Peter Temple’s ninth novel, Truth, made history last year by becoming the first work of genre fiction to win the prestigious Miles Franklin Award in Australia. Its unusual mixture of noir tropes with the gravitas and personal reflection of modern literature certainly sounds like a fascinating combination, but unfortunately the book falls far short of its potential

The core of Truth is Stephen Villani, the head of the Homicide department in Melbourne. A brusque and hard man, Villani opens the novel faced with an unusual and personally challenging murder. A girl, who looks distressingly like his daughter, is found dead in a luxury apartment, her neck broken and all identifying traces removed. As he pushes further into the investigation he is stymied by the powerful and influential friends of the building’s owners who are desperate to preserve the commercial success of the complex. Meanwhile, a gruesome triple murder occurs over in a warehouse, all three victims are hardened criminals, known to the police and all have been brutally tortured.

Against the backdrop of these crimes, Villani has to contend with his family falling apart, political interference, a lack of confidence and the threatened destruction of his childhood home by the bushfires ravaging the countryside.

The ambition of this book certainly can’t be challenged. Many varied plotlines work their way into the narrative and the number of relevant characters mounts as the story progresses. The central themes of truth and corruption, at both an individual and organisational level play out through every thread of the novel leaving the reader wondering who, if anyone, is worthy of their trust. In the end, though, and as much as I hate to criticise a book for being too ambitious, this works against Truth. So much is packed in to the story that most of the individual tales never get enough time to really draw you in or to get resolved in any meaningful way. This could have been exciting and left the reader always wanting more, but it ends up feeling piecemeal and largely unrewarding.

As a crime novel, Truth just never grabbed my attention. The central case is left behind far too often, kept at bay by Villani’s personal demons and the political power plays around him. When the reveal finally occurs, and the killer finally discovered, it felt distressingly like their name had been pulled from a hat. The second set of murders in the book are a lot more coherent and tie far more tightly into the story, but they feel like an aside, rarely given the focus they deserve, which is a true shame because it was in here that the corruption surrounding Villani felt honest and the tragedy heartfelt.

As a character study, Truth is more successful. Villani is a complex and mostly interesting character, torn by irreconcilable priorities. We see how he has been shaped by his life and how his choices, both right and wrong, have led to the challenges he faces now. He is constantly torn, throughout the novel between his belief in justice and his tendency towards self-preservation. Tied to his past by feelings of inadequacy, despite the obvious effects of his strong personality on those around him. This all makes Vallani a difficult man to like, but he always feels honestly painted, the closest thing to a pure truth we see in the book.

The crippling flaw of Truth, however, is the single voice shared by all the characters. Every person in the book talks in the same short, clipped sentences, stripped of all unnecessary words. While this made for an interesting first few pages and was almost excusable when it was just the police officers talking, it became genuinely distracting when it extended to the media figures, the politicians and even the little old ladies. This brevity of speech and personality made it hard at times to distinguish the characters apart and their lack of clear individuality made it almost impossible for me to grow attached to anyone other than Villani himself, making large swaths of the book feel curiously hollow.

Strangely, while writing this review, I found myself looking back on Truth with far more fondness than I actually had whilst reading it. I suppose this speaks highly of the broader concepts of the book and its examination of contemporary Australian politics and life. The devil is in the details however and the failings of the book make it hard for me to recommend, no matter the scope of its ideas.

-Sky Kirkham

Truth was the 4ZzZ Book Club’s book of the month for April 2011 and is out now through Text Publishing.