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The Build Up
For Detective Dusty Buchanon, a female cop in the very male world of the Northern Territory Police Force, it always pays to expect the unexpected.
During the stifling pre-monsoon season known as The Build Up, a body is found in a billabong near a Vietnam veterans' camp site. To Dusty it's the chance she's been looking for: a spectacular case to revive her flagging career.
During the stifling pre-monsoon season known as The Build Up, a body is found in a billabong near a Vietnam veterans' camp site. To Dusty it's the chance she's been looking for: a spectacular case to revive her flagging career.
339 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
1 person is currently reading
99 people want to read
About the author
Phillip Gwynne
62 books32 followersPhillip Gwynne's first novel Deadly Unna? the literary hit of 1998, has now sold over 180,000 copies. It was made into the feature film Australian Rules for which Phillip won an AFI award. The sequel, Nukkin Ya, was published to great acclaim in 2000. He has also written The Worst Team Ever, Born to Bake, and A Chook Called Harry in the Aussie Bites series, and Jetty Rats. Phillip's latest novel, the adult detective thriller The Build Up, is being made into a 13-part TV series on SBS, and his YA novel, Swerve, will be published in 2010.
He now lives in Leura, New South Wales, with his wife and three children: aged 17, 2 and 1
He now lives in Leura, New South Wales, with his wife and three children: aged 17, 2 and 1
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 2, 2017
The Build up is about how Detective Dusty Buchanon revives her career. For Detective Dusty Buchanon was a detective in the Northern Territory Police station in Darwin. One morning Dusty was later to work, and her colleagues were unable to ranch her to let her know about the arrival of the new boss Commander Christine Schneider. Right from the start Christine and Dusty did not get along. Then a great opportunity for Dusty to improve her standing in the Northern Territory Police. The readers of The Build Up will continue to follow Detective Dusty Buchanon investigation and see if Dusty achieves her dreams.
The Build Up is the first book I have read of Phillip Gwynne, and I did enjoy it. I love the way Phillip Gwynne portrayed his characters. I like Phillip Gwynne writing style and it allows his readers to engage with the story and at times have a chuckle. Reading The Build Up allowed me to understand pre-monsoon season in the Northern Territory.
Readers of The Build Up, you will learn about Australian Indigenous Culture and how to live in Darwin. Also, readers of The Build will learn about law enforcement procedures in Northern Territory. The Build Up will help the readers of The Build Up to start to think about what happens to ex-Vietnam veterans.
I recommend this book.
The Build Up is the first book I have read of Phillip Gwynne, and I did enjoy it. I love the way Phillip Gwynne portrayed his characters. I like Phillip Gwynne writing style and it allows his readers to engage with the story and at times have a chuckle. Reading The Build Up allowed me to understand pre-monsoon season in the Northern Territory.
Readers of The Build Up, you will learn about Australian Indigenous Culture and how to live in Darwin. Also, readers of The Build will learn about law enforcement procedures in Northern Territory. The Build Up will help the readers of The Build Up to start to think about what happens to ex-Vietnam veterans.
I recommend this book.
April 23, 2020
Dusty walked across the tarmac, spongy in the heat. Even after all these years in the Top End she wasn’t quite used to the savagery of the weather at this time of the year. The air wasn’t just air anymore; supercharged with heat and humidity, it had body, corporeality. You didn’t walk through it, you walked against it. Slowly.
The Build Up opens with Vietnam veteran, Jimmy, struggling with PTSD, fishing for barramundi at a billabong though he’s been told to stay away. When his fishing lure snags he dives to retrieve it, discovering the body of a young woman.
A fading AFL star, down on his luck, is earning some quick money as a “facilitator” – providing a young Thai prostitute from a local brothel to service men at an encampment.
