Review: The Richmond Conspiracy

The Richmond Conspiracy by Andrew Grimes
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What an utter load of codswallop.

To enjoy this book, you must be interested in a few things:
-Melbourne, and all of its streets, buildings and landmarks
-Politics
-Sport
-War
-Aussie slang
-1930s' lack of political correctness
-Flowery writing

Thus, for me, this novel was incredibly dull and full of crap to put me off.

Firstly, I love Melbourne. It's my 'hood. I love books set in Melbourne because I can relate to them a little more. If I were to describe my feelings towards Melbourne, I would call it a sweet little crush.

This book, on the other hand, wants to jump Melbourne's bones. There is so much unnecessary crap about what Melbourne looks like and what streets he's driving on and which building are new, and old, and a bunch of suburb names that will mean little to anyone not familiar with the city. There are descriptions of landmarks and it was just OVERKILL. If I'm reading a book set in a city I'm familiar with and it goes into so much detail that I'm bored, I can't imagine the pain that's gonna cause for someone who's never been to Melbourne. So, yeah, needed to ease up a little on the love affair, there.

The sport was another drainer. The book is set in 1933, so I'm sure there'll be a few readers who enjoy reminiscing about the cricket and the footy mentioned here, but I don't even follow this stuff in the present. I'm sure the cricket stuff was supposed to be a clever little symbolic thing, but it honestly flew way over my head. When he then started talking about footy, I wanted to cry. I'll admit, I ended up skipping the paragraphs that mentioned sport.

The political/war stuff was a main thread of the murder mystery, so that was pretty disappointing for me. When it all wrapped up I honestly had very little idea of what had just gone down, and the big reveals at the end had zero effect because I'd lost track of everyone's motives. There are so many characters and I never really got familiar with who was who so, again, there was no big shock because when someone is revealed to be behind something I always found myself thinking, 'which one was that again?' Plus, all the procedural stuff is interspersed with all the boring sport and Melbourne stuff so as soon as I started to get the hang of what was going on, I lost the thread again to boredom. It all became incredibly hard to follow and I was just glad it was all over, in the end. WHAT. A. SLOG.

Now ohmygod let's talk about the Aussie slang and stereotypes.

I mentioned I'm an Aussie, right?

For the most part, I actually hate the sound of Aussie slang. I'm not talking about things like 'arvo' and 'brekky' that have been integrated into every day language, I'm talking about the cold, hard, stereotype slang like 'bloody oath' and 'g'day' and 'fair dinkum'. This book is teeming with them and it's so incredibly frustrating. I know this is set in the '30s but every single character talks like Alf from Home and Away. I found that it completely distracted me from what they were actually saying because the writing of it seemed false to me. This book just put so much effort into proving it was Australian that it kinda overshadowed the actual story.

Now, here's a hot topic.

This book is also incredibly offensive. Again, I get that it's historical fiction, but it has cross-dressing and homosexual characters and it is far from kind to them. The language is disgusting and a classic example of all of the barriers these populations are STILL trying to overcome today. Plus, these characters are stereotypes themselves. This book was written recent enough that it could easily have handled these characters with a little more care and understanding, but instead it went full, 'my old, judgy grandpa' on it and just let loose. Not cool. Also, cross dressing is not a fetish, you inconsiderate, uninformed piece of trash. This book definitely lost my respect with this stuff.

AND PLEASE DESCRIBE THE TERRIFYING SOUND A POSSUM MAKES PROPERLY.

Seriously, guys. Have you heard a possum? It's like something out of a horror movie.

This book just tries way too hard to describe everything, and the story gets lost in all the extra scene-setting and similes. It's supposed to be historical crime fiction, but it's more like a washed out attempt at literary fiction. There's nothing really to keep it tense and exciting, and is generally underwhelming. Full of Australian wildlife and stereotypes, though. 'Oh, look, a wallaby in the backyard.' *eyeroll*

Also, I am SO SICK of these middle-aged detectives, often married, falling for the young and beautiful witness/family member that can't help but be illogically yet passionately attracted to him. THAT SH*T DON'T HAPPEN. I'm convinced every time this happens that it's just the author living out a fantasy in his writing.

So re-read that initial checklist, and if you're a fan of any of those things, I'm sure you'll get a kick out of this one. If, alternatively, like me, you have very little interest in any of these subjects, I'd give this one a miss.

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