Orphan Road by Andrew Nette

Publisher's Synopsis

Gary Chance is an ex-Australian army driver and nightclub bouncer turned professional thief and in need of a job. An offer comes from a former employer, once notorious Melbourne social identity, now aging owner of a failing S&M club, Vera Leigh.

A shadowy real estate developer is trying to squeeze Leigh out of a rapidly gentrifying city. But she has a rescue plan that involves one of Australia’s biggest heists, Melbourne’s Great Bookie Robbery. On April 21, 1976, a well organised gang stole as much as three million dollars, a fortune at the time, from a Melbourne bookmakers club. The money was never recovered. No one was ever charged. And everyone associated with the crime has since died, either by natural causes or violently.

Leigh maintains that money was not the only thing stolen that day. So was a stash of uncut South African diamonds. And she wants Chance’s help to retrieve them. Problem is, they are not the only ones looking.

The heist always goes wrong and the consequences, even half a century later, can be deadly.

My Review of Orphan Road by Andrew Nette

The second book featuring Gary Chance underlines the dark criminal world in which he first appeared in Gunshine State. In Orphan Road, the stakes are just as high, the dangers are just as real and everyone’s merely out to make a buck.

The story starts in Byron Bay with Chance in the process of stealing the stashed fortune of a local cult leader. It goes sideways but Chance manages to get away, barely, along with just enough cash to travel south and lie low for a while.

He heads to Melbourne and picks up another job from an old boss, Vera Leigh. She spins a yarn about a missing fortune in diamonds that were part of the infamous Great Bookie Robbery from around 50 years earlier. The man charged with fencing the diamonds had gone missing, as had the diamonds, they’d be worth a fortune if Chance could track him down and retrieve them.

It’s a fanciful premise but it’s enough to send him on the trail of someone who could be anywhere, or nowhere. The big problem for Chance is that it turns out he’s not the only one looking for the treasure and that means big time trouble. 

The hunt for the man who took the diamonds takes Chance from the dingy streets of Melbourne to the just as dingy, and far more dangerous, streets of New York. He walks straight into a life or death situation when he attempts to make contact with an old friend of Vera’s and the edge of the seat drama doesn’t stop.

Orphan Road invites you to get down and dirty among the lowlife underworld figures with low morals and even lower sense of honour. Every step is through a minefield of retribution and double crosses with danger a typical part of doing business.

Gary Chance is one of those antiheroes who is tremendous to follow, largely for his absolute lack of guile. He’s a professional thief who knows how to walk among the usual reprobates you’d expect to find in his field of expertise. It’s also a given that he’ll move in and out of all kinds of dangerous confrontations and he reacts completely dispassionately. His attitude is very much along the lines of Garry Disher’s Wyatt.

When it comes to tough noir crime capers, Andrew Nette has nailed it perfectly with both the Gary Chance character and the world in which he lives. The dialogue is sharp and no-nonsense, clearly defining the characters, injecting even the most deplorable of them with a believable cast. Orphan Road deals with a staggering range of the worst humanity has to offer from paedophilia to drug smuggling all under the watchful gaze of crooked cops. 

The result is a crime novel filled with suspense wrapped up in a drum tight plot that moves swiftly, barely offering the opportunity to catch your breath. Terrific hardboiled Aussie crime.

Other Reviews

GoodReads

This is a tough, taut crime novel with plenty of moral ambiguity and an enjoyable cast of crooks and lowlifes. The pacing is brisk and the action moves smoothly from the outskirts of Byron Bay to Melbourne to America and back to Melbourne for a bloody showdown. Nette maintains high interest throughout and the conclusion is gripping and poignant.

Nette tells his unsentimental story in an appealing stripped down style, which suits the unadorned plot and helps to keep it all moving along nicely. Mixed into the plot are some sharp eyed descriptions of the fringes of society and a memorable cast of characters. Read All Reviews

Newtown Review of Books

Nette cleverly invokes the real-life Great Bookie Robbery, an infamous unsolved mystery, and ties it in with a fictional jewel heist. George Mundy, a shadowy ex-military intelligence officer, supposedly disappeared with the jewels and has not been seen since. Chance is not convinced by the story but agrees to go to New York, where Munday was last seen in the company of notorious Mafia figures. Read Full Review