Once he got some money together, he’d leave Darwin. Either you’re living in Sydney or you’re camping out, Keating once said, and he was dead right. A dead-shit prime minister, but dead right. Trigger Tregenza had been camping out for far too long now…
Detective Dusty (Frances) Buchanan, originally from Adelaide, has been with the Northern territory police for 11 years now and has seen it all. Drugs, domestic violence among the Indigenous community, murders and rapes, but has been leading an investigation into a missing British woman who disappeared on her honeymoon two years earlier. A suspect was released due to lack of evidence, but now her body has been found Dusty has been removed from the case. She attends the report of a body at a billabong with a senior police officer, who is more inclined to talking with the boys then investigating; and when the two return to Darwin, Dusty, disillusioned and cynical, her personal life a mess, goes on a bender, picks up a German backpacker from a bar and takes him home.
Now that she was in familiar surroundings Dusty was beginning to realise exactly how inebriated she was. Her house was usually more stationary. The downstairs light switch was usually much easier to locate. As for the monkeys swinging about in her trees – she’d never noticed them before. ‘Nice house,’ said Tomasz.
Dusty returns to the billabong with German backpacker in tow, finds the girl’s body but before the crime scene unit can turn up it is removed, leaving doubt in the minds of her superiors, and she is busted back to uniform working in the evidence shed, which ironically gives her opportunity. Enlisting the help of the son of a famed tracker, she goes back.
In many respects ‘The Build Up’ is a choppy, uneven read, yet reflects life itself with loose ends and false starts. The author throws in the Lindy Chamberlain case, backpacker murders, grey nomads, trips to Bali and I was half expecting “Priscilla – Queen of the Desert” in there somewhere. But it turned out to be a confronting yet satisfying good read, and is be made into a TV crime drama to be screened this year. I will certainly look out for it.
While some readers may find the overt “ockerisms” and language confronting, as one of the thousands who sought seasonal work in Darwin during my backpacker days it brought back memories - although I managed to avoid its seedier side. I especially recall the oppressive humidity of November-December.
The weather bureau had predicted that the Build Up would end soon, but from Dusty’s experience the Build Up ended when it wanted to and not because some meteorologist with a pointy head and a computer model decided it should.
Verdict: gritty, well-recommended.
The Build Up opens with Vietnam veteran, Jimmy, struggling with PTSD, fishing for barramundi at a billabong though he’s been told to stay away. When his fishing lure snags he dives to retrieve it, discovering the body of a young woman.
A fading AFL star, down on his luck, is earning some quick money as a “facilitator” – providing a young Thai prostitute from a local brothel to service men at an encampment.
Once he got some money together, he’d leave Darwin. Either you’re living in Sydney or you’re camping out, Keating once said, and he was dead right. A dead-shit prime minister, but dead right. Trigger Tregenza had been camping out for far too long now…
Detective Dusty (Frances) Buchanan, originally from Adelaide, has been with the Northern territory police for 11 years now and has seen it all. Drugs, domestic violence among the Indigenous community, murders and rapes, but has been leading an investigation into a missing British woman who disappeared on her honeymoon two years earlier. A suspect was released due to lack of evidence, but now her body has been found Dusty has been removed from the case. She attends the report of a body at a billabong with a senior police officer, who is more inclined to talking with the boys then investigating; and when the two return to Darwin, Dusty, disillusioned and cynical, her personal life a mess, goes on a bender, picks up a German backpacker from a bar and takes him home.
Now that she was in familiar surroundings Dusty was beginning to realise exactly how inebriated she was. Her house was usually more stationary. The downstairs light switch was usually much easier to locate. As for the monkeys swinging about in her trees – she’d never noticed them before. ‘Nice house,’ said Tomasz.
Dusty returns to the billabong with German backpacker in tow, finds the girl’s body but before the crime scene unit can turn up it is removed, leaving doubt in the minds of her superiors, and she is busted back to uniform working in the evidence shed, which ironically gives her opportunity. Enlisting the help of the son of a famed tracker, she goes back.
In many respects ‘The Build Up’ is a choppy, uneven read, yet reflects life itself with loose ends and false starts. The author throws in the Lindy Chamberlain case, backpacker murders, grey nomads, trips to Bali and I was half expecting “Priscilla – Queen of the Desert” in there somewhere. But it turned out to be a confronting yet satisfying good read, and is be made into a TV crime drama to be screened this year. I will certainly look out for it.
