REVIEW: The Deep by Kyle Perry

The Deep is the second title from new Australian crime writer Kyle Perry, following on from his critically acclaimed debut, The Bluffs. Perry returns to the setting of Tasmania, this time to the seaside village of Shacktown. This quiet sleepy town is dominated by the Dempseys, the richest and most powerful family in town.

Kyle Perry (Photo by Graham King).

The secret the Dempseys harbour is that they have used their fishing and abalone business to run a drug ring for generations. Jesse Dempsey, the heir to the business, disappeared several years earlier along with his wife Alexandra and son Forest. It is a mystery that has spawned many theories in town and this only increases when a 13 year old boy emerges from the sea, claiming to be Forest.

‘Forest’ becomes the lightning rod around which the story centres. Is he really Forest? What does he know about what happened to his family? What else does he know that may expose secrets that need to stay buried and who would his revelations expose?

Mackerel Dempsey, the family’s only known criminal and Forest’s uncle, has recently returned to Shacktown after a jail sentence. With the reappearance of his nephew, he attempts to protect Forest from the life he very nearly escaped, and that Mack is desperate to leave behind him. As the story unravels they both find themselves in danger from both expected and unexpected sources.

Perry is brilliant at atmospheric writing, drawing the natural attributes of his setting with an expertise that belies the fact that this is only his second novel. His characters are also deeply flawed and complex, and he explores dysfunctional family dynamics with equal skill. The narrative and characters explore some dark topics along with the dangers of family loyalty and legacy, which some embrace and others are determined to escape.

The Deep is an excellent novel, albeit with a fair few twists. There is no question that the dynamics of the family, both in terms of small town life and the drug empire ties are complex and fascinating, however the narrative developments came so hard and fast in the latter portion of the novel that there was a danger of this devolving into farce. Perry fortunately stops it from going that far, delivering a story that ultimately serves the characters and the narrative arc well.

Perry is well on his way to being mentioned in the same breath as Jane Harper, Peter Temple and other brilliant Australian crime writers. Tense, complex and atmospheric characters and settings are clearly his forte and if this second novel is any indication, he is only going to get better and better.

—The Deep by Kyle Perry (Penguin Books Australia) is out on the 20th of July.

The Deep

by Kyle Perry

If you encounter the Black Wind while out there at sea, all you can do is race back to shore. There’s no predicting it, no sailing it, no living with it. And if you’re a Dempsey, it can play tricks on your mind. . .

On the Tasman Peninsula, nestled amidst the largest sea-cliffs in the southern hemisphere, is Shacktown. Here the Dempsey family have run a drug ring for generations, using the fishing industry and the deadly Black Wind as cover. But when thirteen-year-old Forest Dempsey walks out of the ocean, bruised and branded, everything is at risk – because Forest has been presumed dead for the last seven years...

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About the Contributor

Karen Robinson