Peter Temple

The pain seemed to dissolve. Cold and rough tarmac against the face, chill wind down here at ground level, smell of French perfume on my shirt, delicious. I registered that but all I felt was sad. This is a stupid way to go, I thought. Careless. When Mac Faraday's best friend is found hanging, the assumption is suicide. But Mac...

The third novel in the Jack Irish series won the 2000 Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel and has earned its place as a modern Australian crime classic. Jack Irish—lawyer, gambler, and people-finder—is hunting down the villains who hijacked the winnings from his latest betting coup when he is hired by a mystery client to find the missing barman...

It takes a lot to rattle Jack Irish but, as Melbourne descends into a cold, wet winter, his mood is on the same trajectory. The woman in Jack's life has reconnected with an old flame. He has gambled and lost massively and seen a champion horse put down. It's not surprising that Jack's mind is not fully on the job...

The fourth and final book in the iconic Jack Irish series, and the winner of the 2003 Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Novel. Jack Irish—gambler, cook and cabinetmaker, finder of people who don't want to be found—has a new job, hunting for evidence that might save the beautiful sculptor Sarah Longmore from a murder rap. Jack soon discovers there...

Melbourne in winter. Rain. Wind. Pubs. Beer. Sex. Corruption. Murder. A phone message from ex-client Danny McKillop doesn’t ring any bells for Jack Irish. Life is hard enough without having to dredge up old problems: his beloved football team continues to lose, the odds on his latest plunge at the track seem far too long and he’s still cooking for...

Jack Irish has no shortage of friends. Jockeys and journos, lawyers and standover men, people in nameless occupations who aren’t in the phone book. These days, though, the only family he sees are Irish men in faded football team photographs on the pub wall. So when Des Connors, the last link to his father, calls to ask for help in...

The Cold War is long dead, but the trade in deceit and lies is still running hot. In Hamburg, John Anselm is hiding from the ghosts he has left behind in foreign war zones. He spends his days working for a surveillance firm whose business is just this side of legal. At night, he drinks too much, paranoid about the...

Shooting Star is classic Peter Temple, and now a Text Classic. Pat Carson's old eyes were on me, looking for something. 'Man is born unto trouble,' he said. I said, 'As the sparks fly upwards.' Deep lines at the corners of his mouth. 'Know your Job. Soldier. Policeman. Haven't been a bloody priest too, have you?' Anne Carson—fifteen, beautiful, wayward....

The unpublished, unfinished and unmissable writings of the unforgettable Peter Temple. Peter Temple started publishing novels late, when he was fifty, but then he got cracking. He wrote nine novels in thirteen years. Along the way he wrote screenplays, stories, dozens of reviews. When Temple died in March 2018 there was an unfinished Jack Irish novel in his drawer. It...

Joe Cashin was different once. He moved easily then; was surer and less thoughtful. But there are consequences when you've come so close to dying. For Cashin, they included a posting away from the world of Homicide to the quiet place on the coast where he grew up. Now all he has to do is play the country cop and...

At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city. In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead, a panic button within reach. So begins the sequel to Peter Temple's bestselling masterpiece, The Broken Shore. Villani's life is his work. It is his identity, his calling, his...