While some readers may find the overt “ockerisms” and language confronting, as one of the thousands who sought seasonal work in Darwin during my backpacker days it brought back memories - although I managed to avoid its seedier side. I especially recall the oppressive humidity of November-December.
The weather bureau had predicted that the Build Up would end soon, but from Dusty’s experience the Build Up ended when it wanted to and not because some meteorologist with a pointy head and a computer model decided it should.
Verdict: gritty, well-recommended.
September 15, 2022
English version below
************
In diesem sehr unterhaltsamen Krimi lernen wir das nordaustralische Darwin kennen.
Die sehr sportliche und unkonventionelle Polizistin Dusty muss sich mit ihrer neuen Vorgesetzten herumschlagen und gibt auch bei Tiefschlägen nie auf.
Dusty ist eine recht sympatische Frau mit Humor und Durchsetzungswillen und der Roman bietet dementsprechend viele amüsante Stellen.
Im Rahmen der beschriebenen Kriminalfälle geht der Autor auf die Situation der australischen Kriegsveteranen und ganz stark auch auf das Leben der thailändischen Prostituierten in Australien ein. Auch über das zumeist schwierige Leben der Aborigines erfährt man so einiges.
Was mich nicht überzeugt hat, war das so günstige Auftauchen des Rucksacktouristen und auch das eine Kapitel, in dem beschrieben wird, wie der Tourist wieder in seiner Heimat Deutschland ist. Das war für meinen Geschmack einfach zu hölzern und nicht glaubwürdig.
Ansonsten fühlte ich mich aber wirklich gut unterhalten und vergebe 3,5 Sterne, die ich abrunde.
---------------------
In this very entertaining police procedural we get to know Darwin in northern Australia.
The very sporty and unconventional policewoman Dusty has to deal with her new boss and never gives up, even when faced with low blows.
Dusty is a very likeable woman with a sense of humor and a will to assert herself, and the novel accordingly offers many amusing passages.
In the context of the criminal cases described, the author deals with the situation of Australian war veterans and also very much with the life of Thai prostitutes in Australia. You can also learn a lot about the mostly difficult life of the Aborigines.
What didn't convince me was the backpacker showing up in such an overly convenient way and also the one chapter describing how the tourist is back in his native Germany. It was just too wooden for my taste and not believable.
Otherwise I felt really well entertained and award 3.5 stars, which I round down.
************
In diesem sehr unterhaltsamen Krimi lernen wir das nordaustralische Darwin kennen.
Die sehr sportliche und unkonventionelle Polizistin Dusty muss sich mit ihrer neuen Vorgesetzten herumschlagen und gibt auch bei Tiefschlägen nie auf.
Dusty ist eine recht sympatische Frau mit Humor und Durchsetzungswillen und der Roman bietet dementsprechend viele amüsante Stellen.
Im Rahmen der beschriebenen Kriminalfälle geht der Autor auf die Situation der australischen Kriegsveteranen und ganz stark auch auf das Leben der thailändischen Prostituierten in Australien ein. Auch über das zumeist schwierige Leben der Aborigines erfährt man so einiges.
Was mich nicht überzeugt hat, war das so günstige Auftauchen des Rucksacktouristen und auch das eine Kapitel, in dem beschrieben wird, wie der Tourist wieder in seiner Heimat Deutschland ist. Das war für meinen Geschmack einfach zu hölzern und nicht glaubwürdig.
Ansonsten fühlte ich mich aber wirklich gut unterhalten und vergebe 3,5 Sterne, die ich abrunde.
---------------------
In this very entertaining police procedural we get to know Darwin in northern Australia.
The very sporty and unconventional policewoman Dusty has to deal with her new boss and never gives up, even when faced with low blows.
Dusty is a very likeable woman with a sense of humor and a will to assert herself, and the novel accordingly offers many amusing passages.
In the context of the criminal cases described, the author deals with the situation of Australian war veterans and also very much with the life of Thai prostitutes in Australia. You can also learn a lot about the mostly difficult life of the Aborigines.
