Mole Creek by James Dunbar

Publisher's Synopsis

Betrayal cannot be buried forever.

In the tiny Tasmanian town of Mole Creek, retired Australian cop and Vietnam veteran Pete McAuslan has retreated to his fishing cabin to write his memoirs. In Sydney, his grandson, journalist and trashy true crime author Xander, learns that Pete has taken his own life, begging forgiveness in a suicide note.

Arriving in Mole Creek in the aftermath of Pete’s death, Xander discovers that his grandfather’s laptop is missing. He begins to suspect that something is wrong, refusing to accept the facts as presented. With the local police not interested in investigating an apparently open-and-shut suicide, Xander sets about uncovering the truth of what happened to his grandfather.

In the process, he discovers long-buried secrets from Pete’s time serving in the Vietnam war: secrets that Pete has withheld from him and everyone else for fifty years; secrets that powerful people would prefer to stay buried. Ensnared in a web of betrayals that began a generation before, Xander finds himself on the hitlist of a clinically violent assassin. Now he must race to identify the connection between the seemingly unremarkable death of an old Australian soldier and the imminent reactivation of the most powerful and potentially destructive ‘sleeper’ in the history of espionage – before the truth catches up with him.

My Review of Mole Creek by James Dunbar

Mole Creek is a tension-filled debut crime thriller by James Dunbar and it charges off with a murder mystery that introduces elements of international espionage and political intrigue while never really going all out and fully immersing you in either of those sub-genres. Instead, the main focus starts on the death of old Pete MacAuslan in Mole Creek.

Xander MacAuslan is a journalist who also writes true crime stories and manages to get up the nose of dangerous underworld figures. Death threats are not uncommon thanks to his willingness to call out organised crime. He’s based in Sydney when he gets news that his grandfather, a retired police officer and Vietnam veteran living in Mole Creek, Tasmania has committed suicide.

By the time he reaches his grandfather’s home he has had numerous indications that Pete’s death is anything but suicide but convincing the local police is proving impossible. A dodgy suicide note, and getting attacked a couple of times by men with eastern European accents are merely the start of the anomalies that shout out at him. Additionally, his grandfather’s computer is missing as are all his backups. Before long, so are Xander’s.

The story is told in dual timeframes: the present with Xander investigating his grandfather’s death; the past, during the Vietnam War 50 years earlier and the events that took place there that may have something to do with Pete’s death all these years later. Clearly, there are events that take place in Vietnam that are important and have ramifications, it’s a matter of paying attention and figuring out where the clues make themselves known to us.

With the help of police family liaison officer Althea Burgess, Xander starts to run his own investigation into his grandfather’s death. The problem is, he’s hampered by roadblocks at every turn. His motel room is ransacked, people who provide promising information suddenly die and he abruptly loses his job.

Mile Creek is an action thriller that builds in intensity as it unfolds. Early moments of violent confrontation promise a Sword of Damocles-style danger hanging over Xander’s head. It’s the classic suspense scenario that’s exacerbated by some unforgivable acts of betrayal which, when they were thrown in, they ensured I was completely thrown off-balance.

The story moves along briskly, which was fine for the most part. I had trouble keeping up at times, particularly when it felt as though a few leaps in reasoning were made that were slightly tenuous. I found myself forced to do some back-tracking to try to figure out how things held together. In the end, Dunbar managed to hold the plot together, narrowly avoiding it from ripping to shreds.