Peter Temple is currently being hailed as the finest crime writer in Australia, but it won’t be long before he is recognized as what he really is—one of the nation’s finest writers, period. Born in South Africa, Temple is writing a dynamic kind of literary thriller that ultimately defies classification. The Broken Shore, his eighth novel, revolves around big-city detective Joe Cashin. Shaken by a scrape with death, he’s posted away from the Homicide Squad to the quiet town on the South Australian coast where he grew up. Carrying physical scars and more than a little guilt, he spends his time playing the country cop, walking his dogs, and thinking about how it all was before. But when a prominent local is attacked in his own home and left for dead, Cashin is thrust into what becomes a murder investigation.