LARRIKIN HERO’S TASTE FOR TROUBLE
Winsor Dobbin
Australia has it’s own James Bond in irreverent Alby
Murdoch, an ace international photographer who also doubles
as a secret agent for the Australian secret service (the
DED).
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Author
Geoff McGeachin, whose hugely funny debut novel, Fat, Fifty
& F***ed! Was a major success when published in 2004,
is on familiar ground in this, the third in what looks
likely to be a long series of novels featuring Murdoch, the
worldly wise but trouble-prone snapper whose world involves
all manner of bad
guys and gorgeous gals.
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Casino crime lords, bent American politicians and
grudge-holding killers for hire are just some of
Alby’s problems as he cavorts from Saigon, Hong Kong
and Macau to outback Australia, where he has to thwart an
evil plot that would end the seafood trade and render
Australian beaches unsafe.
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Along the way, Alby bumps into an Australian army legend
who is supposed to have died in the Vietnam War, the
bootylicious (and extremely dangerous) TV chef Jezebel
Quick, mysterious (and extremely dangerous) Vietnamese
policewoman Nhu Hoang and a very accommodating air hostess.
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Alby is a magnet for both beautiful women and trouble by
the bucketload, which makes this a most enjoyable romp that
can probably be devoured during one long day by the pool.
It’s a comic book for adults.
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McGeachin’s writing style is somewhere between Robert
G. Barrett (without the grotesque violence) and Ian
Fleming. Throw in a soupcon of Kathy Lette and even a twist
of Lindey Milan. This is not a novel for taking seriously;
it’s a paperback for enjoying on a day off, a
literary VB rather than a Puligny Montrachet.
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As in his previous books, McGeachin gets the Australian
idiom and sense of humour just right – and he’s
a sharp observer of the zeitgeist – not surprising
for someone whose photographic career has taken him from
Melbourne to Los Angeles, New York and Hong Kong, and who
now lives in Bondi.
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McGeachin has his finger firmly on the local pulse with a
lovely sense of the absurd. Oversexed chef Jezebel Quick
checks into a hotel as Barbara Ganoush, while he’s
spot on with his descriptions of the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong: “started in
the 1950s as a meeting place for journalists … it
describes itself as a social, cultural and intellectual
melting pot with no rival in Asia. While this is probably
true, everyone I know goes for the booze and the bullshit
and to see who is hanging out in the main bar.”
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McGeachin is also a gourmet, with a love of Asian food.
Hence the action occasionally stops for Alby to enjoy a
fine meal, lovingly described, before he is again shot at
or kidnapped.
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In Hong Kong he samples dan dan mein, “a thick and
amazingly flavoured broth – sweet, sour, salty,
spicy, smoky – with hints of dried shrimp, fermented
bean paste, chilli, shallots and garlic, and wonderfully
textured hand-made noodles capped with wok-fried minced
pork and crushed peanuts.”
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I was ready to head to Chinatown after reading that
paragraph alone.
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Alby is less lucky in Darwin, however, and his description
of an Australian theme restaurant aimed at gullible
tourists rings all too true, particularly the menu offering
of “salt and chilli battered octopus
testicles”.
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Alby is quick with a quip, decidedly un-PC and engagingly
intolerant.
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In Laos, he says, “Maintaining a low profile also
meant suppressing the urge to stick my balisong (butterfly
knife) into the kneecap of every pissy backpacker who
complained about the overcrowding and the heat. Give me
screaming over whining any day. It made me think of my late
colleague, Harry, who used to snarl, ‘If you
can’t stand the heat, stay out of the tropics.
’ He generally added, ‘dipshit’,”
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Given our hero’s speed with a quip, he’s
popular with the ladies. In Macau, he spends a night with a
particularly engaging and nubile companion at a luxury
resort with all the bells and whistles and reports:
“If things got too much for a bloke you simply
pressed nine on the phone on the bedside table for a
paramedic with a defibrillator.”
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Dead and Kicking is fast, irreverent, sometimes downright
stupid but it’s a rollicking read nonetheless.