When I first picked-up Mire by Matt Nable, I thought it was a strange choice to be featured in the partnership between The Weekly and Hachette which profiles great reads for our mostly-female audience. Mire opens with a jolt, packed with violence and profanities. It’s a far cry from a Sophie Green or Natasha Lester novel, but within a few hours, I was almost halfway through the book. Mire is a fast-paced, cleverly constructed crime read with an interesting premise that will hook readers as soon as they pick it up.
We open in Sydney on the highly unlikeable banker-turned-broker Dan Milligan. With a chip on his shoulder because his military father was disappointed in him, Dan has devoted himself to getting as rich as he possibly could. We see him hit high-highs, indulging in the euphoric effects of his own success. He’s constantly drinking, often snorting coke.
It all comes crashing down one Tuesday in the 1980s when a stock market crash wipes him out. His icy, beautiful, indifferent wife Liz leaves him and he’s forced to sell his lavish property and cars. He finds himself mowing lawns in regional NSW. It’s there, in the back corner of an overgrown yard, that he stumbles upon a trap door. His mower has sheared open the padlock, and Dan ventures inside where he finds three PanAm bags stuffed with cash. He leaves them there, but then the house is put up for sale. When the owners move out, the bags remain.
Dan figures it’s a matter of finders keepers and within a few months he’s back in Sydney rebuilding his former glory, using the found cash as his start-up capital. Of course, the money hadn’t been lost or abandoned, and soon its “rightful” owners come looking for it.
It turns out it’s mob money. New York gangsters have been dabbling in a local cannabis growing operation and the PanAm cash was the profit. Now, they want it back and they have all the ruthlessness and resources you’d expect from a crime family. The story goes from there.
Forced to repay his debt, Dan is transplanted to New York where he becomes further entangled in murky dealings. Other characters emerge. An FBI agent. Dirty cops. Clean cops pretending to be dirty. Mire has the fast-paced, multi-character feel of a Harlan Coben novel, but it’s never weighed down, or overly complicated. The players move into place, as the danger builds to a climax. As the story progresses, Nable weaves an ever-stickier web. He holds your attention with constant twists and unexpected detours.
Mystery fans be warned, on the cozy to gritty crime scale, one being a little old lady solving murders between knitting projects, and 10 being a Tarantino blood bath, Mire is about an eight. The New York scenes are relentless as Dan sinks further into the world of crime. Nable isn’t afraid to get his – and his main character’s – hands dirty in service of the story. There is plenty to keep you guessing in this taut, slick thriller.
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