Even in the Mac Faraday and Joe Cashin books, where the action takes place many miles distant, the city is a constant presence, a place to return to or escape from, a very subtle but audible hum in the background. It is central to the Frank Calder and Jack Irish stories. The beating heart of Temple’s novels is Melbourne. His novels have put him in a class of his own in terms of Australian crime fiction – he has five Ned Kelly Awards to his name – and the country itself is key to his work. He was born in South Africa in 1946, but moved to Australia, where he worked as a journalist and later as a lecturer. Swirl these strands together and you have the near miracle that is Peter Temple. Then add the imagination of a poet and the compassionate humility of a medieval saint. Imagine prose written by a journalist who has been cudgeled by hard-nosed editors into saying as much as possible in the fewest words.
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