Sweet One (Peter Docker, Fremantle Press)

Sassy, hard-drinking, menthol-smoking, blonde-curled protagonist Izzy is a newspaper journalist and daughter of a cop who is determined to reveal the truth, particularly about racism and police injustice. A big story breaks when an Aboriginal elder and war veteran dies in police custody in outback Western Australia, but it gets even bigger when a highly trained ex-SAS vigilante decides to take vengeance on those involved and anyone guilty of mistreating his people. Add in a money-making conspiracy among an elite team of soldiers in Afghanistan, and a web of mateship among former soldiers, and you have a jam-packed, tension-driven story, brimming with memorable characters and covered in red dust. While I had a few quibbles with the plot (how could you notice a photo of your father in the living room of someone you’ve just met and not mention it?), Docker has cleverly interwoven his fiction with the political issue—the treatment of Indigenous people—in a way that demands his audience give it consideration. Sweet One should satisfy anyone after a gripping read, a new slant on Indigenous issues and a subtle dose of humour. Docker’s third novel is a heady mix that will benefit from handselling.

Joanne Shiells is a former editor of Books+Publishing