Reviewed by Rod McLary
Chris Hammer is one of Australia’s finest – and one the most successful – crime writers. The setting for most of his novels is the Australian outback – a setting as harsh and unforgiving as the crimes which lie at the heart of his novels placing them securely within the sub-genre ‘outback noir’.
It is a feature of Chris Hammer’s novels that the outback and its terrain are so well described by him that their presence is a palpable one. The following is just one example: There is nothing green, not yet, but I can sense the promise. The air still smells of dust, but a new note has joined the outback fragrance [146]. The reader is immediately transported 1000km to outback New South Wales to breathe the outback air.
Even though the author’s seven novels are all stand-alone, there is some cross-over of characters between the books. For example, making a cameo appearance in Legacy are characters who will be familiar to all Chris Hammer’s readers – DS Ivan Lucic and Det Nell Buchanan [from The Tilt and The Seven et al] who appear at both the beginning and the end of this novel. Their presence brings a sense of familiarity and continuity to the narrative.
But the chief protagonist in Legacy is Martin Scarsden an investigative journalist and author whom readers last met in Trust [2020] and is now about to launch his latest book – a true-crime exposé entitled Melbourne Mobster: The Vivid Life and Violent Death of Enzo Marelli. When he is about to be introduced at the book launch in his hometown Port Silver, Scarsden and all the guests are ordered to immediately evacuate the building because of a bomb threat. Within minutes of the building emptying, there is an explosion and then a second one with ‘flames roaring and smoke pouring skywards’ [8]. And then two shots aimed at Martin. Clearly he has offended a powerful person – perhaps the Mafia with whom Enzo Marelli had strong links.
What follows is a complex and entwined game of cat-and-mouse as Scarsden – with the support of his friend and ASIO officer Jack Goffing – attempts to remain at least one step ahead of his pursuers. Running alongside the primary narrative is a second one involving Ekaterina Boland – or Ecco – who has been engaged by a local grazier Clayborne Carmichael to ghostwrite his biography [biography because his name will not appear as author]. Carmichael and his adult children Vincent and Chloe figure significantly in the narrative as do Merriman Stanton and his son Roman. There is a longstanding feud between the Carmichaels and the Stantons over water rights which persists into this narrative as well as influencing the narrative.
Add to the mix sub-plots involving two members of the ill-fated Ludwig Leichhardt expedition, the possibility of a hidden goldmine, the fate of Carmichael’s daughter who has been missing for twenty years, and the role of the local hotelkeeper in these events, and you have an intriguing and captivating crime novel which is as good as any Chris Hammer has written to date.
The characters are engaging and three-dimensional and the backstories of the new characters are gradually revealed to the reader adding an element of personal interest to the core narrative of ‘who wants Martin Scarsden killed?’ To leaven the tension and Machiavellian intrigue is the emergence of a slow-burning romance between two of the characters which comes to fruition only when the dust is settled and the mysteries are solved.
Legacy is a fine crime story which has plenty of characterisation and intrigue to lift it well above many in the genre. Well recommended.
Legacy
[2025]
by Chris Hammer
Allen and Unwin
ISBN: 978 176147 102 5
$34.99; 479pp