Sounds of silence

THOSE WHO PERISH, by Emma Viskic (Echo Publishing, $32.99)

eaders may be left with mixed feelings by Melbourne author Emma Viskic’s . Not due to the quality of the storytelling – it’s excellent across the board – but because this brings to a close the clarinettist-turned-crime writer’s quartet starring deaf private eye, though the stubborn and snarky investigator is still a work-in-progress, like us all. He’s now back with his wife, Kat, an Aboriginal artist, and is a dad-to-be. But when an anonymous text alerts Zelic to the whereabouts of his missing drug-addict brother, Ant, shots are fired and a body found, Zelic is once again putting himself in danger. And risking his most precious relationships. Viskic delivers a taut tale that doesn’t scrimp on character and place. There’s a sniper, a rehab community on an isolated island and plenty of warnings. Twisty storytelling pulsing with humanity, carried on prose that sings.