I’ve enjoyed the first two in the series before (books one and two), and felt like finishing the year with some good old police work. This review covers the last two books in the DI Mahoney series, but as noted below you can jump right in.

What to Expect

Big Stake: Life’s a Gamble: Expect another murder case set in Hobart for the head of the serious crimes squad to solve. This one revolves around the betting and gambling industry, particularly horse racing. When a body of a jockey that disappeared a few years ago is accidentally unearthed at a construction site, the investigation leads DI Mahoney to uncover dodgy dealings rife across the industry, fuelled by international crime syndicates.

The Square Up: is the last published novel in the series (though one hopes for more in the future). Mahoney is faced with a brutal but methodical serial killer, committing murders as a social statement. He has to bring in a psychological profiler, but despite the mounting forensic evidence gathered at each crime scene, zeroing in on the perpetrator is proving difficult — each murder is carefully planned and executed, and the suspect seems to stay two steps ahead.

What I liked

I loved the portrayal of police work. While DI Mahoney is the lead investigator, he’s leading a team. We get to view how the full resources of a police force are brought to bear, with the various forensic, pathology, and uniformed leg-work grinding inexorably to uncover the evidence that will lead to the killer. This team-work is a realistic view of modern policing, not a hero-detective that operates alone.

Add a strong sense of place (spooky when you’ve just visited a few places mentioned), almost a love letter to the city of Hobart, and you get a gritty, realistic, and highly immerse murder mystery in this remote part of the world.

What to be aware of

These are book 3 and 4 in the series, but outside of some passing references to previous cases you can jump right in. The series is maintaining consistently high quality, and each case is independent.

In Big Stake there are plenty of horse-betting slang terms (as well as general Aussie slang), but they are mostly understood from context or not critical for understanding the story.

The Square Up sees Mahoney battling a bit with modern social media so we get a bit of an explanation on how Facebook works (the novel feels like taking place pre-COVID, closer in time to the earlier books). But that is just a side thing for the younger and hipper officers on his squad, while Mahoney focuses on more traditional face-to-face investigation techniques (as police are often obligated to do).

Felix’s and Jack’s Reviews

Felix enjoyed Mahoney’s previous cases, and certainly enjoyed this one as well. He marvels at the workings of modern police-work, with a whole team at his disposal. He usually has to rely on his wits alone (well, that and Borax covering his back when violence invariably erupts), but both share a dogged persistence in bringing criminals to justice.

Jack, on the other hand, is quite familiar with the workings of police investigations in Australia, and approves of Mahoney’s approach to running a police squad and resolving crimes. Being new to Tasmania, as the new head of the Unusual Crimes Squad, he’s sure he’d run into (the somewhat alternate universe version of) DI Mahoney, and that they’d enjoy swapping tall tales over been at the pub.

Summary

It’s a great series if you enjoy police procedurals, especially with the lesser-known real locale.

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Enjoying the reviews, but wondering who the heck are those Felix and Jack fellows? Glad you asked! Felix is the protagonist of the Togas, Daggers, and Magic series, an historical-fantasy blend of a paranormal detective on the background of ancient Rome, and Jack is the police detective running the Unusual Crimes Squad, dealing in occult crimes in modern-day Australia.

Come meet Felix and Jack on the free short stories and novels!