Maclehose Press – The Unseen Library

Publisher: MacLehose (Trade Paperback – 29 July 2025)

Series: DS George Manolis – Book Four

Length: 349 pages

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

Acclaimed Australian crime fiction author Peter Papathanasiou returns with another outstanding entry in his DS George Manolis series, The Bolthole.

Peter Papathanasiou is an Australian author who has been making some excellent waves in recent years with his intricate and culturally relevant murder mysteries set around striking areas of outback Australia, as well as one novel set in Greece. These books form part of his DS George Manolis series, which I had had the pleasure of first reading in 2023 with the third entry in the series, The Pit. A fantastic novel that combined moving character history with the red desert of the Kimberley mining region, The Pit was a captivating and memorable novel that I had a great time with. As such, I was very interested when a copy of The Bolthole arrived, and it proved to be another curious read.

Plot Synopsis:

Located off the coast of South Australia, Kangaroo Island lies surrounded by violent seas harbouring deadly great white sharks and forgotten shipwrecks.

Over the centuries the Islanders have cultivated a sense of self-sufficiency, independence and resilience. But times are changing: multimillionaires from the mainland are building immense clifftop mansions and filling the skies with private planes and helicopters. A quiet paradise is being transformed into a bolthole for the rich and privileged. And the locals aren’t happy.

Richard Marlowe, a wealthy “blow-in” to the island, goes missing, last seen wading into the ocean for a dawn swim. A shark attack is blamed, but things don’t add up. Reuniting for a new investigation, Detective Sergeant Manolis and Senior Constable Sparrow arrive on the island, but their presence isn’t welcomed, either. Faced with hostility from both Islanders and newcomers, their attempts to locate the missing man are derailed by a civil war over limited resources, a fragile environment, and fractured community dynamics.

The Bolthole was another compelling novel from Papathanasiou that successfully blended a cool focus on an iconic Australian setting with a slow-burn mystery. The result was an awesome novel that I had an excellent time getting through and which consistently kept my attention.

Papathanasiou’s new novel is primarily set on the historical and picturesque Kangaroo Island and features an intricate mystery about a powerful business luminary who goes missing during his morning surf. Arriving on the island, protagonists Detective Sergeant Manolis and Senior Constable Sparrow begin an investigation of the disappearance. With a split focus between these two protagonists, The Bolthole’s narrative goes at slow but steady pace, as the police officers become familiar with the island, its people, and certain controversial local politics and developments that the victim, Richard Marlowe, was involved in.

The author sets The Bolthole’s mystery out in a very methodical and detail focused manner, with the protagonists trying to learn everything about the victim and potential suspects in the case, while also dealing with their own personal conflicts and concerns. While the plot was often focused more on the social, cultural and environmental issues affecting Kangaroo Island, the investigation angle was constantly ongoing, and Papathanasiou continued to fit in subtle clues and development. The conclusion of The Bolthole was intense and captivating, with several clever twists, some great reveals, and even a bit of exciting action. Most readers are going to come away from this novel very satisfied, and I felt that Papathanasiou produced an impressive piece of Australian crime fiction.

The Bolthole proved to be an effective, character-driven mystery novel that once again showcased the author’s love of remote and unique locations. A rich and detail laden book, The Bolthole is a slower read than most crime fiction novels; however, this deliberate pacing from Papathanasiou allows him to feature a great collection of supporting characters, while also really diving into compelling setting of Kangaroo Island. The author spends a lot of time exploring the island, and readers come away with a great deal of knowledge about its history, environment and culture, with a particular focus on some of the modern issues impacting it. This includes extended discussions about new developments, exploitation of natural resources, impacts on the environment, and concerns about cultural changes to Kangaroo Island led by new wealthy residents buying up the land. While the focus on these issues comes across a little preachy at times, it plays into the narrative around the main mystery extremely well and helps to explore certain character motivations and attitudes, while also laying down some false leads for the reader. As such, the resulting mystery proves to be quite compelling, and the unique tone that Papathanasiou took for this book is going to appeal to a lot of readers.

On top of the above elements, I must also mention the great characters featured within The Bolthole, as Papathanasiou brings back the two main protagonists from his previous novels, Detective Sergeant Manolis and Senior Constable Sparrow. Both these police characters have some interesting character elements, which the author does an excellent job exploring through their separate perspective chapters. Manolis, for example, is still dealing with certain revelations about his family that came up in previous books and spends much of the novel guilty about how the truth will impact his partner. At the same time, he tries to balance his obsession with finding justice with his failing marriage and his inability to properly prioritise them. Sparrow, on the other hand, is dealing with his extreme dislike of the island due to the historical atrocities inflecting on his people there by white settlers, as well as issues around his own past and hidden sexuality. While the author somewhat overplayed Sparrow’s cultural outrage and snarky nature in this book, for the most part these two protagonists are great to follow, and they blend well with the massive array of supporting characters that populate the author’s version of Kangaroo Island. There are a lot of interesting figures in this supporting cast, and it proved fun to see the protagonists dive into their various histories. This includes the victim, Richard Marlowe, whose own history and motivations proved quite interesting to uncover. These characters, and more, all added a lot to The Bolthole’s overall impact, and it allowed for quite a compelling narrative in the end.