What didn't convince me was the backpacker showing up in such an overly convenient way and also the one chapter describing how the tourist is back in his native Germany. It was just too wooden for my taste and not believable.
Otherwise I felt really well entertained and award 3.5 stars, which I round down.
August 2, 2008
Nailing my colours firmly to the aerial of the ute, I love a book that evokes a place and a people strongly. THE BUILD UP is set in and around Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. A bit of a frontier town - they have a habit of referring to other states as "the shoe wearing states". Darwin's always been just that bit different from the rest of Australia - it's tropical, it's closer to Asia than to most other Australian capital cities, and it used to be a town where cultures intermingled comfortably (probably still is - it's been a long time between visits).
Dusty's star has been waning a bit in the NT police. The failure to resolve a high profile missing female honeymooner rankles with her - and with her boss - The Big C (Commissioner of NT Police). The report of a body found in a billabong by a local fisherman might be the feather in the cap she needs, but everyone gets considerably more jaundiced about Dusty when the body disappears. It would have helped if she'd got the full name of her other witness, a German backpacker - but then she wasn't all that interested in his name when she picked him up in the pub the night before. To make matters worse, when a body is found in the desert and it looks like it's the missing honeymooner - Dusty is more than bloody annoyed that she's taken off that case and assigned to sorting out Case Exhibits. (Nobody has yet quite forgotten the exhibit mess that was revealed during the Dingo and baby case years ago). Toying with the idea of leaving the police, leaving the Territory, staying in both, dealing with her mother, her childless state - the fact that the man who is her true soulmate is gay, well, life with Dusty has that certain edge to it.
THE BUILD UP refers to that period between the Dry Season and the Wet - as the atmospheric pressure builds up, just before the rains start, when the locals get a bit antsy. Where THE BUILD UP really really works is in the way that it evokes the people and the place. You can feel the air getting heavier, stickier, oppressive. You can smell the way that the humidity swirls around you, mixed with the scent of the tropical flowers, the overripe mangoes, the Thai food, the unwashed backpackers, the beer and smoke of the pubs. You can see the way that the dark clouds roll in off the sea, and the lightening that flickers in the sky - teasing with a hint that the Wet is coming. You can see the people getting ratty, tense, slightly daft. You can sense the changes in Darwin since the early days of settlement, since Cyclone Tracy wiped out large parts of the city. You can roar with laughter at the idea that somebody would name their daughter after that devastating event. You can hear the combinations of accents - the cops, the absoluties, the Long Grassers, the Thais, the Vietnamese, the backpackers from all over the world.
You're probably not going to be reading THE BUILD UP just for the plot - it's not bad, but there is some maverick behaviour going on that lovers of a traditional police procedural are going to find hard to swallow. You're definitely not going to be reading THE BUILD UP if you're into the idea of romance - the sex in this book is not intended to lead to a long-term relationship and picket fences all round. You definitely are not going to be reading this book if strong language and a hefty dose of slang is going to throw you. But given this book gets the highest possible rating from me - two nights of leftovers or takeway, I'm NOT putting this thing down to cook dinner - you should be reading this book if you want something that will give you a short, sharp, funny, realistic and sympathetic view of a world that rings a lot of bells with me, and hopefully is still up there - quietly sweating away in the build up to the wet.
Dusty's star has been waning a bit in the NT police. The failure to resolve a high profile missing female honeymooner rankles with her - and with her boss - The Big C (Commissioner of NT Police). The report of a body found in a billabong by a local fisherman might be the feather in the cap she needs, but everyone gets considerably more jaundiced about Dusty when the body disappears. It would have helped if she'd got the full name of her other witness, a German backpacker - but then she wasn't all that interested in his name when she picked him up in the pub the night before. To make matters worse, when a body is found in the desert and it looks like it's the missing honeymooner - Dusty is more than bloody annoyed that she's taken off that case and assigned to sorting out Case Exhibits. (Nobody has yet quite forgotten the exhibit mess that was revealed during the Dingo and baby case years ago). Toying with the idea of leaving the police, leaving the Territory, staying in both, dealing with her mother, her childless state - the fact that the man who is her true soulmate is gay, well, life with Dusty has that certain edge to it.
