Winner of the 2010 Miles Franklin Literary Award and the 2012 German International Deutscher Krimipreis.

At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city. In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead, a panic button within reach.

So begins Truth, the companion novel to Peter Temple's bestselling masterpiece, The Broken Shore, winner of the Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Best Crime Novel.

Villani's life is his work. It is his identity, his calling, his touchstone. But now, over a few sweltering summer days, as fires burn across the state and his superiors and colleagues scheme and jostle, he finds all the certainties of his life are crumbling.

Truth is an extraordinary novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit. And it is about truth.

Peter Temple has worked extensively as a journalist and editor for newspapers and magazines in several countries. He has won five Ned Kelly Awards for his novels, and won the world's most prestigious crime writing prize, the Duncan Lawrie Dagger. In 2010 he was awarded Australia's greatest writing prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award. His books are published in more than twenty countries.

'Truth is about family and morality, city and countryside, private dilemmas and public responsibilities. It's also a stunning piece of psychological portraiture.' Guardian

'Here is an author with a rich talent, a writer to compare with James Ellroy and his tough, taut LA prose...Truth succeeds as a well-paced, most engaging crime novel, a world-class effort. It is also one of the best pieces of modern Australian fiction this decade, if not for many decades.' Courier-Mail

'I hold him in the highest regard as a writer, both in terms of his choice and control of subject matter and his use of language, which is direct and, where necessary, evocative.' John Harvey

'Peter Temple is arguably our leading writer of crime fiction, if not one of Australia's best novelists regardless of genre...This is a complex, multi-layered novel that weaves together past and present crimes with intricate family relationships and the smell of political corruption...the king of Australian crime is back and in exceedingly good form.' Canberra Times

'Temple writes superbly with great visual acuity and moral intelligence. He can twist a lifetime of loss or a career's-worth of camaraderie around a few elliptical exchanges of police business; and his spare, terse prose is lightened with images full of a quirky, unselfconscious poetry' Adelaide Advertiser

'Temple is Australia's premier crime writer because his skill is words. His characters are convincingly established and his observations of Melbourne's manners, milieus and mores are spot on...as soon as I put it down I wanted to read it again.' Herald Sun

'Temple's writing has never been more precise or telegraphic...Truth is both confronting and electrifying. It is Temple's best book.' Age

'If you loved The Maltese Falcon, you will love Truth...Although Temple's prose is typified by beautiful, complex sentences, he shares with Hammett a talent for ordinary, yet distinctive dialogue.' Splash ABC

'The joy in Temple's writing—so tight and pared back that it almost seems to be in code. His feel for dialogue and rhythm is superb, his control and timing masterful...Literary masterpieces that also happen to be page-turners.'...