Blackwattle Creek is the second Charlie Berlin Mystery by Australian author, Geoffrey McGeachin. It is some ten years after the events of The Diggers Rest Hotel, and Detective Sergeant Charlie Berlin, while still a misfit, is now very happily married to the smart and beautiful Rebecca, and father of two: he has only rare flashbacks to the war, even if he still holds quite a bit of anger inside him. On a ten-day enforced break from work, he looks into an irregularity in an ex-soldier’s funeral, at Rebecca’s request. But things don’t add up, people are telling him lies, and when Senior Constable Rob Roberts does some research as a favour, a severe beating lands the young man in the hospital.

Berlin’s investigations lead him from a funeral parlour to Blackwattle Creek, an asylum for the criminally insane, to a St Kilda café, to the library and even to a brothel. Disturbingly, people who talk to him seem to suffer intimidation, injury and worse. Just who is watching him from the dark green Ford Zephyr? What have Special Branch got to do with it all? An arson attack at his home has Berlin fearing for his family, and what he eventually discovers is so shocking, he breaks his ten-year sobriety AND resorts to violence.

Once again, McGeachin gives the reader an excellent plot with the odd red herring, a slow reveal of the facts and an exciting climax. Charlie is, of course, restricted by having only basic resources like index cards and the library: computers, the internet and mobile phones are all far into the future. McGeachin expertly captures the feel of late 1950s Melbourne and the moods and attitudes of the people; his characters are believable and their dialogue is natural. Berlin is a character with depth and appeal, so readers will be pleased to know that he appears in at least one further book, St Kilda Blues. Excellent crime fiction.