Dark Clouds on the Mountain. John Tully

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.<br /> <br />The earthy, passionate main protagonist, Jack Martin, is richly drawn: <i>'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.'</i><br /> <br />In this elaborate web of intrigue the ground shifts, the past intrudes and time and place are vividly realised.<br /> <br />Brooding violence, tangled mysteries… a gripping read.