Read three pages of Camilla Nelson’s Crooked and you may put it down, read 20 and you cannot. The storyline derives from Nelson’s crime reporting experience and is delivered at a cracking pace; the main characters are drawn with clarity, and set within the context of events in Sydney in the 1960s. If Nelson has character favourites, they do not overwhelm the plot. Her depiction of a world that includes not-entirely-honest criminal lawyers, manipulating, nasty, and naïve police officers, rings true. It echoes what we see in the media now-the excesses of modern politics and crime. True crime fans will enjoy Crooked for its attention to the facts of events in a slightly familiar setting, enhanced by descriptive slang and acid insight. Villains, police, politicians, and their hangers-on shape events and are in turn shaped by them. Nelson skilfully portrays a time, over 40 years ago, when Sydney was (hopefully) a different place. Her subtle writing allows us to step into an era of relative unsophistication and enter these lives without being overly judgemental. Enjoyable-if rather unsettling-reading.

Barbara Cullen’s 24 years in the book trade inform her current role managing small business policy for the Victorian Government

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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