Bad Debts
A Jack Irish Thriller
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4.2 • 166 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Meet Jack Irish, criminal lawyer, debt collector, football lover, turf watcher, trainee cabinetmaker, and one of the best crime characters ever created.
When Jack receives a puzzling message from a jailed ex-client he’s too deep in misery over Fitzroy’s latest loss to take much notice. Next thing Jack knows, the ex-client’s dead and he’s been drawn into a life-threatening investigation involving high-level corruption, dark sexual secrets, shonky property deals, and murder.
With hitmen after him, shady ex-policemen at every turn, and the body count rising, Jack needs to find out what’s going on—and fast.
The first novel in the iconic Jack Irish series, Bad Debts was originally published in 1996 and won the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel. It has been made into a tele-movie by the ABC with Guy Pearce starring as Jack Irish.
Peter Temple is the author of nine novels, including four books in the Jack Irish series. He has won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction five times, and his widely acclaimed novels have been published in over twenty countries. The Broken Shore won the UK’s prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger for the best crime novel of 2007 and Truth won the 2010 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
textpublishing.com.au
'Bad Debts is wonderful, quintessentially Australian stuff, full of authentic, diehard types, old culture cops, backstreet humour and inner-city dialogue you can overhear in the bars of certain hotels, the ones with framed pictures of horses on the walls. it is the genuine article and an absolute pearler of a read.’ Australian Book Review
‘Like his characters, Temple has a spare, funny delivery, and a sharp eye for a target...Temple writes with the urgency of someone who wants to disrupt an official investigation, and his story is kept up like taut wire. Brothers and sisters in crime, worship at the Temple.’ Australian
‘Temple can be as tough as nails, but also displays a wickedly droll sense of humour which, like the work of, say, the American writer Joe R. Lansdale, frequently has the reader holding his sides with laughter even while immersed in some particularly unpleasant scenario...With Bad Debts Temple has created a world-class novel.’ Sydney Morning Herald
‘The prose is tight, the pace breathless, the dialogue inspired, and Temple's take on the Victorians’ football mania hilarious.’ Sun Herald
'One of the world’s finest crime writers.’ The Times
'Having read the new novels of Michael Connelly and Martin Cruz Smith, I have to say that Temple belongs in their company. Australia is a long way off, but this bloke is world-class.’ Washington Post
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Australian Jack Irish ex-lawyer and sometime debt collector, cabinetmaker and barfly gets a double introduction as MacAdam/Cage releases his first two adventures (number two is Black Tide) this month. Jack's a gumshoe in classic hard-boiled style: there's his clipped, black-humor dialogue, his hard-drinking past and his sad backstory (his wife was murdered by one of his clients). When Jack gets a desperate message from Danny McKillop, whom he defended years before on a hit-and-run charge "at the beginning of the forgotten zone, the year or so I spent drunk," he takes a while to call him back. When he does, Danny, who was fresh out of prison, is dead. Jack's guilt fuels his ensuing search for the truth about Danny's murder. The main plot, which has to do with a crooked land development deal, is overly complicated, but solid subplots one concerning a romance, another about a horseracing scheme keep the pages flipping. The engaging Jack and his friends are absolutely original and unfailingly amusing, and figuring out their speech patterns is great fun, even in its difficulty ("We'll have to get on the Drizas, motor out to the bush next week. Suit, Jack?"). Readers will take to this series like a thirsty man to strong drink and bang the bar for another round.
Customer Reviews
You won’t put this down long enough to boil your kettle!
This one’s an absolute cracker.
Who’d have thought that cabinet making, race fixing and a razor sharp thriller could find their way into a single book? Characters are pure Australiana and so real that you feel you’re sitting in the car with them. The whodunnit is as good as any British writer ever turned out. Top stuff Peter Temple.
Jack Irish
Just loved it. Always good to read an excellent Oz flavoured story. Thoroughly recommend
MR
A truly delightful read. So glad to find crime written that an Australian can both visualise and move with.
Great read.