Another solid novel by Jock Serong, which I enjoyed.

The story was believable, the characters well drawn, and the pace well set. However, unlike other novels by this author, this one did not draw me in from the very start, though it gradually gripped me and I wanted to know what the outcome would be.

I had a tough time with this book despite wanting to like it. The introduction is kind of fun, but things get fuzzy after that.

Suffering from burnout, the lawyer is sent out to the boonies to resolve a case. Of course things are more complex and incestuous that they appear. Not exactly the Hatfields and McCoys, but a deep seated family feud is at the bottom of some really bad behavior.

The writing is pretty murky and I found it rough going. I was hoping for more atmospheric Australia and there are some passages that are descriptive.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Jack Serong, and Text Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this mystery of my own volition, and this review reflects my personal opinion of this work. I am happy to recommend this tale to friends and family. It is an interesting look into the insular, coastal lifestyle in a small fishing town, Dauphin, in the land down under and an interesting mystery as well.

Lots of lovely word pictures in this work, and an undercurrent of lawlessness that I found slightly old west type threatening. We have two families as the basic protagonists - neither of them angels, but one much more sympathetic than the other.

The several generations of the Murchison family own most of the small town of Dauphin including the pub and the hotel and control the little they don't own with bullying tactics and a tight fist on the money. Michael John McVean is an employee of the Murchison family, a man who handles some of their dirty tricks. The family abalone business is conducted on the 'Open Quest', a fancy fishing boat, and their other businesses, both legal and not, are lucrative as well.

The family Lanegan is a much different kettle of fish. The parents both died when the family was young, father Dennis first with drinking and pancreatic problems eight years ago when the twins were expected, mother Trish when the twins were small, and the family has muddled on, barely scraping by with the older brothers taking over the running of the household and facing the occasional custody battle with family services. At the time of this catastrophe when Matthew-Matt-Mags (dob '89) was murdered and their fishing boat was set afire, Patrick (dob '91) may or may not have been a witness to that murder, sister Millie was 15 years and the twin boys Ben and Jack were 8 years old. The main source of income for this family was fishing from their shark boat 'Caravel' and runs, some illegal, for the Murchison family, ferrying abalone caught over the Murchisons' legal licensed quota into private Melbourne markets, and occasionally 'soft' drugs to and from the city in the 'Caravel' or the Lanegan's van.

Our story is told from the viewpoint of several key characters. Harlin Weir seems to have a finger on the pulse of the small village of Dauphin despite his isolation in Melbourne. Barry Egan is a middle-aged, recent widower who pops into the story here and there, a native Dauphin resident familiar with the characters of all those who make up our cast. Leshter is the long-time bartender at the local pub, the Normans Woe, a man who sees all, knows-all, and seems to keep his own counsel.

Charlie Jardim is a soft city boy, a lawyer currently in trouble for his runaway mouth, just dumped by his fiancee, and at present appointed by his boss Harlan Wier SC to do an in-depth study of the situation in Dauphin and confirm or refute evidence collected in personal interviews with emphases on the sworn testimony of Patrick Lanegan. It doesn't seem to matter to SC Wier how long this will take. And then we have the trial...

With his relationship over and his career as a barrister virtually in tatters, Charlie Jardim accepts a lifeline from a mentor to assist on the prosecution of the the two men charged over the murder of Victorian fisherman Matt/Mags Lanegan. The first task for Charlie is to head down to the small coastal town of Dauphin to see if he can persuade a key witness to tidy up his clearly bogus evidence. The fact that the witness is Patrick Lanegan, brother of the deceased, does raise a red flag for Charlie, but he decides to tread carefully and see what happens. What he doesn't immediately realise is that one of the accused, Skip Murchison, is the son of Dauphin's 'first couple', Alan and Delvene Murchison - owners of multiple businesses around town including some more legal than others. So when Patrick proves to be intractable and the town closes ranks, Charlie is just about ready to return to Melbourne with his tail between his legs.

This is Jock Serong's prize-winning debut novel. I really admire this author and have now read all four of his books published to date. <i>Quota</i> is not my favourite (nor my least), but it is still a very accomplished novel. Where I think this one was patchy, was in character development - if Charlie had been more well-rounded I would have cared more. Serong's writing and storytelling has improved with each subsequent novel. Still, this is a solid example of Australian crime fiction.

