 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
Peepshow
By Leigh Redhead
Allen & Unwin $21.95
 This debut author has led a colourful life - Europe as a child, an alternative North Coast community (she now resides near Mullumbimby) and then working in Melbourne as a stripper and table dancer while getting a BA majoring in communications.
She brings a good deal of herself to this enjoyable crime romp, not least the central character of private eye Simone Kirsch, who, refused permission to join the police, also does porn work on the side.
'One time at the supermarket I was having a s*#t of a day,' she explains, 'a common occurrence in retail, when this Toorak rich bitch comes in... I ripped off my name badge, chucked it at her and came out from behind the register. I walked towards her, real slow, and she backed away... She started screeching for security and I walked out the door, up the street, and down the stairs to the Crazyhorse. The woman at the counter looked like a truck-stop waitress and I asked her for a job.'
So began career number two, first in a place where men put $2 coins in a slot to watch 'peepshow' women stripping and doing unmentionable things, later in clubs where audiences pay a great deal more for a similar experience.
'And the great thing about stripping, as opposed to hospitality or retail' as Simone remarks, 'is that the customer is always wrong.'
Her third career phase leads to an action-filled plot through which considerable lashings of sex are woven. It begins after Simone completes an investigative services course and then gains an inquiry agent's licence.
She puts her skills to work when best friend Chloe, another sex worker, raises fears of being linked wrongly with the murder of a 'fat bastard' named Frank Parisi, a strip club boss whose body has been found floating in the sea.
Then the deceased's brother takes Chloe hostage, saying he will only release her if Simone can indeed deliver on her undertaking to investigate the case and reveal the murderer.
Thus begins a romp through a netherworld of bold women, both bent and honest cops, and assorted hangers-on. It's a rich yet credible mix, with a late-game twist and a suicide to maintain the tension.
Redhead (really?) has created a quirky counterpart to the long-popular Cliff Hardy, and it would be no surprise to see a series of follow-up novels.
- Thanks to Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore for supporting this column.
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