Prize Catch (Alan Carter, Fremantle)

Alan Carter’s latest crime novel, Prize Catch, is a page-turning thrill ride set on Australia’s Emerald Isle. With the action taking place in Hobart and its surrounds, and brimming with beautiful descriptions of the picturesque, and at times unforgiving, Tasmanian landscape, this thriller focuses on the unlikely alliance formed among Roz Chen, a grieving widow; Sam Willard, an SAS veteran; and Jill Wilkie, a police officer on the verge of retirement, as they find themselves pulled into a murky underworld—with links to salmon farming, environmental activism and allegations of war crimes. The novel races along, unravelling crimes and schemes in rapid succession, until it seems as if the final reveal will happen at the halfway mark and there could not possibly be anything of consequence left to occur. However, Carter expertly unspools another twist in the plot, which propelled this reader through to the end. At times, the extreme lengths the ‘bad guys’ go to, their motives, and the sheer number of times some characters find themselves in perilous and/or near-death situations seem a bit far-fetched, but sometimes personal, political and corporate greed forces people to do things beyond the credible. For fans of Chris Hammer and Garry Disher and readers of Carter’s previous novels, Prize Catch exposes the lengths some people will go to get what they want and the sacrifices others will make to stop them.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Kate Frawley is a former bookseller and a librarian in training. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

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