Amateur sleuth’s travails a compelling intrigue

The Slow Roll by Simon Lendrum

Upstart Press, $39.99 Reviewed by Louise Ward

This novel is set in modern-day Auckland and O’Malley is a gambler with a side interest in finding stuff out. He’s gained a reputation as an amateur but reliable sleuth, and if you don’t want the cops involved, he might just be your man.

O’Malley is a big fella: tall, broad, not one to mess with.

He’s also a bit of a soft touch at times and when a distraught father comes to himfor help in finding his teenaged daughter, O’Malley is moved by the tragedy the family has already suffered and agrees to help.

This leads him straight into a situation he was not expecting involving gangsters and a teenaged boy named Jesse who has watched too much Breaking Bad.

Not only is O’Malley soon up to his eyeballs in unforeseen shenanigans, but a fellow gambler is found dead soon after a big game at a private house, a game that O’Malley also attended.

The community is spooked, O’Malley has form and in trying to extricate himself from a complex situation, he manages to dig himself in much, muchdeeper.

O’Malley’s foil is his psychology student girlfriend, Claire. They keep nocturnal hours, Claire working in a bar to fund her studies, O’Malley making his cash through wily gambling.

Claire is smart and steers her errant boyfriend back on course when his decisionmaking is off.

She’s attractive too, of course, something the author is keen to tell us at every opportunity. The pair have a healthy sex life, and are constantly eyeing each other up, which wears a bit thin for this reader and occasionally obfuscates the plot.

The story is fast-paced and hangs together well. The intricacies of afterhours life, dodgy commerce and criminal loyalties is intriguing and the characters well drawn. There are car chases, guns, shivs, underworld crime and intrigue. It’s a page-turning read and we’ll be seeing more of O’Malley and Claire.