A Good Read

The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey
Set in Franklin, New South Wales, Australia. Catchprice Motors is a dismal, run-down used car business run by Granny (Frieda) Catchprice with senility, cunning and a handbag full of gelignite. She runs her family the same way. Responsibility for the day to day running of the business lies with Frieda’s daughter Cathy, a sad aspiring Country and Western singer and her sleazy husband Howie, who sports ‘a secret rash which stops in a clean line at his collar and the cuffs of his shirt’. 
Cathy has two brothers, the odious and useless Mort who also works in the business, and Jack, who although left Franklin and the business, can never, by his own admission escape being a Catchprice – unhinged and damaged. 
Then we have Frieda’s grandchildren, Vish, who joined the Krishnas as a way of escaping his family, and Benny, who at sixteen is seriously psychopathic. He believes he can transform the failing family business into an empire, and himself into an angel. 

Into this melting pot of misery, anger and failure enters the beautiful and very pregnant agent of the Australian Taxation Office, Maria Tarkis. 

Although I didn’t like part of the conclusion, I really enjoyed this book. It's a good story with memorable, believable characters, black humour, compassion, and at times it was extremely painful. 

~Happy Reading ~

Polly x