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Ash Island

Ash Island 1

by Barry Maitland
Paperback
Publication Date: 23/09/2015
5/5 Rating 1 Review

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Detective Sergeant Harry Belltree, back on the job after a near-fatal confrontation with corrupt colleagues, has become a departmental embarrassment. The solution is a posting away from Sydney and a quiet life in Newcastle. Or maybe not so quiet. A body's been found buried just offshore on Ash Island; there may be more. There's also Harry's unfinished business. The car crash that killed his parents and blinded his wife happened not far from Newcastle. And Harry knows it was no accident. The other unfinished business is Jenny's longed-for pregnancy. Which means that now the stakes are higher than ever.
ISBN:
9781925240368
9781925240368
Category:
Crime & Mystery
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
23-09-2015
Publisher:
Text Publishing
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
288
Dimensions (mm):
233x155x24mm
Weight:
0.43kg
Barry Maitland

Barry Maitland was born in Scotland and brought up in London. After studying architecture at Cambridge, he practised and taught in the UK before moving to Australia where he was Professor of Architecture at the University of Newcastle.

He has since retired from the university to pursue his writing. Maitland's first mystery The Marx Sisters was a nominee for the John Creasey award for Best First Novel and The Malcontenta won the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction. Bright Air, Maitland's first crime novel set in Australia, was published in 2008.

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Ash Island is the second book in The Belltree Trilogy and the fifteenth novel by Scots-born Australian author, architect and urban design expert, Barry Maitland. After the shocking events at Crucifixion Creek deem him an embarrassment to his Sydney station, DS Harry Belltree is sent to Newcastle. While his colleagues there make him less than welcome, he and Jenny, now pregnant, try to settle in. Closer, too, to the site of the car crash that blinded Jenny and killed Justice Danny Belltree and his wife, Mary, Harry hopes he may solve the mystery of their murder.

But the slow pace of his new job gets a jolt when a body turns up on Ash Island. Maybe more than one. And his private investigations have him wondering just how well he knew his parents. Soon enough, events have Harry and Jenny wondering if the evil from Crucifixion Creek has followed them to Newcastle, or if there is a new evil here, threatening their fragile peace. At the same time, reporter Kelly Pool, determined to bring to justice the woman who facilitated her kidnap at Crucifixion Creek, follows her trail to Newcastle. Her research reveals some intriguing connections, and Kelly doesn’t believe in coincidence. She once again wants to share information with Harry.

Maitland gives the reader another fast-paced tale with plenty of twists and more than one heart-stopping climax. This wholly believable piece of crime fiction includes a sailors’ mission, tattoos in very strange places, drug smuggling, open cut coal mining, an environmental activist, an Aboriginal Land Council, quite a bit of covert surveillance and some explosions.

Maitland’s characters are complex and multi-faceted: while some are exactly what they first seem to be, this is certainly not the case for all of the players. Harry is appealing: a tenacious maverick who cares for those close to him but is certainly no saint. Jenny certainly shows her mettle in this instalment. The final chapter’s shock development will have readers eager for the third book of the trilogy. Aussie crime fiction at its best.

Contains Spoilers No
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