It took some time for Harry to recover from the injuries he received at the end of CRUCIFIXION CREEK and now there is unfinished business. The other person who has taken some time to recover is Kelly Pool, the journalist now working at the Times.

Harry has been posted to Newcastle doing ordinary police work rather than Homicide. But his reputation has preceded him and the underworld from Sydney knows where he has gone. Also Newcastle Police suspect Harry has been sent there to see if they handled the death of his parents properly, and treat him cautiously.

And so in many ways the action of ASH ISLAND connects seamlessly with the earlier novel, and Harry finds himself investigating some of the same people as before. There are new people and new cases too as well as the connecting threads. That is why you, dear reader, need to read these novels in order.

And at the end of this novel, there is a hook to get you into the third in the trilogy. ( )

Ash Island is the second book in Barry Maitland's Belltree trilogy featuring Sydney homicide Detective Sergeant Harry Belltree. This starts off shortly after the events of Crucifixion Creek. They should ideally be read in order as there is a plot line that continues throughout the trilogy.
In Ash Island, Harry discovers more information about the road traffic accident that killed his parents and left his wife, Jenny, blind. Following the events in Crucifixion Creek, Harry has been transferred to Newcastle, where he isn't exactly made to feel very welcome but he is trying to settle down with Jenny who is expecting their first child. But when a body is discovered on Ash Island, Harry soon finds himself investigating a complex case involving corruption, drugs, smuggling, coal mining and Aboriginal land rights. On top of it, there are connections to past events in Crucifixion Creek and the death of Harry's parents. Harry is a really appealing character although he likes to do his own thing and is at times rather unconventional when it comes to police investigations. Though not as suspenseful as the first book, this was another fast-paced, action-packed and enjoyable installment and the shocking ending left me longing to get the final part of the trilogy as soon as possible. ( )

I admit to the difficulty of picking up the thread without reading Book One in the Trilogy, but Maitland tells a cracking yarn and doesn't leave the latecomer entirely uninformed. It's just that the back story would help. My fault, of course. On the other hand, there's the odd deus ex machina plot development that stretches credibility. ( )

The second in the Harry Belltree trilogy, events in ASH ISLAND follow closely on from CRUCIFIXION CREEK. Short-listed for the 2015 Ned Kelly Awards CRUCIFIXION CREEK set up a different character for Maitland to work with in Australian, Indigenous Detective Harry Belltree. There is still, however, that use of a defining geographical location as is always the case in any of Maitland's novels - in this case much of the action centres around Newcastle's Ash Island.

Considerably more action orientated, Belltree is also very different from Maitland's other police characters (Brock and Kolla) in that to call him morally ambiguous is possibly understating the case. He's also well out of his comfort zone having been transferred to Newcastle after final events in the earlier novel very nearly killed him. If you've read CRUCIFIXION CREEK already you'll know that this covered a lot of things to do with development, corruption, drugs and bikie gangs, touching briefly on the car crash that killed Belltree's parents and blinded his wife. ASH ISLAND however, builds on that aspect considerably whilst also getting stuck into mining, politicians, land rights and, as always, a hefty dose of corruption and nasty goings on.

Having said "if you've read CRUCIFIXION CREEK" it is almost mandatory that you do read these two novels in sequence. There's a lot of back story to Belltree, his parents, wife and supporting characters, such as journalist Kelly Pool, that you're just going to have to know to make any sense of what's happening in ASH ISLAND, despite some reiteration of background and details.

There's no fudging the fact that whilst CRUCIFIXION CREEK was a great series commencement, there are aspects of ASH ISLAND that are less successful. Whilst there is advancement of an underlying conspiracy with new plot elements introduced, as well as that backwards concentration on the fatal car accident, there is overall less tension here. Obviously because this is part two of the trilogy you can't expect that everything is going to be resolved in ASH ISLAND, but that's not the overwhelming problem. Rather there's a slight sense of wandering, less direction somehow with some hefty personal leaps and bounds that just felt silly contributing overall to a somewhat anti-climactic feeling.

That's not to say that the third book in the series won't be high on the reading list when it comes out, as there's absolutely no doubt that whatever is going to happen to Belltree, he's not going to go down without a bloody good fight.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-ash-island-barry-maitland-0 ( )