The Broken Shore

'Peter Temple has been described as one of Australia's best crime novelists, but he's far better than that. He's one of our best novelists full stop.' Sun-Herald 'The best yet...The Broken Shore might just be a great Australian novel, irrespective of genre.' Age 'the greatest joy is Temple's use of language. Every word in The Broken Shore contains meaning...It's deliciously brutal and spare, full of unambiguous violence, prejudice and hatred one moment, and cavernous instances of insight and revelation the next.' Courier-Mail 'it might well be the best crime novel published in this country.' Weekend Australian 'The Broken Shore is one of those watershed books that makes you rethink your ideas about reading.' Sydney Morning Herald 'With this moving portrait of a detective at a turning point in his life, one of our most accomplished crime writers gives us not only a gripping whodunnit but grapples with issues ranging from race relations, friendship, loyalty, politics, the past and the future to the bond between a man and his dog.' Age 'The Broken Shore portrays a community in thrall to long-established prejudices and passions. It is also about the inner destruction of families: raw, cruel and moving.' The Times 'A towering achievement that brings alive a ferocious landscape and a motley assortment of clashing characters. The sense of place is stifling in its intensity, and seldom has a waltz of the damned proven so hypnotic. Indispensable.' Guardian 'It's a stone classic. Hard as nails and horrible, but read page one and I challenge you not to finish it.' Independent 'The Broken Shore offers both poetry and gore, and it's best if you have a taste for both. Having read the new novels of Michael Connelly and Martin Cruz Smith, I have to say that Temple belongs in their company. Australia is a long way off, but this bloke is world-class.' Washington Post 'The Broken Shore is superb, full of great characters, and set in rural Australia, a place Temple obviously loves. But it's his dialogue that carries the book. If Raymond Chandler had been born Down Under, this is what his novels would have sounded like.' Globe and Mail 'The Broken Shore...is a crime novel that towers high above the rest of the genre.' Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung