Thriller / suspense
May 2022
Poetic Licence
by Kevin Price
An explosive political thriller novel pitching people-smuggling, corruption and murder against the boundaries of truth and freedom. '... a block of shadow pushes against a diffusing moonlight, the golden halo spreads out into the vineyards from its sides and drains into the night like blood on a carpet' Art Lazaar is a writer with a poetic licence. In short, it secretly puts him in service to a mysterious government agency. As a result, he is assigned to doubling as an academic, but his poetic licence also ties him to a past he can't escape. And when a figure from that same past calls him, he must act. First, to protect a young asylum seeker running from those who murdered her brother. And secondly, to find the murderers. It's not a call he can refuse. The call as much as guarantees Lazaar stumbles into a murky world of corruption. It leads to threats of arrest, kidnap and torture. As a result, he is left for dead. The situation grows ever more dire as suspects disappear, die, or leave the country in the nick of time. In the end, his choices come down to the only weapon in his arsenal ... A meticulously crafted political thriller novel. Poetic Licence's spellbinding and suspenseful plot, with its complex web of characters, thrusts the reader into a world deeply etched in our psyches. It leaves no doubt as to who is to blame and where the responsibility lies. The politics of truth and freedom do not rest easily in this funny, angry and endlessly entertaining novel. Alan Carter and David Whish-Wilson attest to it. Poetic Licence dives headlong into a world of political and institutional corruption, exposing the vast gulf between the words and deeds of the powerful, between the lives of the haves and have-nots, and the casual mistreatment of asylum seekers. Written in terse, propulsive prose, Poetic Licence is a clever thriller that won't disappoint. David Whish-Wilson A vividly-realised Fremantle is the apt setting for this zeitgeisty thriller. Hunter is an original and kick-ass protagonist.Alan Carter A smart and utterly distinctive slice of Ozzie-noir, set in Fremantle where "evil breeds like the flies on a sheep's arse."
