Bad Debts

Peter Temple launched his career as a novelist (at age 50) with a very enticing sentence, introducing one "Edward Dollery, age forty-seven, defrocked accountant, big spender, and dishonest person." That was enough to draw me in, but it helped too that Nancy Pearl is a big fan of Bad Debts, Temple's debut. So am I, now: his hard-boiled banter justifies the comparisons to Elmore Leonard, and his hero, Jack Irish, a somewhat good-hearted attorney who, among other things, doesn't mind cashing in on a giant horse-racing scam, is a compellingly flawed and reluctant sleuth. I see why, in his short career—only eight novels long—Temple became Australia's most acclaimed crime writer.