Pride’s Harvest by Jon Cleary

Publisher's Synopsis

The body of Japanese industrialist Kenji Sagawa was found in one of his firm's own threshing machines at the cotton gin that had brought prosperity, but also tension, to the little country town of Collamundra. When local police make no headway in the search for the killer, Inspector Scobie Malone is glad to be called down from Sydney - his family are staying with friends in Collamundra.

But Scobie quickly finds this is far from a working holiday. The locals make it clear they resent his presence as his enquiries cut through the easygoing corruption of the establishment. He is drawn into local racial conflict when a lone Aboriginal cop becomes a focus for stresses on both sides. Most of all Scobie becomes osessed by the unsolved murder, seventeen years before, of the wife of one of Collamundra's most prominent citizens.

As the list of suspects grows, and Collamundra fills with strangers arriving for the annual horseracing cup, tensions escalate. Then a surprise discovery slots the pieces of jigsaw suddenly into place...

My Review of Pride's Harvest by Jon Cleary

Along with his ever-reliable sidekick Detective Sergeant Russ Clements, Scobie investigates a murder case that looks anything but straightforward. The body of the Japanese manager of a cotton farm was found, mangled, in a threshing machine. Kenji Sagawa had been murdered and the local police decided they needed detectives with more experience at investigating murders and called the Regional Crime Squad, South Region in Sydney. Scobie, as acting officer in charge of Homicide, and whose family just happened to be visiting friends in Collamundra, decided to assign the case to himself.

What Scobie and Clements find upon their arrival in Collamundra is a reception that, while not openly hostile, is extremely reserved. The locals are very reticent when it comes to answering any of their questions, there is a deep-seated undercurrent of racism throughout the community and there is growing unrest from within the nearby Aboriginal settlement. In short, the place is a tinderbox just waiting for an ember to set it off. It's Scobie's job to keep the sparks to a minimum.

A common scenario for a Scobie Malone mystery has Malone pitted against a very wealthy person or a high-ranking politician who tends to stand in the way of his investigation. In this case he's up against both. Chess Hardstaff is the prominent landowner around Collamundra and pretty well rules over all that goes on in the area, including the local police. Gus Dircks is the Minister for Police and also comes from Collamundra. He's Hardstaff's man and just happens to be in town for the upcoming annual race meeting. Dircks' number one priority is to protect Hardstaff from Malone's pointed questioning, a fact not lost on Malone or Clements.

Pride's Harvest is a carefully plotted police procedural thriller that slowly increases in tension as Malone relentlessly turns the screws of his investigation. As he interviews the locals, it was striking to note that, rather than having the suspects mounting up like in most murder mysteries, the suspects were actually drying up. While the Sagawa investigation begins to stagnate, an older, more closely guarded death starts to look more and more suspicious.

This is a very straightforward murder case that is simple to follow, as is the compilation of clues and evidence through face to face interviews. But more striking are the underlying attitudes of the characters, their intolerance of outsiders of all ilk and their unreasonable prejudices.

Jon Cleary taps into the inner psyche of everyday Australians and reveals the good and bad traits in all of us through his characters. Real issues such as Aboriginal deaths in custody plus the living conditions of many Aboriginals are considered with brutal honesty. As for the atmosphere and landscape of remote western New South Wales, these are captured with great clarity, so much so that you can almost taste the windblown dust blown in from the desert.

The only weak parts of the book involved Malone and his wife. Their relationship just strikes an uneasy chord with me. Their conversations are too proper, the language between them doesn't ring true compared with the rest of the book and the banter, meant to make Malone sound like an easygoing family man just feels forced. The whole familial part of Cleary's writing doesn't seem to come as easy as the action.

Pride's Harvest delivers yet another outstanding mystery that satisfies on many levels. The plot is nicely constructed and builds to a thought-provoking conclusion, the characters are challenging and the issues are relevant in the real world.