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Dirty Laundry
Paul Thomas
Vista paperback, 272 pages, £5.99
Published March 1998
ISBN 0575603933
Review by Gerald Houghton (1998) 

Editor’s note (2011): This hard-to-find New Zealand novel was originally published as Old School Tie in some countries. The complete Ihaka trilogy (Old School Tie, Inside Dope and Guerilla Season) was published in an omnibus paperback edition in 2010 by Hachette (Australia); 575 pages, ISBN 9781869711948.

Wallace Guttle, a P.I. who gets off on the sexploits of his targets, gets three bullets in the forehead for his troubles. Businessman Victor Appleyard took a final dive off of the Auckland harbour bridge, leaving a merry widow and a whole mess of trouble for disgraced reporter and failed gigolo Reggie Sparks. Maverick cop Maori Tito Ihaka is just trying to make sense of it all.

It’s hardly promising when a novelist comes billed as ‘the down under Carl Hiaasen’ by his publisher, but this second from New Zealand’s Paul Thomas very nearly fits the bill. Like those of his Floridian cousin, the plot – which revolves around the 1970 suicide of a young woman at an exclusive public school – is ludicrous, needlessly convoluted and extremely diverting. But more pointedly, Thomas’ deft characterisation and sense of violent absurdity save Dirty Laundry from simple pastiche.

This book is not just a comic American thriller transplanted to the Southern Hemisphere, finding in its mix of erstwhile SAS loons, Oz Mafiosi and psychotic, blood-drinking Maori gangs an original voice with a real feel for location.

Vista are already promising two more Thomas books (including his award-winning debut, Inside Dope), but don’t wait until everyone wants a piece: hitch a ride aboard this particular bandwagon now.