Quota is a legal thriller about a murder at sea off the coast of Dauphin, a fictitious fishing port in Victoria. The Murchisons have an abalone licence that permits them to ring in a set quota of this valuable shell-fish. When the quota is exceeded, there is a choice between putting the abalone back in the sea or selling it on the black market. Abalone licences are valuable – worth millions of dollars – and the quotas are heavily policed. So a black market abalone operation is a plausible basis for a murder mystery…

Two families in Dauphin – the Murchisons and the Lanegans – have been involved in the illicit trade. A Lanegan is dead, their boat has been torched, and a Murcheson is on trial for murder alongside a sidekick called McVean.

Maverick lawyer, Charlie Jardim, is rescued from professional purgatory and sent to Dauphin to beef up the prosecution case by getting Patrick Lanegan to change his police statement.

I’m afraid the result is rather dull. Alcoholic lawyer ends up in hick town full of unwelcoming inbreds, living there for weeks to carry out a fairly straightforward task, ends up in the middle of a feud between two indistinguishable families, and the murder case turns out to have been a [little] bit more complicated than it first seemed.

The plot is complex and hard to follow. The characters are rather clichéd and hard to tell apart. The town never really feels real and crucial developments require the reader to create a detailed image of the layout of the interior of the fishing boats. Oh, and there are lengthy legal scenes and statements that might add verisimilitude (they are the only parts of the text that ever feel solid) but wreck the pacing.

I’m afraid Quota was really rather hard going. If you want to read a better investigative novel set in regional Australia, try Chris Hammer’s Scrublands.

In order for people to enjoy a book it should be possible to read easily, and it really helps knowing what the story is all about from the first part of the book. Here are long rants, seemingly with no purpose, jumping around without obvious reason, and then complete legal documents are inserted destroying any enjoyment. To the author: please start again and try telling a good story from the beginning.

I must say, for an award winning novel, I expected more of this book.. It wasn't bad, but it seemed to ramble a bit and to me it lacked sharpness. It sees disgraced lawyer Charlie being sent to the boondocks to try to get a witness in a murder trial to change his obviously bogus statement. You would think Charlie would be out to prove himself and atone for his errant ways when given a second chance, yet all he seems to do is succumb to alcoholism.

I'm glad this book was short as I lacked focus when reading it, I just wasn't sucked in to the narrative. It was okay, just not gripping or unputdownable.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Quota
by
Jock Serong

4 Stars

Quota is a great legal thriller, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Charlie Jardim is an attorney who’s just thrown his career in the trash with a frustrated outburst aimed at the wrong judge. His career is seemingly ruined, his girl friend has left him, and yet an old friend and mentor takes him on to assist in the prosecution of a high profile murder case. Jardim finds himself in a small fishing town where he’s at times ignored, at times badly snubbed, and once beaten up. His time in the village not only fulfills the mission he was sent on, but becomes a healing journey for Jardim.

The writing is excellent, the characters well-developed and easy to identify with, and the book is tough to put down once you get started. Highly recommended.

Jock Serong's first novel won the Ned Kelly Award, Australia's top crime fiction award, so he is clearly one for crime fans to watch.

Dissolute lawyer Charlie Jardim is thrown a lifeline by a prosecutor and sent down to a small fishing town to interview a witness to a murder; the witness's story does not appear credible. While trying to get to the facts, Charlie encounters a hostile and uncooperative local community whose leading lights are the parents of the accused.

This is quite a good novel. It is engagingly told, and Charlie is a protagonist the reader can identify with. There's a few good plot twists, especially once we get to the trial, but I thought maybe not quite enough - another twist or two would have been welcome. A few of the characters were underdeveloped, and some were unimaginative Aussie stereotype characters. Still, this is a good start for Serong, who is definitely worth another try.

I received this book through NetGalley Read Now Program. I selected this book because of the book description.

I have completed a quarter of the book and have left it several times and gone back to read. I am getting a lot of actiovity related to Charlie and I know of a murder that has been committed. IIn all of my reading I have not been able to get an interest and was not able to figure what the story was about.

I will not be finishing this.

Jock Serong's debut novel is a legal drama based around the murder of a man in the fictional small Victorian coastal fishing town of Dauphin. The town is more or less ruled by the Murchison family who hold one of the very limited lucrative licenses for abalone fishing, illegally boosted by selling over-quota abalone and top grade marijuana to buyers in Melbourne, with the local police firmly in their pocket.

