Getting Warmer sees the return of the piano-playing, crossword-solving detective Cato Kwong, who attempts to find a missing teenager and solve the murder of an undercover officer. In the tradition of the best fictional detectives, Kwong essentially operates as he pleases, meeting a number of intriguing villains – including a gentlemanly former child soldier and a gay Vietnamese drug lord – while dealing with divorce, crooked cops, police bureaucracy, and difficult neighbours.

It is hard to believe Getting Warmer is only Carter’s second book. It displays the confidence and control of a seasoned novelist, along with a carefully layered and expertly balanced plot. Although Carter does not shy away from gore, the novel’s violence and stark portraits of the down-and-out are leavened with splashes of humour and evocative slivers of everyday life in Fremantle. He has Kwong meditate upon the state’s deeper problems, and notes that, despite Perth’s outward prosperity, it remains ‘a grubby little fiefdom of robber barons’. Carter shows the lingering effects of crime on police and victims’ families, with a sober and sympathetic portrayal of their grief and shock. Although the dialogue is occasionally flat, for the most part Carter’s prose is smooth and crisp.

Getting Warmer is an excellent second novel, and a clear indication that Carter’s stature in the ranks of Australian crime novelists is set to grow rapidly. It will be interesting to follow Cato Kwong’s career: I suspect it will be a long one.