I only rated this book with 3 stars although the average is 5 stars. Although I enjoyed this book it just seemed to lack 'oomph' for me. I can't say too much about the story as I don't want to spoil it for people that haven't read it but as I said it just lacked 'oomph' for me. The story was great and loved the fact that is was Australian orientated but I feel that it had potential to be a lot better with more intrigue or more mystery so to speak. For example the leads that Cliff was following up could have of been expanded on so to speak, drawn out maybe. This is my first Peter Corris book though and also my first ebook as well so maybe this had something to do with my rating. Not sure about ebooks yet! Anyway if this book was meant to be a light reading short story sort of book would have of rated it a 5 although the ending was a bit short/abrupt/summerised? Not sure what the word is here but I did turn the page to see if this really was the ending! Having said all that though will definately be looking out for more Peter Corris books though.

I don't know about anyone else, but the Victorian shortlist seems non-fiction - heavy and generally unlikely to catch ANYONE's imagination among the average public library audience. Also, far too Melbourne-centric. (I'm very worried that this entire thing will end up as lots of city-based books because of the greater numbers in the city. Pity there couldn't have been Metro and Rural categories for each state.) It's going to be a hard slog to promote this shortlist in my Regional Victorian library, no matter how much I want to. I'll be saving my energy for once the final eight have been decided.

The Comfort of Water by Maya Ward is a Fiction novel that tells the story of four friends trek to discover the Yarra River. I do agree that it is Melbourne centric. What books would you have added further to list?