The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong is a cracker.
The book has little to do with the finer points of the game. It is a novel told by the main character from the boot of a car where he is bound and gagged, having been shot through one knee.
At our review meeting, both cricket tragics and those of us who know not a single thing about the sport, liked the book. We voted this book a definite Good Read - and a great Christmas gift for those cricket fans in our families who are hard to buy for.
Victorian author Jock Serong is a great storyteller, and his second crime novel is nostalgic, funny, touching, sad and thrilling in turns. It is a peon to parents who support their children in their favourite sport weekend after weekend. It is also insightful about the perils of celebrity and how marketing and the media will squeeze the last drop out of the public’s fascination with it. The characters and the plot are believable and credible, there’s enough realistic detail about cricket playing, and the tension builds nicely with well placed clues, but enough twists to keep you guessing.
Each chapter opens with another attempt by the main character, former ace cricketer, Darren Keefe, to get out of his predicament in the boot of the car of unknown captors speeding along the Geelong Road towards Melbourne. He has enough time on this journey to reminisce about his life in cricket since he was a young boy playing backyard cricket in Altona with loved/hated brother, Wally, and how he has ended up hogtied in the boot. No doubt we’ll see a film or mini series of this novel in the next few years.
The book is written by Victorian author, Jock Serong, who is a lawyer by profession. His debut novel, Quota, won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for the best first crime novel.
It is based around the illegal abalone trade.
Jock released another book this year, On the Java Ridge, a political thriller about the consequences of a hardline law banning maritime assistance to asylum seekers. He is married with four children and lives on the far southwest coast of Victoria.
Happy reading.
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