Jack Irish

Peter Temple (1946–2018) was an Australian crime writer born in South Africa. Widely regarded as the finest crime novelist Australia has produced, he won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger twice — for White Dog (2007) and In the Evil Day (2004) — and in 2010 became the first and only crime novelist to win the Miles Franklin Award, Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, for Truth. Temple lived in Ballarat, Victoria, and his fiction is steeped in Melbourne’s inner-city geography and working-class culture. His Jack Irish series — four novels featuring a Melbourne solicitor turned amateur investigator — was adapted by ABC Australia into a television series starring Guy Pearce. Temple died in March 2018.