THE BUILD UP refers to that period between the Dry Season and the Wet - as the atmospheric pressure builds up, just before the rains start, when the locals get a bit antsy. Where THE BUILD UP really really works is in the way that it evokes the people and the place. You can feel the air getting heavier, stickier, oppressive. You can smell the way that the humidity swirls around you, mixed with the scent of the tropical flowers, the overripe mangoes, the Thai food, the unwashed backpackers, the beer and smoke of the pubs. You can see the way that the dark clouds roll in off the sea, and the lightening that flickers in the sky - teasing with a hint that the Wet is coming. You can see the people getting ratty, tense, slightly daft. You can sense the changes in Darwin since the early days of settlement, since Cyclone Tracy wiped out large parts of the city. You can roar with laughter at the idea that somebody would name their daughter after that devastating event. You can hear the combinations of accents - the cops, the absoluties, the Long Grassers, the Thais, the Vietnamese, the backpackers from all over the world.
You're probably not going to be reading THE BUILD UP just for the plot - it's not bad, but there is some maverick behaviour going on that lovers of a traditional police procedural are going to find hard to swallow. You're definitely not going to be reading THE BUILD UP if you're into the idea of romance - the sex in this book is not intended to lead to a long-term relationship and picket fences all round. You definitely are not going to be reading this book if strong language and a hefty dose of slang is going to throw you. But given this book gets the highest possible rating from me - two nights of leftovers or takeway, I'm NOT putting this thing down to cook dinner - you should be reading this book if you want something that will give you a short, sharp, funny, realistic and sympathetic view of a world that rings a lot of bells with me, and hopefully is still up there - quietly sweating away in the build up to the wet.
May 25, 2017
Loved this book, almost gave it a 5 star but about 4/5th of the way through I suddenly got a bit confused with the storyline. Eventually it sorted itself out but I don't know if it was just me, or the writing? Probably me, lol. But anyway, this is a damn good read, a mixture of a serious crime and cop drama, but with quite a lot of humour, and a great description of the pre-monsoon season in the Northern Territory. It's very Australian and full of characters you will love and people you will just hate.
Overall a recommended read.
Overall a recommended read.
December 27, 2017
Nice to see some crime fiction set in the Territory, and it’s a decent tale of Top End detecting. Our heroine, unconventional, good-looking and slightly sex-starved detective Dusty Buchanon, makes for a decent protagonist as she unravels a series of related crimes by scraping through the dusty,sweaty underbelly of Darwin and surrounding suburbs. There’s a nice Mitchell-St-style-romance thread left hanging at the end (in reality, that relationship was always going nowhere), some bad bosses, Darwin low life, and long grassers. Some of the location descriptions are bang-on, too. Mysteriously, some of the places and details are mucked up too. Why, for example, are some suburbs named but others have their names changed? Why is the award-winning Hanuman restaurant moved to being an ordinary cafe in Parap? Why, given the title of the book, is the author’s meteorological knowledge so poor (no, the Wet does not officially start with the first thunderstorm to hit Rapid Creek - it starts 1st October, and those thunderstorms happen right through the build-up and occasionally during monsoonal periods). It’s as if the author visited Darwin for some research as the book was being written, and then just decided to make stuff up when he got sick of it. But still a good effort.
August 3, 2023
Actual rating 3.5 Stars
This is not usually a genre I read and there were a few times where I almost gave up on it, because of the darker side of the mystery genre. However, I stuck it out and wasn't unhappy I did. As far as books go, this was mostly well written and satisfying. I am a NT local, and while I did find some description as a bit cartoonish, I could recognise Darwin and NT in the writing (although some of the driving distances were off which were threw me)
So why only 3.5 stars? Well, I found the cast of characters far too wide reaching and many of the characters kind of blended into each other. I don't think this book has others set in the same world and so they just weren't needed.
There was also some issues with pacing and timelines. At time the plot moved way to slowly, or we went into a flashback with no clue that it was a flashback.