Peter Papathanasiou continues to showcase his skill as one of Australia’s more unique crime fiction authors with the distinctive novel, The Bolthole. An excellent book with a lot of interesting elements to it, The Bolthole hits hard and keeps the reader’s attention with a great mystery and a compelling look at certain real-world issues. A recommended novel, especially for those who love crime fiction reads that make full use of the background settings.

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The Pit Cover

Publisher: Maclehose Press (Trade Paperback – 25 July 2023)

Series: DS George Manolis – Book Three

Length: 297 pages

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Australian author Peter Papathanasiou returns with his third DS George Manolis novel, The Pit, a complex and intriguing piece of Australian crime fiction that takes three unlikely companions on a memorable road trip.

Plot Synopsis:

A third outback noir from Peter Papathanasiou, following Special Constable Sparrow as he investigates a cold case in a barren mining region of Western Australia.

With DS Manolis on leave in Greece, Senior Constable Sparrow receives a phone call from a man who wants to turn himself in.

Bob is sixty-five years old, confined to a Perth nursing home. But thirty years ago, he killed a man in the remote northern Kimberley mining region. He offers to show Sparrow where the body is, but there’s a catch: Sparrow must travel north with him under the guise of being his carer.

They are accompanied on the drive by another nursing home resident: Luke, thirty years old, paralysed in a motorbike accident. As they embark on their road trip through the guts of Western Australia, pursued by outback police and adrenaline-soaked miners, Sparrow begins to suspect that Bob’s desire to head north may have sinister motivations. Is Luke being held against his will? And what lies in store for them when they reach their goal?

The Pit proved to be quite an interesting and compelling novel which honestly was very different from what I was expecting. I thought this would be more of a standard crime fiction/murder mystery novel in the Australian wilderness, but instead I got a character driven story that dove into one protagonist’s complex life, and I honestly think it worked out better this way.

The plot of The Pit is very far removed from Papathanasiou’s previous DS George Manolis novels, with the protagonist of the first two books not even actually appearing. Instead we get an intriguing story about supporting character Special Constable Sparrow, who finds himself presented with an unusual opportunity by an old man, Bob, wanting to confess to a 30-year-old murder. While I do think that Sparrow agreed to Bob’s strange request without backup a little too readily, it sets up an interesting and heartfelt storyline where Sparrow accompanies Bob and Bob’s unsuspecting young protégé, Luke, across Western Australia into the heart of mining country. The narrative splits into two separate timelines at this point, with the main narrative focusing on the three companions as they travel across the Pilbara, getting into all manner of trouble and meeting a range of outrageous and unique outback locals. The other main storyline is a series of intense flashbacks that examine the full life of Bob and the many hardships he experienced as a homosexual man in Australia from the 1960s onwards. There is also a subplot that follows the friendship Bob formed with Luke in the nursing home and why Bob decided to take him on the road trip.

These different fantastic storylines are interesting and emotional in their own way, and the reader gets heavily invested in seeing both the past and the present. Bob’s tragic and violent life story really drags the reader in, and it was fascinating to see his take on the homosexual experience throughout various periods of recent Australian history. At the same time, you get quite entranced by the unique friendship that forms between the three road trippers, especially as each of them has their own secrets, personal issues and emotional turmoil. I felt that the darker past storylines blended well with the unusual hijinks of the modern storyline, and the hidden clues in Bob’s recounting of events ended up having some interesting impacts on the central story. These split storylines come together in an excellent way, and Papathanasiou really lays on the tragedy in the main narrative threads, especially when it comes to Bob and the tragedies he’s experienced. The ending of the book is quietly poignant and ultimately unavoidable, and you will come away quite moved by how everything turned out and how the main characters developed.

Papathanasiou backed up this emotionally rich story with some fantastic and highly detailed background settings. The Pilbara in particular is shown in all its red glory, and the author does a remarkable job describing its harsh beauty and the heavy burden of those who traverse it. The anecdotes about the unusual people who worked in the Pilbara, both in the modern day and in the 1970s and 80s, are pretty over-the-top and very entertaining to absorb. I do hope that Papathanasiou was exaggerating just how crazy everyone out in the Pilbara is, as there were a lot of unsettling and concerning characters involved who added some interesting spice to the story. The memorable social interactions and courtship rituals of the repressed male Pilbara mining community back in the 1970s also seemed a bit unlikely, and I doubt I will be able look at a ute full of blokes the same way again after reading this book. These outrageous scenes were quite entertaining, and I think they helped to enhance some of the more emotional parts of the book in greater detail. Throw in other interesting historical locations, such as Sydney during the AIDS epidemic, and you have a fantastic background to this intense story that Papathanasiou used to full effect to tell his unique story.

Overall, The Pit was quite a memorable and compelling read by Papathanasiou, who told quite a complex Australian tale. As a dramatic Australian tale with historical elements more than a pure crime fiction read, The Pit was a fantastic book that beautifully dove into some dark issues and showcased some amazing characters. Charming and heartbreaking, The Pit was an excellent piece of Australian fiction that is well worth checking out.

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