Smoke
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3.8 • 48 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
'The best crime book I've read this year. Kept me guessing right to the end. The setting is brilliant, the characters compelling, the writing elegant, the plot bewitching, the tension palpable. A winner.'
Chris Hammer
'A great book and an engrossing read that I just could not put down. Michael Brissenden has delivered an intense, diabolically smart and unforgettable novel.' - Dervla McTiernan
'Smoke by Michael Brissenden is a powerful, haunting and exceptionally well written novel that kept me reading late into the night trying to figure it out and stayed with me long after I finished it'.
Don Winslow
'Atmospheric, fast-paced, and almost unbearably tense - I was deeply immersed in Alex Markov's dangerous, unpredictable world. Brissenden has created characters you'll care about and a page-turner that'll keep you guessing. This is a cracking crime novel and his best book yet.'
Mark Brandi
'A blistering tale of murder, betrayal, and corruption in small town America. The writing is so good I could feel the heat of the California wildfires. Smoke could just be the best crime thriller you'll read this year.'
Tim Ayliffe
Years after leaving Jasper, Detective Alex Markov has been sent back under the shadow of an LAPD corruption investigation. She is convinced that the man, a family friend, was murdered opportunistically under the cover of the fire. As the smoke clears, Alex reveals a town corrupt to its core - but exposing that corruption could destroy her and the people she loves. Will she ignore the crookedness and deceit, or face the consequences of pursuing an inconvenient truth?
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A very deliberate slow burn of a novel set in a fire-prone rural community in California, Smoke brings Detective Alex Markov back to her hometown in the wake of a natural disaster. Back in L.A., she kicked off a corruption investigation that made her a pariah among her colleagues, but here in the small town of Jasper, her inquiry into a suspicious death leads to her discovering myriad secrets within the community’s dark underbelly. Former ABC journalist Michael Brissenden writes with a sharpness and verve that peels back layers of murder, betrayal and the moral complexities of uncovering bad behaviour while trying to avoid blowback for the people you love.
Customer Reviews
Wrong location
2.5 stars
Author
Australian TV journalist (ABC) and non-fiction writer turned novelist.
In brief
For some reason, Mr B set this book in California rather than Australia like his previous books. Specifically, the setting is a small community in the Sierra Nevada range in the aftermath of a destructive bushfire, or brushfire as they say in the Land of the Free. A local gets barbecued in his shed. The death isn’t considered suspicious initially until local gal and cop Alex notes he was locked in said shed. She’s been working in the “big smoke” (sorry), i.e., LAPD, but was recently transferred back to a rural posting after accusing a co-worker or workers in LA of corruption/discrimination/dastardly behaviour NOS/all of the above. And of course she has “issues” back home in the boondocks too. Yada, yada, many interior monologues, the end.
Writing
Mr B admits he was inspired to write this by the 2019-2020 “Black Summer” bushfire season in Australia. Why set it in America then, you ask? I have no idea. Nor, it appears, does Mr B who uses Fahrenheit for temperatures, but metres and kilometres for distance, and whose dialogue and descriptions sound more Aussie than American. (I believe the female narrator of the audio version had an Australian accent too.) Alex is also Mr B’s first female protagonist. Suffice it to say, employing many interior monologues does not make for a convincing female protagonist. The monologues themselves need to be more convincing.