And as I mentioned earlier, sometimes the portrayal of Darwin/The Top End felt a little cartoonish, but more annoyingly, our female cop, toughing it out in a male world, felt like a woman written by a man. I would recommend if you are into murder mysteries, but give it a skip if you, like me, aren't a huge fan of the genre.
This is not usually a genre I read and there were a few times where I almost gave up on it, because of the darker side of the mystery genre. However, I stuck it out and wasn't unhappy I did. As far as books go, this was mostly well written and satisfying. I am a NT local, and while I did find some description as a bit cartoonish, I could recognise Darwin and NT in the writing (although some of the driving distances were off which were threw me)
So why only 3.5 stars? Well, I found the cast of characters far too wide reaching and many of the characters kind of blended into each other. I don't think this book has others set in the same world and so they just weren't needed.
There was also some issues with pacing and timelines. At time the plot moved way to slowly, or we went into a flashback with no clue that it was a flashback.
And as I mentioned earlier, sometimes the portrayal of Darwin/The Top End felt a little cartoonish, but more annoyingly, our female cop, toughing it out in a male world, felt like a woman written by a man. I would recommend if you are into murder mysteries, but give it a skip if you, like me, aren't a huge fan of the genre.
May 29, 2021
Look, I had my hopes up for this before I’d even started it. The blurb was quite misleading, or maybe I just misinterpreted what it was about. I was looking forward to a story of a female detective, in the male driven world of policing in the Northern Territory, solving a crime against the odds. Whilst that is technically what the book was about, there were several sub-plots and unnecessary characters that were more distractions to the overall tale than anything. And don’t get me started on that cliche ending... This is one of books where less would have been more. 2⭐️
August 21, 2021
Detective Dusty Buchanan is a female cop in the male dominated Northern Territory Police Force. In the pure monsoon season, known as the build up, Dusty discovers a young Asian woman’s body in a Billabong, but before she can get the crime scene guys out the body disappears. Dusty is not taken seriously and is busted back to uniform, but she is determined to find the body and uncover the truth of what happened to this young girl. The description of Darwin, the weather and the landscape surrounding Darwin is quite evocative, but the book is a bit disjointed towards the end.
November 18, 2017
Enjoyable murder mystery
February 24, 2021
Slowish and confusing - I wonder if the formatting for the past times was meant to be italics - but eminently readable. Must see if there's another and catch up with Dusty.
September 14, 2010
Phillip Gwynne has previously earned acclaim for his YA/childrens books such as Deadly, Unna? and his most recent Swerve. The Build Up is his debut adult crime fiction novel.
In Darwin, Australia's Top End, the discover of a body in a billabong might finally allow Detective 'Dusty' Buchanan to close her biggest case and put their main suspect behind bars. As the weather builds, another body is found, and then lost, Dusty is feeling the pressure from all sides. Which will break first?
Gwynne has created a complex protagonist, as a detective in the Northern Territory police force Dusty must be both tough and resourceful. She is absolutely no nonsense, rebellious and dark humoured yet there is a suprising fragility about her, her husband has walked out, her mother is critical and she seems lonely. These contradictions have created an intriguing character who you admire and empathise with. It is really only Dusty that we really get to know but the supporting characters are drawn with spare elegance and you get a real sense of who they are, by what they mean to Dusty and how she considers them.
The plot is probably not as strong as it could have been, but it has a satisfying conclusion. The tension Gwynne creates and sustains plays a big part in the appeal of the story.
What is truly commendable in this novel is Gwynne's ability to evoke the mystique, the brutality, the vibrancy and isolation of the Top End. You can feel the atmospheric pressure of the Build Up (the period just before the tropical monsoon weather hits)as well as the pressure that Dusty is rebelling against. There are some wonderful descriptions and the writing style is both spare and yet evocotive. The tone is distinctly Australian with references and slang that might be hard to translate for readers from elsewhere. It's rare to find that genuine Australian flavour, too often novels particularly in this genre set in Australia don't exploit the uniqueness of our country in favour of generic commercial appeal. Gwynne hasn't compromised and it gives The Build Up an impressive background.
