Brunswick Street Blues

Written by Sally Bothroyd

Narrated by Rose Flanagan

Winner of the inaugural ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize. The twists keep piling up in this fun and distinctively Australian debut mystery, perfect for readers of The Thursday Murder Club and Janet Evanovich.

Brick Brown has problems: she hates her day job, and her beloved Uncle Baz has gone missing.

Although a bartender by trade, Brick Brown has finagled herself a job on the city council to investigate a complaint that threatens to close her uncle's well-loved blues club in the heart of Melbourne.

Brick suspects something strange is going on, but when her amateur sleuthing uncovers the mayor's dead body in a locked room, she's dragged into the dangerous world of dodgy developers with the reluctant help of Mitch Mitchell, a prickly war correspondent turned investigative journalist.

Relying on her street smarts and an unlikely band of allies, Brick and Mitchell unearth corruption that runs deeper than just local government, and the stakes are higher than they banked on. And when Brick also discovers some terrifying information about her past, the stakes turn deadly...

PRAISE:

'Not since Jack Irish has Melbourne's Fitzroy been so funny.' - The Chronicle

'Impressive debut' -Australian Women's Weekly

'Filled with witty dialogue, a page-turning mystery and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, Brunswick Street Blues is a cracking debut that takes readers on a wild romp through the streets of Melbourne.' - Better Reading

'It's up to Brick and her local pals to save her streets - and ours - from harm. An excellent and entertaining debut.' Fiona Hardy, Readings Monthly

'A cracker of a debut novel! ... This thoroughly entertaining story had me from the first page to the last.' Sarah Barrie, author of Unforgiven

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: May 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781460747322

Sally Bothroyd

Sally Bothroyd lives in Darwin with her partner and daughter. She's currently the director of the Northern Territory Writers' Centre, but before that worked for many years as a journalist - both in broadcast and in print. Sally grew up in Victoria and lived in Melbourne in the 1990s. She returned there for a period in the 2000s to study filmmaking at the Victoria College of the Arts. She has made several short films which have appeared at film festivals around Australia and overseas. She's a longtime fan of crime fiction and had a short story shortlisted for the 2020 Scarlet Stiletto Awards, run by Sisters in Crime. Photograph Credit: Nichole Taylor

Reviews for Brunswick Street Blues

[shelleyraec · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The winner of the inaugural ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize, Brunswick Street Blues is an entertaining crime fiction debut from Sally Bothroyd.Though she’d rather be behind the bar at the Phoenix, when the Brunswick Street pub owned for forty years by her adoptive father, Baz, is subject to a barrage of anonymous complaints, Brick Brown gets a job in the PR department of Melbourne’s Yarra City Council in hopes of identifying the complainant. Sneaking into the archive room after hours in search of paperwork that might give her answers, Brick is horrified to find the body of the Mayor, Dickie Ruffhead (which explains the bad smell that has permeated the council offices). She can’t admit to the break-in so Brick decides to leave an anonymous message on her boss’s voicemail, but when the Mayor’s death is announced, she’s puzzled by reports that Dickie was found at home, the victim of a heart attack.Connecting the cover-up to rumours of corruption involving the Development Consent Committee, a theory that seems to be supported by the sudden interest of respected investigative journalist, Mitch Mitchell, in council business, Brick wonders if it may be related to the attacks on Baz’s bar. She’d discuss it with Baz except he’s closed the Phoenix and left behind only a brief voice message, claiming he is in need of a few days break. Digging around with some help from Sue, a writer for the neighbourhood paper, results in Brick repeatedly crossing paths with Mitch Mitchell, but it’s not until she stops him being bundled into the boot of a black Mercedes by a couple of thugs that he’s willing to share information.Brick and Mitch quickly realise that the corruption isn’t confined to a deal between a property development company and select Yarra City councillors but extends into higher levels of government, and someone is willing to kill to protect their secrets. The action and suspense ramps up as the pair uncover missing documents, suspicious deaths, hidden tunnels, identity theft, long repressed memories all while enduring attempts on their lives. There’s quite a lot going on with the plot, perhaps a little too much, throwing off the pace at times, but I really enjoyed how it all came together at the end, and much of the humour too.In her mid-to-late twenties (I think), Brick is a likeable character. Abandoned as a baby, she lived in several foster homes before being (not-quite-legally) adopted by Baz as a young child, with several secrets exposed over the course of the book that reveal more about her early childhood. Her unconventional background and skills come in handy, as does her eclectic group of friends and acquaintances that includes a paranoid record store owner, an IT specialist, a parking inspector, a former councillor, and Brick’s newly returned roommate, a doctor who has been working in Somalia. Inevitably there is the development of romance between Brick and Mitch, but it’s not intrusive.While it has its flaws, I liked a lot of elements of the plot, many of the characters and the balance of humour, suspense and action. If Brunswick Street Blues is intended to introduce a series then Bothroyd has laid a decent foundation to build on.