indeed. Who threw up on whom and who fell off the boat provide political leverage for Murray, what he doesn’t realise is how intertwined things will get later on.
The summer break approaches and Murray takes off to Lorne with his son and his mate. Lorne in the eighties is a far different place then than it is now. However you begin to see through Murray’s eyes the place it will become. Maloney takes this seaside village and adds a dark and dangerous edge to it. Invited to a New Years celebration at an exclusive local restaurant, Murray is sure he has spotted the escapee we met at the start of this adventure. Throwing caution to the wind he decided to follow him. Thus begins an exhilarating, exhausting, tension filled two days that finds Murray deep in the hinterland bush and then in equally deep trouble in the nearby ocean.
Maloney mixes self deprecating black humour with seat of your pants crime. He has a great touch with place and manages to put you into the situation with a few deft phrases. Everything is seen through Murray’s POV and yet Maloney manages to credibly convey the various personalities and situations Murray finds him in.

The Melbourne of Murray Whelan may have changed from the eighties where this political thriller is set, the machinations of the labor party, unions and big business however remains the same.
Murray is the electoral officer for a Victorian State MP, Minister for Industry. Murray's remit covers a far bit which can be covered by the term "fixer". He is the filter between the great unwashed, the general public and the Minister.
A worker is found frozen in a meat storage facility of a major meat processing plant. Murray is sent to check whether this has any political ramifications for his minister and to provide a sanitised report to absolve the Ministry if any workers safety issues have been breached.
Simple things rapidly become complicated, both in his private and his professional life.
Maloney perfectly captures the day to day travails of the lower political apparatchik in Melbourne's ethnically diverse northern suburbs. As a local, you love coming across familiar landmarks. Murray's character is not the super sleuth or the quirky amateur detective found in many crime novels. He is thrust into a situation not of his making and copes, or doesn't, as best he can.
This is the first in a series, can't wait to see how Maloney and Murray develop from here.

While "Stiff" was first published around the turn of the millennium, the events are based sometime before that, in the heady days of the 1980s in Melbourne, Australia, when the state Labor government were attempting to win the bid for hosting the 1996 Olympic Games while also playing internecine politics in a way only the Australian Labor Party can.

There are some laugh out loud moments throughout "Stiff", including the comment about coming third in an arse kissing competition, as well as references that would surely make the novel unintelligible overseas, but overall, it was a very good start to the Murray Whelan series.

Maloney is in top form here as his protagonist Murray Whelan, Australian Labor Party apparatchik, is seconded to the 1996 Melbourne Olympic Games bid. As history tells us, Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics, so this a story of failed skullduggery and arse-kissing, which I always find more interesting than stories of successful skullduggery and arse-kissing.

Whelan is swept up in the machinations behind Melbourne's bid to win the right to be host city for the 1996 Olympics and much of it is hilarious. And, as Whelan notes at the end, coming third in an arse-licking competition is somewhat embarrassing.½

In this instalment Murray Whelan has just witnessed a good friend and mentor die of a heart attack. At the time of his death Charlie Talbot was a Labor member of the House of Representatives for the Commonwealth of Australia representing Coolaroo which takes in part of Murray's Melbourne North riding. Murray, as a close friend, was in charge of the funeral arrangements. As a Labor representative in the state legislature he is expected to help the man chosen to replace Talbot in the federal parliament.

Murray's friendship with the deceased is one of the reasons the police question him about a skeleton found in a drained lake. Many years before, when both Whelan and Talbot worked for the Municipals Union, the Union head drowned in the lake while out in a boat with Talbot and a few other Union officials. Whelan was not present but he might know something that didn't make it into the official record. He doesn't actually but when it appears Talbot's reputation might be tarnished by allegations of murder he makes it his business to find out.

There are lots of typical jabs at politicians and some pretty steamy sex scenes. I've gotten pretty fond of Murray Whelan in reading these three books. And I have an appreciation for Australian politics that I didn't have before. I wonder how our Canadian politicians compare to to their Australian counterparts. Probably pretty similar.

Something Fishy is set a couple of years after the events of The Big Ask. Murray Whelan has been the member for Melbourne North for a few years. He is sitting in parliament when one of the pages brings him a note from his live-in girlfriend, Lyndal Luscombe. Lyndal wants to meet him in a nearby park about a personal matter. Rather than sit through the third reading of the Administrative Resources Bill, Whelan scoots out. The personal matter turns out to be that Lyndal is pregnant which she corroborates by showing Murray the ultrasound picture of the baby, a girl. Whelan is chuffed and he and Lyndal are on their way to drink some bubbly when a pair of escaped convicts comes down the street. The police are in close pursuit and they manage to hit one of the felons but the other, Rodney Syce, manages to take off on their getaway motorbike. However, in his rush he knocks down Lyndal who hits her head and dies instantly.

Needless to say, Whelan is devastated by this and he becomes somewhat fanatical about finding Rodney Syce. Three times he is sure he has spotted him and three times he has been wrong. However, on New Year's Eve, when he is attending a party at a fancy restaurant he is sure he sees Syce making a delivery to the restaurant. He immediately ditches the party and follows the delivery vehicle further and further into the bush. He eventually loses the vehicle and then gets out on foot. More by good luck than skill he manages to stumble on the campsite where Syce is holed up, growing marijuana and processing illegal abalone. Syce also has captive a Melbourne restaurateur, Tony, who Whelan knows. Whelan hides out in a dinghy while Tony meets with the owner of the restaurant that Syce made the delivery to when Whelan spotted him. Although Tony thinks he will be released when he signs the papers Syce has other instructions, namely to kill him and dump his body at sea. Naturally Tony gets put into the dinghy that Whelan is hiding in and a wild ride and escape at sea ensues. Although Whelan does manage to escape his son, Red, who has been at a rock concert is on his way to Syce's camp with some buddies who want to get the marijuana. With assistance from police and other government groups Whelan and Red are safely reunited. After all that it turns out the criminal in the camp is not Rodney Syce. Finally Whelan is able to put his obsession about Syce away and focus on other things.

