Title: How the Dead See
Author: David Owen
Pages: 234
Published Date: 2011
Publisher: Forty Degrees South Publishing
Series Details: 6th book in the Pufferfish series
Publisher's Synopsis
The theft of a valuable diamond necklace, and the death by apparent suicide of a notorious film star, have nothing in common. Nothing except for Detective Inspector Franz Heineken, aka Pufferfish, scourge of an island's villains and a deadly match for its unpredictable, unsettling crimes.
At the tail end of an oppressively hot Tasmanian summer, Pufferfish is called upon to investigate a death that looks like suicide and smells like suicide. But Rory Stillrock, once a big screen Hollywood bad boy - popular celluloid CIA agent, real life party animal and sex addict - had good reason to live. His hidden southern Tasmanian mansion, and those who were closest to him and his wealth, slowly, reluctantly, begin to offer up clues. Not that Pufferfish is in a hurry...
Meanwhile he knows very well who nicked the diamond necklace, valued at over two hundred thousand dollars, from a stately Hobart home. Just a small matter of proving same. Not easy when you're up against Fink Mountgarrett, master thief with a very soft footprint. But the patient task becomes incendiary when Fink falls foul of the island's controversial new mandatory sentencing laws. Was he set up? Surely Pufferfish wouldn't stoop so low...
There's only one way to find out.
My Review
After the return of Detective Inspector Franz Heineken of the Tasmanian Police Force in No Weather For A Burial in 2010, David Owen has followed up with another Pufferfish mystery titled How the Dead See (pub. 40 South Publishing).
As with the previous five Pufferfish mysteries the state of Tasmania is once again reeling from a suspicious death and Heineken, along with his team of Detective Sergeant Rafe Tredway and Detective Constable Faye Addison, is charged with the duty of solving the case. In this case the victim is one Rory Stillrock a former Hollywood star who has spent his more recent years womanizing and boozing while attempting to restart his career in the entertainment industry. It’s a high profile death that puts Heineken and his team under the pump.
This main focus of the book takes us on an enlightening journey back through the life of the former bad boy of the silver screen. It’s a case that will reveal itself with a solid pace thanks to the solid process of following leads and sorting the wheat from the chaff. While in itself it is not ground-breaking police work, it is set within a continuation of the life of Franz Heineken and that gives it added appeal.
Also keeping the police busy is the theft of a diamond necklace from home safe that was hidden inside the wall of a mansion in the well-heeled suburb of New Town. The burglary has all the hallmarks as the work of one of Tasmania’s best safecrackers, but the guy has been passing it around for months that he has given the game away. It’s the kind of case that is right up the cluttered alley of the Pufferfish.
As with the other books in the Pufferfish series there are a stack of references to the state of Tasmania and the landmarks that typify the countryside as some of the most picturesque in all of Australia. It is a setting that adds to the enjoyment of the book that makes it as worthwhile to read as the plot of the novel itself. The fact that many of the landmarks are described by Heineken in his gruff, acerbic tone somehow increases their wild appeal.
Franklin’s a charming little place spread thinly along the western bank of the Huon River. Pub, cafes, antique shop, Victorian theatre building, boatbuilding school, rowing club, footy oval right on the river bank. Assorted watercraft sit on the sparkling, motionless water. Behind, the hillsides slope up, largely cleared but with forested patches increasing further back. Altogether,Franklin’s about as charming a rural hamlet as you would wish for. ...pg 183
It may not be immediately obvious in the way I have described the storyline but there is a crackling humour running through the narrative of the book. Heineken has an opinion about everything and a razor sharp delivery that cares not one iota about the way in which his delivery lands. He gets the job done and he does so in a no-nonsense way that is always entertaining.
Common to each of the Pufferfish books is the way in which Heineken talks about his immediate superior Chief Superintendent Walter d’Hayt. Although we never really get profound evidence of d’Hayt’s sins, Heineken has no problem pinpointing areas in which the man fails in his professional capacity. Here is a small taste of the light in which Franz views his boss:
‘Alright team, let’s get stuck into this,’ Walter says, the slick and sleek one bright as a button on this warm morning with a promise of thirty-five degrees to come. I’m not a team man, and he knows that, hence his use of the term. Childish, eh?
No matter whether Heineken is right or wrong in the way he has pegged his boss or the opinion of those he works with, there is no doubting that he gets results and does so with no great flair. It's his down and dirty attitude that makes the Pufferfish books a great success and How the Dead See adds nicely to the series.
Make sure you take the trouble to read the earlier books in the series to get an even greater idea of how Franz Heineken of Tasmania is terrorizing the criminal class of the southern island.