Shane Maloney

Title: SUCKED IN
Author: Shane Maloney
Publisher: Text Publishing
Edition released: March 2007
ISBN: 978-1-921145-44-5
276 pages
Review by: Karen Chisholm

I happily went out earlier this week and bought a copy of Sucked In and it took me roughly one day to finish it - and that was an unfair delay - I could have sat down and read it in one sitting. Needless to say the 6th book in the Murray Whelan series (for which we've all been waiting an absolute age), lives up to the expectations of the long show more wait!

Murray is older, slightly wiser and just that little bit more cunning. A member of the Upper House of the Victorian Parliament, he and a number of other "pollies" are "doing the rounds" in Country Victoria, when Murray's long time mentor and friend, Charlie Talbot, dies from a heart attack in the middle of the dining room of the Grand Hotel in Mildura.

It's an interesting coincidence that the day before Charlie's untimely demise, the remains of (allegedly) a long-lost union official are discovered in the mud of drought stressed Lake Nillahcootie. Merv Cutlett had gone overboard from a fishing boat during a trip to the Union "Shack" on the banks of the Lake many years before with Charlie and other union luminaries including (now) Senator Barry Quinlan.

All of this is of slight interest to Murray, up to his elbows in Labor Party machinations over pre-selection for Charlie's very safe seat in Federal Parliament. When a well-known local journalist starts to hear rumours about Merv's cause of death, and these rumours trickle through to the power brokers in the Labor Party, pre-selection battles now have to fight for attention with a bit of very overdue Union "housekeeping". All of this whilst Murray tries to teach Red how to drive, resurrect his slumbering love life, extract himself from a risky sex life, learn Greek and finagle himself into something resembling re-charged enthusiasm for the "Cause".

A slightly older Murray Whelan is something that causes pause for consideration - how long can he keep up these gymnastics - both mental and physical! But aside from that sneaking concern, SUCKED IN really delivers on a number of fronts. The "investigation" of the death weaves it's way in and out of the ongoing business of being a Politician in pre-Millennium Victoria, in a Labor Party struggling to hold a caucus meeting that would stretch the accommodations of a telephone booth. There's something really realistic about the way that things just roll along, balanced delicately on the edge of the precipice - with a lot of day to day darting around just trying to keep ahead. The political swipes are, as always, hilarious. That slightly jaundiced, True Believer view of the political system that Maloney specialises in has a particularly accuracy in SUCKED IN that you just can't help but roll around in laughter with. There are also more than just a few characters in SUCKED IN that you can pick out of the local crowd. But again, regardless of the "spot who that is" games that we locals can play, SUCKED IN is going to appeal to lots of readers, regardless of where they come from. A touch of humour, a touch of poignancy, a bloke who eventually sort of gets his man, and looks like he might just have a vague chance of getting the girl, and overall you've got one entertaining reading ride. show less

Murray Whelan is back but this time politics takes a back seat while Murray battles personal issues. Maloney sets up Murray’s trial with a literal bang. You know the two story arcs are going to come together just not in such a powerful and emotional way.
We jump forward eighteen months and Murry is inveigled into helping out a colleague by attending a committee on marine sustainability in San Remo. He and some of the committee members accompany one of the coast watch officers on a routine show more patrol looking out for abalone poachers. What with the boiling, churning waves reacting with the long lunch, things on the boat get very messy indeed. Who threw up on whom and who fell off the boat provide political leverage for Murray, what he doesn’t realise is how intertwined things will get later on.
The summer break approaches and Murray takes off to Lorne with his son and his mate. Lorne in the eighties is a far different place then than it is now. However you begin to see through Murray’s eyes the place it will become. Maloney takes this seaside village and adds a dark and dangerous edge to it. Invited to a New Years celebration at an exclusive local restaurant, Murray is sure he has spotted the escapee we met at the start of this adventure. Throwing caution to the wind he decided to follow him. Thus begins an exhilarating, exhausting, tension filled two days that finds Murray deep in the hinterland bush and then in equally deep trouble in the nearby ocean.
Maloney mixes self deprecating black humour with seat of your pants crime. He has a great touch with place and manages to put you into the situation with a few deft phrases. Everything is seen through Murray’s POV and yet Maloney manages to credibly convey the various personalities and situations Murray finds him in. show less

Maloney's wit really accords with my sense of humour. It helps that this novel is about a political hack in Melbourne, navigating the city's arts scene. As a political hack in Melbourne who spent my entire 20s in the city's arts scene, it hits rather close to home; there are even sequences that take place in conference rooms in which I whiled away countless hours, and on balconies from which I have imbibed far too often. Great fun.

Finally read the first of this trilogy, The Big Ask. I really enjoyed it although it's not what I expected from the cover. Very funny in parts and quite scathing of politicians and unions.

Murray Whelan is an Australian Labor Party hack. He started out as the constituency assistant to Angelo Agnelli, the Labor Party member for Melbourne North, and as Agnelli rose through the party ranks there was Murray at his side. In 1991 when this book takes place Agnelli is Minister of Transport and show more Murray is his parliamentary aide. As Minister of Transport Agnelli has to deal with the mighty United Haulage Workers, the union that represents all the long-distance truckers. The local rag has leaked that the government is considering imposing a tonnage levy to help defray the damage to roads caused by the big trucks. So three representatives from UHW come to visit Agnelli to convince him to cancel the levy. Agnelli had already decided that they couldn't make it stick but he isn't about to kowtow to UHW. He decides that Whelan should stir the union pot and get someone to run against the incumbent slate of officers. Thus Whelan is at the fruit and vegetable market when the son of the owner of the biggest transport company is run over by a truck. Since Whelan and Darren Stuhl had mixed it up at a nightclub a few nights before, Whelan is a suspect. So is his friend Donny who was driving the truck that ran over Darren.

But Murray has a bigger worry because his son, who lives with Murray's ex-wife in Sydney, has disappeared from his private boarding school. Murray is just about to fly to Sydney when his son, Red, turns up at his house in Melbourne and says he doesn't want to go back to his mother. Murray is thrilled to have Red living with him but when he is visited by thugs who threaten him unless he tells the police Donny killed Darren, Murray gets concerned about whether he can keep Red safe.

It all works out in the end. In fact, Murray ends up being elected to represent Melbourne North in parliament when Agnelli is exposed in flagrante with a woman not his wife. Labor has lost its majority though so Murray is a Member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

You know how most works of fiction have a paragraph at the front of the book that says events and people in the book are imaginary and not meant to represent real occurrences or people. This is what Shane Maloney put in the front of this book:
The author of this book, its setting and its characters are entirely fictitious. There is no such place as Melbourne. The Australian Labor Party exists only in the imagination of its members.
I loved his sense of humour. show less