Blackwattle Creek
by Geoffrey McGeachin (Viking, 2012)
audiobook read by Peter Hosking (Bolinda, 2012)
Plot-wise the second Charlie Berlin novel seems less involved than the first. It remains, however, a consummate portrait of person and place. A very Australian detective story that could just about be classified as feelgood nostalgia (were its underbelly not so dark).
The Diggers Rest Hotel
by Geoffrey McGeachin (Penguin, 2010); audiobook read by Peter Byrne (Bolinda, 2010)
Former bomber pilot Charlie Berlin is sent to Wodonga to track down a gang of armed robbers. His investigations seem almost peripheral to McGeachin’s purpose: a well-drawn character study of Berlin and of rural Australian society shortly after the Second World War.
St Kilda Blues
by Geoffrey McGeachin (Penguin, 2014); audiobook read by David Tredinnick (Playaway, 2014)
Though the investigation itself is commonplace, McGeachin immerses his protagonist in the details of history, presenting a time capsule of Australian—in particular, Melburnian—culture in the late 1960s. Stolid ex-WWII bomber pilot Charlie Berlin shows mettle worthy of the character study.