I really enjoyed this book which had all the wit of the previous book but more depth.

Finally read the first of this trilogy, The Big Ask. I really enjoyed it although it's not what I expected from the cover. Very funny in parts and quite scathing of politicians and unions.

Murray Whelan is an Australian Labor Party hack. He started out as the constituency assistant to Angelo Agnelli, the Labor Party member for Melbourne North, and as Agnelli rose through the party ranks there was Murray at his side. In 1991 when this book takes place Agnelli is Minister of Transport and Murray is his parliamentary aide. As Minister of Transport Agnelli has to deal with the mighty United Haulage Workers, the union that represents all the long-distance truckers. The local rag has leaked that the government is considering imposing a tonnage levy to help defray the damage to roads caused by the big trucks. So three representatives from UHW come to visit Agnelli to convince him to cancel the levy. Agnelli had already decided that they couldn't make it stick but he isn't about to kowtow to UHW. He decides that Whelan should stir the union pot and get someone to run against the incumbent slate of officers. Thus Whelan is at the fruit and vegetable market when the son of the owner of the biggest transport company is run over by a truck. Since Whelan and Darren Stuhl had mixed it up at a nightclub a few nights before, Whelan is a suspect. So is his friend Donny who was driving the truck that ran over Darren.

But Murray has a bigger worry because his son, who lives with Murray's ex-wife in Sydney, has disappeared from his private boarding school. Murray is just about to fly to Sydney when his son, Red, turns up at his house in Melbourne and says he doesn't want to go back to his mother. Murray is thrilled to have Red living with him but when he is visited by thugs who threaten him unless he tells the police Donny killed Darren, Murray gets concerned about whether he can keep Red safe.

It all works out in the end. In fact, Murray ends up being elected to represent Melbourne North in parliament when Agnelli is exposed in flagrante with a woman not his wife. Labor has lost its majority though so Murray is a Member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

You know how most works of fiction have a paragraph at the front of the book that says events and people in the book are imaginary and not meant to represent real occurrences or people. This is what Shane Maloney put in the front of this book:
The author of this book, its setting and its characters are entirely fictitious. There is no such place as Melbourne. The Australian Labor Party exists only in the imagination of its members.
I loved his sense of humour.

This is the first Murray Whelan mystery, and it's terrific fun. Maloney hit the ground running with this one. Political wheeler and dealer Whelan gets mixed up in a murder at a meat-packing plant, when he's asked to find out if an accidental death has any chance of setting off union activity. I love a book with a good sense of place, and Maloney's Melbourne is indeed very recognisable. I think I've stayed in that Greek-Italian-Turkish-Lebanese part of town.

And it's funny. Murray Whelan is a cynical bugger, but with a good heart, and his take on the political scene is nicely satirical without being overdone. And he suffers some hilarious pratfalls - the aftermath of his narrow escape from an attempted murder is a beautiful scene. Saved by a bag of rotting compost...

Brisk jaunt through Melbourne bureaucracy and union wranglings.

A fun and easy read.

Maloney has been characterised as a crime writer, but this bemuses him somewhat because he set out to write a series based on an unlikely hero caught up in the day to day grind of local politics.

Maloney's protagonist, Murray Whelan, is at once accident prone and a survivor. His every day ups and downs are somehow subsumed into bigger picture dilemnas which push his skills to the limits. He is humorous and lovable, devious and indefatigable.

The peak of the Murray Whelan series. This is screamingly funny, never takes itself too seriously and moves at lightning pace. The way Maloney captures the beating heart of Melbourne is spot on, I recognise the places, smells and people in this novel.

At approximately the same time that two fishing friends discover a skull in the muddy bottom of Victoria's Lake Nillahcootie, Victorian politician Murray Whelan is attending the funeral of Australian Federal Member of Parliament Charlie Talbot. Charlie has died before his time. In fact he dropped dead at the age of 64 over breakfast in Murray's company in a Mildura hotel. Charlie's death means his Federal seat is up for grabs, and this is a trophy Murray would very much like.

The discovery that the skull found in Lake Nillahcootie appears to sport a bullet hole sparks a police investigation that rakes up old memories. Twenty years ago, a union official called Merv Cutlett disappeared, presumed drowned, from a boat on Lake Nillahcootie. One of his fishing companions was Charlie Talbot, the other a university lecturer. As the police begin to contact those who accompanied Merv to Lake Nillahcootie, Murray attempts to uncover the truth about Merv's disappearance himself.

SUCKED IN is one of those rare crime fiction novels that combines a murder mystery with an Australian sense of humour. Maloney achieves this through frequent use of authentic Australian idiom without detracting from the sense of an ongoing investigation. Murray Whelan's humour is dry, laconic, and always present. His first person narrative holds nothing back, whether he is talking about fellow Australian Labor Party officials, his relationship with his son, his description of the various farewells the death of Charlie Talbot occasions, his attempts to learn Greek, or his own sexual adventures. There is no mistaking the Australian setting of this novel, and I could almost hear the gravelly voice of Murray Whelan reading it into my ear.

SUCKED IN is #6 in Shane Maloney's Murray Whelan series. I haven't read them all but that didn't affect my enjoyment of this latest. #2, THE BRUSH-OFF, was the winner of the Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in 1997, and SUCKED IN was shortlisted for the same award in 2008.

Shane Maloney's website: http://www.shanemaloney.com/½

Disappointing. The style of writing was funny early in the series, but this felt tired and the plot felt a bit recycled. Not all that funny, really, although readable enough.½