Dave Warner

Gun detective Dan Clement leaves his career in Perth behind and moves to the remote coastal town of Broome to be near his daughter and his estranged wife, with whom he hopes to reconcile one day. Being used to the facilities and high-level personnel of the city, Dan tends to think of his colleagues as hicks and the local police department as pretty sub-standard.

When a local German immigrant is found murdered in a nearby waterhole, Dan is forced to manage a homicide investigation using the meagre resources available to him. The plot thickens quickly, with apparent involvement of local bikies and some drug-running. Dan is also trying to chase down the victim's German connections, after he is revealed to be a former policeman. As the situation becomes more entangled and progress more difficult, Dan gets to feel the pressure of having his former city mates take away his investigation.

While all this is going on Dan is making feeble attempts to patch things up with his ex-wife and preserve his father-daughter relationship.

This book is a middling crime drama that lacks a real punch in the ending and is a bit too predictable in its denouement. Dan's personal conflicts, a necessary of any modern fictional detective character in my opinion, are pretty mundane and seem more bolted onto the plot, rather than a driver of it. I prefer my fictional detectives to be more damaged and angsty than this.… (more)

Blake Saunders is a hitman for a Philadelphia crime mob. When his brother crosses one of the local bosses, Blake is forced to flee. He eventually ends up in Australia, where he runs a surf bar in a quiet seaside town and tries to bury his past. When a young girl is murdered nearby there is evidence that connects her to Blake's bar and he starts to receive unwelcome attention. When the city cops arrest a mate, Blake is convinced they are wrong and sets out to solve the crime himself.

This novel, set in the 1960s, is a bit of a change for Warner, who normally sets his crime novels in contemporary Western Australia. I found Blake's character to be a bit of a stretch, but that's not too distracting. There are plenty of plot twists and a sense of the world changing for both Blake and the Australia he now lives in.

Warner writes with a fair bit of affection about 60s music, especially surf rock, calling to mind his own past as a musician, something missing from the other novels of his that I've read. This adds a bit of additional interest to what is already a pretty competent crime novel.… (more)

Set in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, After the Flood is the fourth book by Dave Warner to feature Detective Inspector Dan Clement, though it also works effectively as a stand alone.

As his team handles a spate of petty crimes including an unruly protest, the theft of explosive materials, and vandalism of a vaccination clinic, DI Dan Clement, lonely and missing his teenage daughter, is feeling restless and longing for a distraction. Fate obliges with the discovery of a body, naked with tire tread marks on his chest and railroad spikes driven through his palms in a remote area of a cattle station, and Clement finds himself in a race to prevent a deadly scheme.

In what is a tightly plotted, engaging police procedural, Clement and his squad’s challenge is to identify the dead man, and then methodically gather evidence that might explain the reason for his gruesome murder, and reveal his killer. Warner offers several red herrings leading to a succession of dead ends that frustrate the officers, but just as the case seems to stall, a surprising connection is made. The tension rises sharply as the pieces then rapidly fall into place, leading to an explosive finish.

Themes explored in After the Flood include family, trauma, grief, revenge and disenfranchisement. Warner also raises topical issues such as corporate greed, social justice, and eco-terrorism.

The setting of After the Flood is well realised. Clement’s Major Crime Squad are based in Broome but their territory is extensive, and both its geographical and social features can complicate their investigations.

Offering intrigue and excitement, After the Flood is a well written police procedural that I sincerely enjoyed.… (more)