Truth
Truth is a novel of rare power and much of that potency lies in its silences. The blank spaces occupy almost as much of its pages as the print. The dialogue conveys only that which is necessary, sometimes not even that. The bareness of the bones reveals the soul. Propelled forward by the momentum of the story, we cling to fragments of veracity from which it is engineered
Shane Maloney, Australian Literary Review
Temple writes with great moral intelligence and visual acuity . . . unselfconscious poetry runs right through Temple's spare, tense prose . . . one of the best pieces of modern Australian fiction this decade
The Week
Temple shows again that he can do the dialogue Australian like no other. He has a particular interest in bloke-speak, and what it omits . . . Truth is not a book to be gulped down like a shoot-up thriller, it demands careful reading
Sunday Age
This richly textured and intricately plotted novel moves at a fierce pace . . . Bleak, yet brilliant
Daily Telegraph
Thinking of how to sum up Peter Temple's deeply satisfying fictional world, it seems easiest to use the sort of language that one of his characters would, one of the cops, one of the crooks, one of the victims, take your pick: it's all f . . . cked. Everything is broken, everyone is damaged, no one is safe . . . Temple's characters inhabit a landscape as disturbing as conjured by Cormac McCarthy, and unlike the futuristic dystopia of The Road, their apocalypse is now . . . Like all Temple's work, even the lighter Jack Irish novels, Truth is about men and their fractured relationships with others, with themselves . . . the writing is diamond hard and clear, the pages demand to be turned, and he comes near the truth of things that matter . . . Temple's many fans will need no encouragement to read this book. If you are yet to join them, don't wait any longer
Weekend Australian
The dialogue is so terse it is almost poetic. And yet, for all that, the sequel to Temple's The Broken Shore transcends genre. Forget the qualifier, this is writing
Financial Review Magazine
Big business, state politics and policing intersect in what is possibly Temple's most astute critique of contemporary Australian society thus far. Not surprising given his uncompromising vision, Temple's writing has never been more precise or telegraphic . . . Truth is both confronting and electrifying. It is Temple's best book
Sydney Morning Herald