Sucked In

I love the use of language in this. There are a couple of sex scenes in this narrated almost entirely through bad puns, the first of a political hue, the second religious. Maloney introduces his characters with deft flourishes of the pen. He makes jokes about Greek philosophers without disrupting the Aussie demotic of his narrative. It's a satisfactory crime story (in the Nero Wolfe sense of 'satisfactory'), but all the fun is in the machinations of the Victorian Labor Party, which a note at the front of the book tells us 'exists only in the mind of its members'.

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At approximately the same time that two fishing friends discover a skull in the muddy bottom of Victoria's Lake Nillahcootie, Victorian politician Murray Whelan is attending the funeral of Australian Federal Member of Parliament Charlie Talbot. Charlie has died before his time. In fact he dropped dead at the age of 64 over breakfast in Murray's company in a Mildura hotel. Charlie's death means his Federal seat is up for grabs, and this is a trophy Murray would very much like.

The discovery that the skull found in Lake Nillahcootie appears to sport a bullet hole sparks a police investigation that rakes up old memories. Twenty years ago, a union official called Merv Cutlett disappeared, presumed drowned, from a boat on Lake Nillahcootie. show more One of his fishing companions was Charlie Talbot, the other a university lecturer. As the police begin to contact those who accompanied Merv to Lake Nillahcootie, Murray attempts to uncover the truth about Merv's disappearance himself.

SUCKED IN is one of those rare crime fiction novels that combines a murder mystery with an Australian sense of humour. Maloney achieves this through frequent use of authentic Australian idiom without detracting from the sense of an ongoing investigation. Murray Whelan's humour is dry, laconic, and always present. His first person narrative holds nothing back, whether he is talking about fellow Australian Labor Party officials, his relationship with his son, his description of the various farewells the death of Charlie Talbot occasions, his attempts to learn Greek, or his own sexual adventures. There is no mistaking the Australian setting of this novel, and I could almost hear the gravelly voice of Murray Whelan reading it into my ear.

SUCKED IN is #6 in Shane Maloney's Murray Whelan series. I haven't read them all but that didn't affect my enjoyment of this latest. #2, THE BRUSH-OFF, was the winner of the Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in 1997, and SUCKED IN was shortlisted for the same award in 2008.

Shane Maloney's website: http://www.shanemaloney.com/ show less

A light but pleasant end to this classic Aussie detective series. For those of us whose key interests are politics, history, Australian life, and perpetual sarcasm, Maloney was one of the best.

Around the year 2010, Maloney indicated that he was working on a seventh and final Murray Whelan novel. Alas, the trail went cold; it has never appeared. I recently emailed Maloney and he was kind enough to reply. Although I won't share his correspondence, it does sound as if Murray has grimaced his last. Like the real Australian Labor Party of which he is such a loyal member, his glory days are far behind him.

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 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 show more 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 and this time he is mired in politics. As mired as the recently discovered skeletal remains of which appear to be a union official Murray had dealings with; who disappeared, feared drowned over twenty years ago.
Things began to get complicated when Murray found himself sharing breakfast with fellow MP Charlie, Charles Joseph Talbot, MHR, only for Charlie to succumb to a sudden heart attack.
Murray and Charlie had electorates that shared many of the same constituents in the multicultural northern suburbs; thus it fell to Murray to organise the funeral arrangements. At the service Murray is inveigled into assisting with a clean and fuss free pre-selection for Charlie’s replacement. Normal Labour factional ructions show more and skulduggery ensue, so far so normal. What soon becomes apparent is that Charlie was on the boat that the unionist fell from during an ill-fated fishing venture. Also on the boat was Senator Barry Quinlan.
The police start investigating, questions are asked and people start to get nervous. Murray recalls the day of the heart attack and realises Charlie was reading the small article about the remains that were found in the lake. Coincidence?
Should the past stay buried along with the remains or will skeletons now out of the lake create havoc with reputations and the lives of the living. Murray battles with conflicting loyalties as he copes with the upcoming by election, relationships and teaching his teenage son to drive. show less

In this instalment Murray Whelan has just witnessed a good friend and mentor die of a heart attack. At the time of his death Charlie Talbot was a Labor member of the House of Representatives for the Commonwealth of Australia representing Coolaroo which takes in part of Murray's Melbourne North riding. Murray, as a close friend, was in charge of the funeral arrangements. As a Labor representative in the state legislature he is expected to help the man chosen to replace Talbot in the federal parliament.

Murray's friendship with the deceased is one of the reasons the police question him about a skeleton found in a drained lake. Many years before, when both Whelan and Talbot worked for the Municipals Union, the Union head drowned in the lake show more while out in a boat with Talbot and a few other Union officials. Whelan was not present but he might know something that didn't make it into the official record. He doesn't actually but when it appears Talbot's reputation might be tarnished by allegations of murder he makes it his business to find out.

There are lots of typical jabs at politicians and some pretty steamy sex scenes. I've gotten pretty fond of Murray Whelan in reading these three books. And I have an appreciation for Australian politics that I didn't have before. I wonder how our Canadian politicians compare to to their Australian counterparts. Probably pretty similar. show less

Disappointing. The style of writing was funny early in the series, but this felt tired and the plot felt a bit recycled. Not all that funny, really, although readable enough.