Title: Crime Scene Cessnock
Author: Robert G. Barrett
Pages: 268
Published Date: 2005
Publisher: HarperCollins
Series Details: 18th book in the Les Norton series
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Publisher's Synopsis
All it took was a summer's day, a flat tyre on his pushbike, and Les is out on bail and on the run from a gun-happy street gang intent on a drive-by. So, with Warren's help, Les Norton, defendant, becomes Len Gordon, film director, safely ensconced at the ultra-swish Opal Springs Health Resort till Eddie can sort things out back in Sydney.
Unfortunately, the first thing Les finds on arrival is motivational guru ALexander Holden dead at the front gate. Then, before you can say soya beans with tahini and lime dressing, the cops arrive and Les is up to his neck in the land of a thousand acronyms, fighting off steroid-happy body builders, sex-crazed socialites, violent greyhound owners and, worst of all, caffeine withdrawals - while at the same time matching wits with the four acronymonious writers-in-residence. Was Alexander Holden murdered? Or was it an accident? Find out in the gripping climax and food fight when all is revealed - in the library.
My Review
For 19 years and 18 books, Les Norton has been causing mayhem in Sydney and a variety of other locales, some exotic, most not. Robert G. Barrett introduced his red-headed hero in You Wouldn't Be Dead For Quids as a young footballer from Queensland who came to Sydney and decided to stay.
Ensconced in the famous bustling suburb of Bondi, he started off as a rather likable larrikin blessed with an innocent genuineness and an occasional tendency to wade into a fight when his temper got the better of him. Unfortunately, by Crime Scene Cessnock, Les' 19th outing, he has regressed into a foul mouthed bully who thinks way too much of himself and is sadly outgrowing his drawing power. In fact, this book lacks pace, believable characters and, to be frank, a point.
When the story opens, Norton, in typical style, has gotten himself into a bit of trouble after taking on 4 Lebanese hoons who were beating up an old man. Les' rough justice is swift and brutal with the end result seeing 3 of his opponents heading for hospital and vowing vengeance, a promise that is all too likely. Les meanwhile is arrested for assault.
After making bail he decides it would be a good idea to lie low for a while and it just happens that his house-mate has access to a health farm in Cessnock around 2 hours north of Sydney. He will have to impersonate Len Gordon, film director to get into the place, but Les reckons he'd be able to pretend he was a director for a week - no worries!
So Les arrives at the health farm and, as he drives through the front gate, he is greeted by the body of a man lying in the driveway. It appears that the guy has come flying down the hill on his bicycle without a helmet on and struck his head on the massive gates, killing him. Les is taken aback, but not particularly perturbed by the sight, in fact, he is clear-headed enough to get out of his car and take a few photos when he recognised the man as renowned motivational speaker, Alexander Holden. Les' thinking being, the photos could possibly worth a bob or two if he can sell them to a trashy magazine. Classy guy!
He settles into life at the health resort, detoxing his body from the abuses that too much coffee and unhealthy food can cause. He also mulls over the dead body of Holden, deciding that it is entirely possible that the man was murdered, so while going through a fairly straightforward routine of massages, power walking and tai-chi, he also begins clumsily asking questions about Holden in a bid to work out who might have wanted to kill him.
Unfortunately, the possibly interesting doubts over the death of Alexander Holden are almost completely glossed over, replaced by the tedium of everyday life on a health farm. The wait for something significant to happen on this front is a long one and I found myself growing rather impatient while putting up with Norton's inane antics.
I had the feeling while reading that I was supposed to be impressed with everything Norton did, from the huge helpings he ate at meal times to the rude way he talked to the women. Much of the time he just appeared ham-fisted, a foul-mouthed boorish yob who was downright embarrassing, at times I actually cringed over some of the lines he was coming out with. But the best (or worst) was yet to come when Norton decides to perform his own little impersonation of Inspector Poirot by gathering everyone in the library to make his pronouncement over the death of Alexander Holden. As far as ludicrous, cringe-worthy scenes go, if this one wasn't the worst then it would definitely be in the grand final - supposedly humorous or not.
One of the weakest parts of the book, apart from the fact that it drifted along without any real direction to it, is the dialogue. Although the story is set in 2005, the dialogue is a version of Australian / English that was spoken in the 1950s & 1960s. I mean, the guy drops rhyming slang into every other sentence and no one around him bats an eyelid, in fact some of the characters matched him slang for slang.
I've read the first Les Norton book plus another later book before reading Crime Scene Cessnock and it appears to me that the easy-going humour that was present in the early book has been replaced by a more low-brow sort of aggression that caused me to dislike Norton rather than cheer him on. This book is for the hardcore fans only, anyone else will be left wondering why they bothered opening the first page.