Truth

Peter Temple moves into the territory of The Bonfire of the Vanities and JM Coetzee's Disgrace with a masterpiece of modern fiction. A teenage prostitute is found with her neck broken in a bathroom in an apartment in The Prosilio, a new playground for the very rich. Despite the ultra sophisticated security, all systems crashed, the management is hand in glove with high ups in government and Stephen Villani, Head of Homicide, isn't getting much cooperation. Three men are found murdered in a garage, two of them so brutally tortured that it goes beyond the usual low-life revenge story. The suspects are then tipped off and die in a car accident, escaping from Villani. The public and populist politicians are baying for the police to take the blame for violent lawlessness and corruption. In this heartbreaking, nerve-wracking novel, Temple lays bare the soul of a man, Villani, as he faces the moral decline of a society and himself. Incapable of constancy as a father and a husband, damaged as a son and true only to his job and the confrontational stance he knows best, he seems unable to intervene while his teenage daughter runs with drug dealers. And while politicians and businessmen plot to make more money and buy people and their silence, the fires are coming closer from the outback to inhabited country, including where Villani's father lives.

'Great locations, hard-nosed dialogue and a twisting plot combine to create superb entertainment.' Evening Standard.
'The sense of place is stifling in its intensity, and seldom has a waltz of the damned proven so hypnotic. Indispensable.' Guardian.
'It is, quite simply, the best thriller I have read in years... What Temple does with this standard raw material is astonishing. Superb plotting, pinpoint-accurate characterisation, a claustrophobic atmosphere, complex relationships and shifting alliances combine to pull the reader into the story and actually to care about the outcome. The use of dialogue in this novel is brilliant; spare, terse exchanges in which what is not said often outweighs what is. Temple has stripped back the language to the bare essentials, capturing both the macho culture of the police force and the underlying insecurities of his characters... There is wisdom here far beyond that which is usually contained between the covers of the conventional police procedural thriller, and the climax, as the bush fires in the outback threaten to encroach on the city itself, is masterful. Truth is a novel of the highest order, able to stand comparison with the best of any genre... Enjoy!' Tribune.
'Peter Temple's Truth may well prove to be the year's best thriller... It's the fierce energy of Temple's writing that is the book's outstanding feature the dialogue and linking prose almost vie to outdo each other in brilliance' Sunday Times.
'A thriller of dazzling richness... leaves the reader ravaged, furious and marvelling at his technique... a stunning piece of psychological portraiture' Guardian.
'One of the world's most distinguished literary crime novelists' Independent.
'Tautly constructed and compulsively paced... his dialogue is entirely distinctive, full of the mangled poetry and beautiful solecisms of ordinary speech' Observer.
'What makes Temple so compelling is his divine use of language. The novel is written with grace and subtlety, elegant but also violent, dark and yet suffused with sympathy for the protagonists, cast in dialogue that is both distinctive and surprising' Daily Mail.
'With crackling prose and sparkling dialogue, Temple has fashioned a fashioned a fast-paced atmospheric police work of genuine class' Mail On Sunday.
'Vivid, fascinating portrait of a society and its capital city, and of a flawed but fascinating hero' Literary Review.
'A thoughtful, intelligent novel' The Times. --Reviews.

'It is, quite simply, the best thriller I have read in years... What Temple does with this standard raw material is astonishing. Superb plotting, pinpoint-accurate characterisation, a claustrophobic atmosphere, complex relationships and shifting alliances combine to pull the reader into the story and actually to care about the outcome The use of dialogue in this novel is brilliant; spare, terse exchanges in which what is not said often outweighs what is. Temple has stripped back the language to the bare essentials, capturing both the macho culture of the police force and the underlying insecurities of his characters... There is wisdom here far beyond that which is usually contained between the covers of the conventional police procedural thriller, and the climax, as the bush fires in the outback threaten to encroach on the city itself, is masterful. Truth is a novel of the highest order, able to stand comparison with the best of any genre... Enjoy!' --Tribune.