“On a grey whipped Wednesday in early winter, men in long coats came out and shot Renoir where he stood, noble, unbalanced, a foreleg dangling. In the terminating jolt of the bolt, dreams died.”

Have a round on Jack Irish, sometime, small-time lawyer, Philp Marlowe of the outback, probably not someone you might ask to draw up a last will and testament.

You know the form – the pub full of old codgers who follow the local football, the Melbourne back streets, the horse racing which of course means the Bet, scratching the underbelly of the underworld. The women, of course, are not backyard Betty’s but elegant and intelligent. Jack is a bit of rough for them, only perhaps they do not know how rough. But he is also a bit bruised. The mortality rate is high, even higher maybe than Harry Bosch. The omniscient commercial shenanigans reach down from a blue Melbourne sky, trail smoke behind a small bi plane. No one gains entry to this series without a proper description:

“He was big, no neck or chin to speak of, peaked cap too small for his long hair, tiny nose, arms like sewer pipes, belly hanging over a wide leather belt.

Nor a conversation without implications:

“He gave me the silence. Then he made a noise, not so much animal as vegetable, the noise a sad carrot or potato might make, the noise of something deeply, hopelessly embedded in mud.”

The quotes here are from the third book Dead Point. Which includes two of his most spectacular scenarios. The first was Bad Debts, then Black Tide – both of which were made into films – and finally White Dog. Temple died in 2018. Probably not appreciated enough. Not in the same series but thought to be one of his best is reviewed also here.