The Lanegan brothers, Matthew and Patrick, sole carers of their three younger siblings, struggle to make a living out of fishing and Matthew has been working as a courier for the Murchisons. One night Matthew and Patrick attend a meeting off the coast with Skip Murchison and his mate Mick McVean and all hell breaks loose with Matthew killed, their boat set on fire and Patrick hiding underwater.

Fearing repercussions Patrick refuses to tell the police what happened that night so junior barrister Charlie Jardim is sent to Dauphin to talk to Patrick to see if he will change his statement and stand as a witness for the trial of Murchison and McVean. Charlie is lucky to be given this job by an old friend after being charged with contempt of court for calling a judge "a heartless old prick, so with his career under review he needs to convince Patrick to say what really happened.

Jock Serong's depiction of small town life on the coast is very evocative, with the country pub and row of shops the centre of life and gossip. That Serong was a lawyer himself also shows with the authentic feel of the court scenes and interactions of those in the legal profession. Charlie comes across a grumpy, lonely man who constantly feels disappointed by people and doesn't seem to know what he wants out of life. The childhood death of his brother and the effect on his parents is implicated to be responsible but I'm not sure that fully explained what made him tick. However, the trial and his time in Dauphin with Patrick seems to change him and soften his outlook on life. The wry little twist at the end of the novel was a nice touch to finish this excellent debut.

Thrilling story with a great plot, highly recommend to fans of this genre. A must read!! Great characters that keep you guessing til the end.

Quota, for me, was an exceptionally difficult book to get into. Much of the writing, to me, made no sense. It just seemed so much gibberish. The hyperness of the writing wore me down. Some 40% into it, I just gave up.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Quota is the first novel by Australian lawyer, editor and features writer, Jock Serong. After a courtroom episode (avidly described in legal circles as Jardim’s “brain snap”) that earns him two nights in the police cells, threatens his career as a barrister and contributes to the end of his engagement to dedicated junior lawyer, Anna Murdoch, Charlie Jardim is feeling tired, apathetic and indifferent to the whole business. But he finds that his old friend, senior barrister Harlan Weir is determined to thwart his exile and sends him to Dauphin, a small town on the Victorian south coast to check out the witness to a murder.

Charlie wonders if this brief will change everything and “make the….whole shitty game fall away from the foreground like cardboard theatre sets, revealing something that would expunge the futile ritual of his weeks”. Or will it be his last hurrah? Patrick Lanegan’s statement about his brother’s murder doesn’t quite ring true. Charlie and Harlan are in no doubt that defendants Skip and Mick murdered Matthew Lanegan, given the illegal abalone trade and the drug trade in which they were all involved, but a conviction seems unlikely unless Patrick is more forthcoming.

As he weaves a tale that will surprise the reader with some completely unexpected turns, Serong creates interesting and complex characters and treats the reader to some wonderfully evocative descriptive prose, to wit: “…Barry had traded in auto parts and hoarded information, the factual rubbish others would discard to keep their house-proud minds prim like a brick veneer. His was more of a two-bedroom hardiplank surrounded by rusty wreckage…” and “It took a few moments to find Patrick, reduced in the middle distance to a pair of pulsing black fins leaving stabs of silver bubbles, chattering consonants among the blue-green vowels of the reef” also “Here, now, the weather altered the very appearance of the world, by turns stripping and bleaching, shading and saturating the town’s colours. The wind, idle at the moment, was nonetheless integral to the shape of the trees, the mood of the sea. His static surrounds had hidden this reality from him: the world was in a state of incessant upheaval” and “The drivers headlight was gone, leaving a gory smashed eye socket.”

Serong’s depiction of a small Victorian town, with his description of the pub and its patrons, the Chinese café, the football game and the local characters, is perfect. Likewise, his courtroom scenes feel authentic, no doubt a product of his personal experience. Against the backdrop of a murder trial, Serong explores family loyalties, truth and justice, and the legal system: “Only through fanatical belief in the system could you devote such care to the construction of an argument but never fall for the hubris of it.” This work of literary crime fiction is a brilliant debut novel and readers will look forward to more from Jock Serong.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Text Publishing