The Devil Taker by David Owen

Publisher's Synopsis

Toward the finish of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, a leading boat sights a dinghy crewed by a bloated corpse - wearing only Bermuda shorts and a six-inch galley knife in its back.

When Detective Inspector Franz Heineken, aka Pufferfish, is assigned the case, it seems that any clues have sunk to the cold depths of the Southern Ocean. But when the break does come it's big, and Pufferfish finds himself hooked into a trail leading across the Australian mainland to the plush condos and drug culture of California - right to the core of the multibillion-dollar illegal trade in wildlife.

My Review 

One of the yachts competing in the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race has come across a dinghy as they made their way down the Tasmanian coastline. Most disturbingly for the crew was that the dinghy was occupied by a corpse and had obviously been bobbing around the ocean for the better part of 2 weeks. Although the guy could have died from exposure or dehydration, it's more likely that the dirty great knife stuck between his shoulder blades could have been a major contributing factor.

The question facing Heineken, apart from the obvious "who killed him" is where did he come from? The dinghy is obviously from a large cruiser so could it be that the man jumped into the dinghy to flee his attacker or was the boat in trouble and he took to the dinghy only to be attacked before he could get away. It's a conundrum that is luckily quickly solved when reports come in of a sunken vessel found in a remote Tasmanian bay. Aboard the boat is a set of knives (with 1 missing) matching the one sticking out of the back of the drifter.

Also found aboard the sunken vessel is evidence of a vast and potentially lucrative smuggling operation. It's an operation that would have been successful were it not for the atrocious weather that claimed the boat and the passengers along with it. Now Heineken is left with questions over who is the mastermind behind the operation with obvious links not only to the mainland but also internationally.

There is a risk of fallout that could result in disastrous consequences for Tasmania should Heineken not be successful in his investigation which drives him to work beyond his limits. It sends him to Queensland, the Northern Territory and New South Wales as well as into the remote parts of his home state. And then, to top things off, he is also required to help out with an ongoing investigation involving one of the state's more affluent residents. It's a matter requiring both urgency and delicacy, an attribute that is interesting to watch the prickly Pufferfish try to pull off.

The Franz Heineken found here in The Devil Taker is not the same Franz Heineken who was introduced to us in Pig's Head. In this book he is far less adversarial with his fellow officers and much more prepared to work with his superiors to solve the case. While this removes much of the entertaining by-play that he used to engage in with the sole intention of getting under the skin of all he came in contact with, it does allow the focus to be placed much more closely on the case itself. With a plot that has become much more complex than in the earlier book, it is perhaps a wise move that this is the direction Heineken's character has taken.

There is a compulsive energy to the pace in which the story unfolds as Heineken is seen racing from location to location unravelling the case, stitching up contacts both locally and abroad, dealing with a new set of superior officers and trying to get a handle on the victim's families. There is barely a pause for a catch up on his domestic situation and a reigniting of a romance with a certain sergeant on the Drugs Squad, but somehow he manages to fit that in too.

If The Devil Taker is to be the final instalment of the Pufferfish series then it rounds out a very enjoyable, highly entertaining and at times, challengingly complex police procedural series. Interesting insights into life in Australia's smallest state adds to the appeal, with the constant reminder that danger and violence can occur in the most unlikely of places.

(With hindsight, it turns out this was only the last book in the series for 13 years before it was rekindled with more to enjoy from the Pufferfish.)