Brilliant ! I have just finshed reading this novel - my 4th Peter Temple book. He has overtaken the likes of Rankin and Billingham for me - his books simply take you onto another plane. Set in atmospheric Melbourne with complex, fast-moving plots, brilliant characterization and dialogue, and the darkest and funniest of humour. This is a book for adults with a story about power, corruption and murder which is as complex as they come but it all comes together brilliantly with the perfect finale. In my view Peter Temple's knowledge and research are exemplary and way above the abilities of your average writer.

First thing to say is that I listened to this as an e-audiobook, having never read anything by this author before. Because I enjoyed the book so much I've since discovered that Temple was, in fact, one of Australia’s most acclaimed crime writers and a five-time winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction. Bad Debts was published in 1996 and the first of five books about Jack Irish, an ex-solicitor who works as a private eye and debt collector. Set in Melbourne this has two story strands: one about high-level corruption and property development, the other about fixing horse races. But that’s actually rather under-selling the novel because it’s anything but dull. It's a twisty, clever story that keeps you on your toes and Jack Irish is a wonderfully wisecracking and entertaining protagonist. In places it’s laugh-out-loud funny. I'm delighted to have found Peter Temple and as there are only four novels in the Jack Irish series I'm now hunting down the others. Review by: Cornish Eskimo, Oundle Crime