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NICE TRY by Shane Maloney

NICE TRY

by Shane Maloney

Pub Date: March 1st, 2000
ISBN: 1-55970-513-2
Publisher: Arcade

Labor Party electorate officer Murray Whelan thinks he's got it made in the Australian shade. Lent by his boss, Honorable

Member for the Melbourne Upper Angelo Agnelli, to the Melbourne Olympic Bid for the express purpose of keeping Koori activist Ambrose Buchanan cooperative during the International Olympic Committee's upcoming visit, he strikes what seems to be the deal of a lifetime: If the government agrees to fund an Aboriginal Institute of Sport, Ambrose will keep the "blackfellers" in line. Sports Minister Douglas "Woeful" McKenzie is ecstatic, seeing a p.r. coup within his grasp and knowing that if Melbourne wins its bid to host the 1990 Summer Games, the Institute will be almost wholly underwritten by advertising revenues. But win- win quickly turns into dead-dead. First, Darcy Anderson, rising triathlete and Ambrose's prot‚g‚, is found beaten to death in Fitzroy, touching off a racially-tinged demonstration. Worse, while helping Holly Deloite, his aerobics instructor, get back her belongings, Murray finds Denis Dogherty, Woeful's aide and brother-in-law, with his head bashed in in the bedroom of Holly's steroid-enhanced ex-boyfriend. Once again, Murray (Stiff, 1999, etc.) tracks a killer to protect those he cares about—as well as those he merely works for. Tight pace, believable dialogue, terrific puzzle: Melbourne may have missed the Olympics, but they have a first-rate amateur

sleuth.