Dark Clouds on the Mountain

Set in wintry Tasmania in the early 1990s, with flashbacks to post-war Hobart and Europe during World War II, this story deals with dark secrets, crime and Nazi plots, interwoven with familiar domestic tensions of family life and marriage. Tully creates a fictional world strongly embedded in authentic details of real locations and well-conceived characters.

 

The earthy, passionate main protagonist, Jack Martin, is richly drawn: 'A typical copper - detective anyway - stressed out most of the time, running on adrenaline, nicotine and coffee. Booze too, but not as much as some of his mates. Running to flab from a diet of meat pipes and sauce, chips and the deep-fried dog's turds they called chicken rolls, gobbled down on the run between cases, ingesting cumulatively lethal doses of salt, sugar and saturated fats.'

 

In this elaborate web of intrigue the ground shifts, the past intrudes and time and place are vividly realised.

 

Brooding violence, tangled mysteries... a gripping read.