This book is a strange beast, and not the easiest to review. An experimental novel written in diary form, it is clearly a work of fiction. Yet it is also illustrated with over 170 photographs, based on real historical events, and firmly rooted in the real-life, day-to-day procedure of policemen in post-WWII Sydney. The plot has all the usual crime novel ingredients--sex, drugs, violence, corruption--but this book is anything but generic. Our diarist narrator is a priest stationed at Central police station, who each day,completes his ‘summer exercises’, in which he records thoughts, overheard conversations, and seemingly anything else that occurs to him. At times fragmented and impressionistic, the prose will frustrate readers used to more linear narratives, and occasionally one feels that the stream-of-consciousness meanderings have simply saved the author the trouble of rewriting in search of clarity. But at other times, the mishmash of ideas and impressions gleaned by the priest bring startling revelations about this particular moment in history. The photos are stunning, the novel challenging and engaging. The style requires a little effort on the part of the reader, but once made, that effort is handsomely rewarded. (See intervew page 59.)

Beau Taylor is a bookseller with crime and science fiction specialists Pulp Fiction

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