Bright Air (Barry Maitland, A&U, $29.95 pb, ISBN 9781741148176, July) ***

Barry Maitland has crafted a well-researched and solid thriller that takes you from London to Sydney, as well as up to the dizzy heights of steep and craggy cliff faces in New Zealand and on Lord Howe Island. A beautiful young woman disappears while rock climbing. A deathbed confession suggests foul play. Former lover Josh and climbing partner Anna follow the trail, where they begin to unravel a possible island-wide conspiracy. This is a complex but easy-toread story that is deftly told. Maitland has packed it full of compelling detail. The narrative is believable and moves along at a steady pace. There are enough unusual characters to keep you guessing right to the end. I’m sure the growing legion of Maitland’s fans will lap it up. The front cover, however, carries a quote from an Australian newspaper suggesting that Maitland is ‘one of the top five crime writers in the world.’ I had never read his work before, and this quote raised my critical bar so high that the author had to work a good deal harder to win me over.

Brendan Gullifer is the author of the Pocketbook of Aussie Patriotism, published by Black Inc.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

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