The Build Up is a compelling novel, a followup is a possibility that I'd love to read and apparently a TV series is being made from the novel (by SBS).
Click here http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/Goog... to go to Google Book Preview where you can read 3/4 of the book as it seems to not be widely available. Search for the title/author or IBSN combination to find somewhere to purchase it near you or check your local library (that’s where I found it)
In Darwin, Australia's Top End, the discover of a body in a billabong might finally allow Detective 'Dusty' Buchanan to close her biggest case and put their main suspect behind bars. As the weather builds, another body is found, and then lost, Dusty is feeling the pressure from all sides. Which will break first?
Gwynne has created a complex protagonist, as a detective in the Northern Territory police force Dusty must be both tough and resourceful. She is absolutely no nonsense, rebellious and dark humoured yet there is a suprising fragility about her, her husband has walked out, her mother is critical and she seems lonely. These contradictions have created an intriguing character who you admire and empathise with. It is really only Dusty that we really get to know but the supporting characters are drawn with spare elegance and you get a real sense of who they are, by what they mean to Dusty and how she considers them.
The plot is probably not as strong as it could have been, but it has a satisfying conclusion. The tension Gwynne creates and sustains plays a big part in the appeal of the story.
What is truly commendable in this novel is Gwynne's ability to evoke the mystique, the brutality, the vibrancy and isolation of the Top End. You can feel the atmospheric pressure of the Build Up (the period just before the tropical monsoon weather hits)as well as the pressure that Dusty is rebelling against. There are some wonderful descriptions and the writing style is both spare and yet evocotive. The tone is distinctly Australian with references and slang that might be hard to translate for readers from elsewhere. It's rare to find that genuine Australian flavour, too often novels particularly in this genre set in Australia don't exploit the uniqueness of our country in favour of generic commercial appeal. Gwynne hasn't compromised and it gives The Build Up an impressive background.
The Build Up is a compelling novel, a followup is a possibility that I'd love to read and apparently a TV series is being made from the novel (by SBS).
Click here http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/Goog... to go to Google Book Preview where you can read 3/4 of the book as it seems to not be widely available. Search for the title/author or IBSN combination to find somewhere to purchase it near you or check your local library (that’s where I found it)
April 2, 2011
Set in Darwin, The Build Up is a crime novel with a distinctly Aussie feel. Penned by successful Australian author Phillip Gwynne, The Build Up has been so successful that it's being made into a 13 part TV series scheduled to air on SBS later in 2011.
Detective Dusty Buchanon is a tough no-nonsense woman helping to police the Top End when a body is discovered following a wild party at a Vietnam Veteran's camp site. Dusty has just been pulled off a high profile case she's been working on for 2 years and busted back to uniform, so she decides to focus her attention on this case instead.
I really enjoyed the author's authentic recreation of the setting, the weather during the 'build up', the culture of the town and the people in it - locals and tourists alike. His ability to effectively capture realistic and distinctly Australian dialogue was impressive, and the characters were occasionally very funny.
A washed out AFL player named Trigger was one of my favourite characters in the book; the author nailed his character development so well, he was just so, well, Australian!
I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I enjoyed this Australian made crime novel, and will be recommending it to everyone who enjoys the genre. Phillip Gwynne has written six other books, received numerous awards and I'll be looking out for the TV series later in the year.
Detective Dusty Buchanon is a tough no-nonsense woman helping to police the Top End when a body is discovered following a wild party at a Vietnam Veteran's camp site. Dusty has just been pulled off a high profile case she's been working on for 2 years and busted back to uniform, so she decides to focus her attention on this case instead.
I really enjoyed the author's authentic recreation of the setting, the weather during the 'build up', the culture of the town and the people in it - locals and tourists alike. His ability to effectively capture realistic and distinctly Australian dialogue was impressive, and the characters were occasionally very funny.
A washed out AFL player named Trigger was one of my favourite characters in the book; the author nailed his character development so well, he was just so, well, Australian!
I was pleasantly surprised at just how much I enjoyed this Australian made crime novel, and will be recommending it to everyone who enjoys the genre. Phillip Gwynne has written six other books, received numerous awards and I'll be looking out for the TV series later in the year.
