Gunshine State by Andrew Nette

Publisher's Synopsis

Gary Chance is a former Australian army driver, ex-bouncer and thief. His latest job takes him to Surfers Paradise, Queensland, working for aging standover man, Dennis Curry. Curry runs off-site, non-casino poker games, and wants to rob one of his best customers, a high roller called Freddie Gao.

The job seems straightforward but Curry’s crew is anything but. Frank Dormer is a secretive ex-soldier turned private security contractor. Sophia Lekakis is a highly-strung receptionist at the hotel where Gao stays when he visits Surfers Paradise. Amber, Curry’s female housemate, is part of the lure for Gao. Chance knows he can’t trust anyone, but nothing prepares him for what unfolds when Curry’s plan goes wrong.

My Review of Gunshine State by Andrew Nette

A noir heist novel that evokes every sleazy drug-fueled back alley imaginable and filled with hits, double crosses, ruthless retribution and relentless pursuit. That’s what’s in store when you embark on the modern Australian crime  novel that is Gunshine State.

Gary Chance is an army veteran having driven trucks in Afghanistan through some of the worst possible conditions. Back home in Australia he’s become a drifter, looking for ways to get ahead and earn a quid. That’s led him to throw his lot in with Dennis Curry, an aging standover man who puts together crews for robberies and other dodgy scams.

“Chance just accepted things, seldom questioned where they led him. This life, being paid to steal, sometimes to drive people who stole, it was something he drifted into, like joining the army. His whole life had been a series of decisions made without regard for what came next and where it landed him.”

The job that Chance signed on for was to rob a drug supplier. This was a pretty sophisticated set-up that they were going to hit and there was all kinds of security and protection to get through. But they had a good plan in place with a crew of four to carry out the job, 2 men and 2 women. The problem is, not everyone in the crew was on the same wavelength and when the job went down, one of the team revealed their true colours and Chance realised he was going to become the lamb for the slaughter.

Escaping with his life was the best he could come up with and he quickly works out that he’s now a marked man. Not only are the cops after him but so are the members of the family he robbed as well as some members of his own team of crooks.

This is a gritty hardboiled crime novel that moves quickly with danger always close behind the fleeing criminal. Similarly, the action moves down the east coast of Australia from the Gold Coast to the small town of Yass near the nation’s capital and on through to Melbourne with a slightly bewildering interlude in Thailand. It’s a tense trip that moves into a second phase that highlights the fact that there’s more at stake than a simple double cross and surviving the first attack doesn’t mean the danger’s passed.

Andrew Nette has built a strong noir crime story here with sharp, crisp dialogue and a credible plot that begins at a rapid pace. It tends to lose direction through the middle stages as the momentum starts to ebb and we go into a holding pattern as everyone appears to catch their breath. But this is merely a redoubling of the effort and we’re treated to an all-out brutal finale.

This is a pulp-style Australian gangster thriller that will meet the approval of any fan of the classic hardboiled crime novel. Chaos reigns, violence is frequent and unrelenting and it starts to become difficult to work out who’s the good guys and who are the bad, but that’s okay. 

It hits many of the same outlaw themes that have been around for decades, but there’s a raw edge to it that also makes it rather unique.