My Review: No Weather For A Burial by David Owen

The Plot
How long should long service leave be?

Pufferfish, aka Detective Inspector Franz Heineken, scourge of Tasmania's villains, is back. And back with a seriously refreshed vengeance. Pufferfish, prickly, curmudgeonly and irony-charged as ever, is attracted to an unusual stench in his island paradise: a badly decomposed corpse with no name, identity altered prior to execution, victim of a puzzling mix of professionalism and panic.

My Review
Being a Tasmanian, my obvious attraction to this book was that it was set in Hobart and various regions of the Apple Isle. And the parochialism for the region comes across clearly throughout the novel. The descriptions of the beauty, the people and the weather were both amusing and enjoyable, particularly for a local. Tasmania has a uniqueness about it, and David Owen cleverly exploits this.

The plotlines were solid, with two cases running parallel. The murder investigation into the enigmatic Sam Fortune provides the main focus for the novel. This investigation bubbles along with Heineken attempting to prove they have the wrong man in gaol. The intrigue builds nicely as Heineken travels around Tassie and to Sydney and Townsville accumulating his information.

Meanwhile, the disappearance of the academic's wife sits very much on the back-burner for much of the novel. In fact, it had almost slipped my mind until Heineken serendipitously stumbles upon the crucial piece of information over a few wines, and thereby provides a neat conclusion to the novel.

Overall an enjoyable read. Owen's style keeps the reader on their toes with his punchy dialogue, although the use of acronyms is sometimes a little distracting. The book has obvious appeal for Tasmanians, and anyone who has visited Tasmania. Whilst some local knowlwedge is helpful but not essential, it does enhance the reading experience. This is the first Pufferfish novel I have read, and it definitely won't be my last!