October 2, 2011
This book was entertaining, but a pretty trashy read. The writing was not very good, which I found annoying. I hated the underuse of commas, the poorly constructed sentences, and the gratuitous switches in POV. The author also seemed unsure as to which audience he was writing for -- is this an Aussie book for an outsider, or an Aussie book for an Aussie? If the former, there were a lot of uncommon phrases that should have been explained. If the latter, there was a lot of exposition about commonly known Aussie themes that would have sounded patronizing to an Aussie reader (such as explaining about the cane toad invasion).
All that aside, I did like the mysteries in the plot, and the main character was likeable, and there were a few funny moments in the book. Overall, it felt like a summer read -- something enjoyable that you didn't have to think too much about.
All that aside, I did like the mysteries in the plot, and the main character was likeable, and there were a few funny moments in the book. Overall, it felt like a summer read -- something enjoyable that you didn't have to think too much about.
August 9, 2012
The Build Up seeks create a police procedural underlain with dark humour, mostly mobilised through some comic set pieces and the ragbag collection of friends (including a gay art dealer, an aboriginal rock star, a German twitcher, and a pet pig). For the most part it kind of works. I enjoyed the book, but was not blown away by it. The writing is fairly perfunctory, the characters a little stereotypical, and plot a little haphazard. What should have been twists and turns in the story came as little surprise, and it kind of peters out towards the end rather than coming to a climax. The story has some nice observational asides about the Northern Territories and its inhabitants, but mostly the story felt quite shallow, contra Adrian Hyland’s ‘Diamond Dove’. Overall, an okay read that has its amusing moments that will appeal to readers who enjoy comic crime capers.
September 5, 2014
I wish this had half settings, so I could give this book 3.5 stars! An Aussie murder mystery set in northern Australia, away from the 'shoe-wearing States', as the protagonist, Detective Dusty Buchanan refers to them. The mystery was solid and the pacing good. There were a number of additional subplots, romance, not romance, the difficulties of career progression when you're a woman in the police force were all good and added great context. But the biggest context of all is Darwin itself where the majority of the book is set and 'the build up' of the title - the heavy oppressive weather that builds and builds until the wet season begins. A fabulous yarn and a bit of a peek into life 'up north'.
May 9, 2013
This crime fiction novel is highly recommended for readers that have either traveled to Darwin, Australia, live there, or would like to get an idea of what the town is like. The value of this easy-to-read book lies not so much in its plot (which would probably only deserve 2-3 stars on its own), but in the amazingly insightful, accurate and often hilarious - representation of life in the Top End.
I rather randomly picked this up at the small Darwin airport bookstall, gave it to friends when I finished, and since then it has been been passed around continuously. Definitely one of a kind. And since I read it I've started drinking lemon lime and bitters... especially when in Noonamah.
I rather randomly picked this up at the small Darwin airport bookstall, gave it to friends when I finished, and since then it has been been passed around continuously. Definitely one of a kind. And since I read it I've started drinking lemon lime and bitters... especially when in Noonamah.
January 11, 2012
Dusty (the main character) is quite a gutsy female cop who goes at her work head on. The variety of other characters in the story were great, from Julien, her gay friend (and some time lover) to Marion, the Aboriginal lady Dusty helped out from time to time. Although the storyline is serious, I mean what murders aren't, there were times when the novel was LOL (laugh out loud) and this made it much more enjoyable to read. I can see a continuation of Dusty and her life in Darwin in a follow on novel.
October 10, 2009
A very easy to read crime fiction.
January 15, 2013
A pretty good story, with some great characters. For some strange reason, I think this would be a great read while on a long train/plane trip.
September 5, 2016
A great Aussie crime/mystery.
I found it swapped and changed past/present a bit too much - a bit confusing.
I found it swapped and changed past/present a bit too much - a bit confusing.
April 6, 2016
The first murder mystery that I've read set in Australia's Northern Territory and I enjoyed the sociology and geography as much as the police work.
March 12, 2013
If you've been to Darwin you'll love this book.
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