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James O'Loghlin

Auteur van A Month of Sundays

12 Werken 76 Leden 2 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

James O'Loghlin has been a lawyer, a stand-up comedian, a television and radio presenter, a speaker and an author. James hosted The New Inventors on ABC-TV and has worked with over a thousand inventors and innovators.

Bevat de naam: James O'Ologhlin

Fotografie: Courtesy of Allen and Unwin

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“We answered the call, identified the perpetrator….Job done. Crime solved. Except it wasn’t. We’d only solved half of it. We’d only figured out the ‘who”….We’re all icebergs, showing the world our shiny tip, smiling as we say ‘Good morning’ and ‘Fine thanks’, while beneath we hide the messy, complicated truth. To really solve a crime you also need to work out the ‘why’.”

Given James O’Loghlin’s pedigree as an ABC presenter, comedian and former lawyer, I was expecting something caper-ish (crime mixed with screwball comedy) from his debut adult fiction, Criminals, but this is primarily a character driven story, a little quirky but also deliberate and thoughtful.

After absconding while being driven to court mandated rehab, drug addict and petty thief Dean Acton figures a big score from the Blacktown Leagues Club will solve his most immediate needs and let him lay low for a while. Sarah Hamilton, working as a barmaid while on indefinite leave from the police force, remains calm when she’s confronted by two armed masked men, which is why she notices that the thin one seems to recognise her. Sipping a gin, patron Mary Wallace smiles as the shorter of the two robbers turns his gun on her, getting shot now, she thinks, would be convenient.

In the aftermath, as the narrative alternates between each we’ll realised character, O’Loghlin explores the question of criminality through themes of guilt and innocence, opportunity and responsibility, second chances and redemption, and the choices we make that define us.

“I never thought about the consequences of getting a decision wrong, until it happened.”

Sarah puts her investigative skills to work, identifying one of the thieves as her high school’s former football hero, but having once before made a judgement with terrible consequences, she needs to be certain she isn’t making a mistake. Raised on the maxim of ‘right’s right, and wrong’s wrong’ the line is less clear to her now, and she struggles with the decisions she’s faced with.

“‘You committed a crime, but are you a criminal?’
‘Yes, because I committed a crime.’
‘Then everyone’s a criminal.”

Mary, a middle-aged, depressed alcoholic contemplating suicide, is inspired to recreate the excitement of the hold up by embarking on her own petty crime spree, while assuring her absent daughter via email that everything is fine. But as the thrill of lawbreaking wears off, Mary has to choose what to let go of.

“I know I’m right down the bottom, nearly as low as you can get. But in a weird way that’s almost a relief, cos it means you can’t fall any further.”

Dean meanwhile, barely has time to celebrate his ‘perfect’ crime before he’s arrested. Faced with a lengthy prison sentence what he decides to do next will not only define his future, but could change someone else’s.

Written with insight, wit and compassion, Criminals is a thought-provoking and engaging novel
… (meer)
½
 
Gemarkeerd
shelleyraec | Sep 8, 2022 |
Into the crime fiction reader's life something different should lob more often. CRIMINALS is not only different, it's brilliantly different.

Well known ABC presenter James O'Loghlin has taken his inspiration for this novel from his time as a criminal lawyer, and told the tale in a laid back, yet funny and compassionate style. There's a fine line being teetered on here, with three seemingly ordinary people being flung into each other's orbits as a result of one act, revealing more and more about those people as the story progresses. The humour is always there, but it's tempered with a real sense of belief in these three - misguided, mistaken, misunderstood, misstepping, extremely human people. The question from the blurb "What makes a criminal?" becomes more pertinent and more nuanced with every single twist in the tale that is CRIMINALS.

Told in a series of short, sharp chapters in the main, the backgrounds of the three main characters - Sarah, the barmaid come police officer on stress leave; Mary a forty-five-year-old teacher who drinks alone and writes long emails to her daughter; and Dean, the high-school football hero with supposedly everything to live for, now a desperate heroin addict with one more crime to commit in a grand plan to end the break and enter treadmill and get his life back on track. Everything about the way that these people live their lives is extremely believable, as is the way that they accidentally collide on the day that Dean decides to rob the Blacktown Leagues Club.

The fact that police officer, come barmaid Sarah uses her training to work out who the disguised armed robber was, and then digs into his background, uncovering a life that's gone badly off the rails, whilst her own seeming rise was badly curtailed by the actions of those around her are contrasted starkly against the life of Mary. The schoolteacher with a drinking problem, and the decision to end her own life, which gets muddied a bit by a sideline in reckless (cry for help) theft. Her personal tragedy sits alongside Dean's own life, going so badly off the rails when he and his high-school girlfriend slip into the life of drug addicts. She eventually leaves him behind to clean herself up, and craft out a life, whilst Dean sinks further and further, until this robbery and his arrest on the basis of Sarah's identification leaves him with some very stark choices to make. The storylines of these three entwine, branch off, reconnect and slide in and around each other in a seemingly effortless manner, which makes you wonder just how much blood sweat and tears from the author went into making something so complicated, so straight-forward.

It's been a while since the last book that glued me to a chair to be read in one day, but CRIMINALS absolutely enthralled and had me utterly involved in the stories of Sarah, Mary and Dean. It's a fascinating view to take, and the question from the blurb "What makes a criminal?" becomes more pertinent, nuanced with every single twist in the tale that is CRIMINALS.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/criminals-james-ologhlin
… (meer)
 
Gemarkeerd
austcrimefiction | Jul 4, 2022 |

Statistieken

Werken
12
Leden
76
Populariteit
#233,522
Waardering
½ 3.5
Besprekingen
2
ISBNs
28

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