Dirty Work – afoot, underfoot and above!
Published: March 12, 2019
There’s Dirty Work afoot – on the ground and all around
With the release of Dirty Work – a new cop/detective mystery novel – Brett Sody joins the growing number of Australian authors having a tilt at the wide world of book publishing.
In his SA-set debut novel Sody has poked a finger in the eye of the local cultural cringe and placed the yarn practically on our doorsteps. And in a departure from regular read-the-words style of book, Dirty Work appears to have a voice; it has an odd knack of telling you the story – rather than you reading the text – with a narration style reminiscent of perhaps Roy & HG or Clarke & Dawe. If you are unfamiliar with these dryly laconic luminaries the voice could be that of an acquaintance, a mate, spinning a gag-laced self-deprecating tale-of-woe over a few drinks.
And Dirty Work is a tale of woe; it is a melange of murder, mystery and dirty deeds, accidental death and frustrated revenge, dark humour and ironic snatching of pathetic defeat from the jaws of petty victory. And it is a ‘grin-spinner’ – wordplay and puns and parody abound as the story unfolds, sometimes along two or three parallel lines but all with a central theme – there’s dirty work afoot and all around!
The story’s main protagonist – Detective Pete Young – the youngest but possibly brightest detective on the SA police force is initially charged with uncovering the mysterious deaths and disappearances of inhabitants in an across-the-border town before being recalled to SA attend to ‘more serious’ matters ‘down south’; dirty work is being done down there above and below ground. Greedy developers mingle with failing church leaders who are getting blindsided by apparent ‘miracles’ and loyalties are stretched and broken. Lives shattered. Hearts broken. Lives lost.
Which leads to some serious situations – well, serious for some! And all the while the cauldron of revenge simmers, boils over and then something smells bad. Dirty Work is dark and funny. Not LOL funny but it keeps the grin firmly fixed in place even when things get messy.
As a starting offering Dirty Work a pretty good effort; the yarn is coherent, irreverent and keeps us on our toes and the smiles coming right till the very end. The narration style is a brilliant artifice; once ’the voice’ is in play the story rolls in the mind like a movie which is not so surprising as Sody, along with wife Rose, has won international awards for film making.
Dirty work is available in some bookshops, Booktopia and on Amazon kindle and other digital sites.