“A lot of this book actually is a reflection of a Sydney that I knew in the 1980s, because there are two crimes, one’s decades old and the other one’s contemporary, but they reflect different times in Sydney,” Brissenden says, explaining he spent a lot of his 20s in the city’s inner west. “In a way, it’s sort of a bit of a lament for what we’ve lost. Sydney’s changed a lot, this part of Sydney’s changed a lot.”

We’re having lunch at the Erko Hotel, around the corner and down the road from where key events in the novel take place. A coronavirus red zone has scuppered plans to meet any closer, as Brissenden is bound for Canberra soon and rules about self-isolating are changing quickly.

The pandemic’s influence can be felt at the pub: to order, a QR code on the table has replaced a queue at the bar. The receipt lands in my inbox before the snapper and chicken arrive. It’s all socially distant, safe and sensible but feels less Newtown Jets and more home of the Jetsons. As if to compensate, we follow up with schooners of Resch’s.

When talking of crime and politics, there’s one name that cannot be avoided. The day we meet is also the last day in office for one Donald John Trump.

“Well, you know, isn’t politics unhinged?” Brissenden’s blue eyes widen. “It’s amazing.”

And not all bad for fiction writers. “Maybe before Donald Trump people might have thought: ‘Well, you can’t really say that, that’s too fantastic.’ You know, like ‘surely that couldn’t happen’. I don’t think anyone can say that any more. He’s just transformed what our expectations are in politics and where it can go.”

Crime writers have license to address politics “in a way that’s much more free and real” than the constraints of journalism allow. “A lot of crime writers have been stepping up to this moment. It’s like they are stepping up to the social responsibility of actually sort of commenting on and contextualising politics in a way.”

He cites Don Winslow and Walter Mosley as examples, later adding readers can learn much about the culture of modern America through its crime fiction. The same can be said of its Australian equivalent, which is enjoying a moment in the zeitgeist largely driven by “bush noir” (think Jane Harper’s The Dry, Chris Hammer’s Scrublands).

Brissenden argues we don’t have to head to the country to understand Australia. He says the success of bush noir is “fantastic, but we can reflect as much about Australia through our city experience as we can through our bush experience. And our city experience is a unique one, our cultural context is unique, and it can have a wider audience, which I think is great. It should have.”

Also ringing true is Brissenden’s description of the media landscape and its challenges in the face of social media. Zephyr works for an all-too believable version of the Herald where the reporters’ ranks are thin but the boss dreams of emulating The New York Times. The time she spends with musty old newspaper clippings is lovingly drawn; the rivalry with the more tabloid opposition is a plot point; the grim humour of BuzzFeed reporters being made redundant is a little heartbreaking.

For all the detailed descriptions of Parramatta police buildings, the denizens of King Street and the art of hotdesking at the Herald newsroom, the novel’s themes of power, justice and redemption are universal. “You can’t outrun your past,” as Brissenden puts it. “And the decisions you make on the way up can come back to bite you in the end.”

‘You can’t outrun your past. And the decisions you make on the way up can come back to bite you in the end.’

Not that the author himself shows any sign of regret, even if he took the long route to becoming a novelist. Writing fiction has been a dream since his 20s, when he helped his father research a book. His father was quite sick at the time, and the two travelled through a disintegrating Yugoslavia, southern Italy and Sicily.

Previous attempts at novels fizzled but there has been no shortage of storytelling along the way. The Moscow posting coincided with the collapse of communism, Chechen war and trips to Siberia and the various stans; he’s covered conflicts in the Middle East and former Yugoslavia; his time in Washington for Barack Obama’s first term as president included the rise of the Tea Party, which presaged the recent divisions on display in the US. (Brissenden’s family arrived, two tired children and 10 stuffed suitcases in tow, in July 2009; he left the post with enough material for a non-fiction book, 2012′s American Stories.) All of this has influenced Michael Brissenden, crime writer.

“Everybody brings their own personal experience when they’re writing fiction obviously in one way or another, but I guess I’ve been pretty fortunate in having spent a lot of time on the road in different countries.”

The character of Sid comes from a place closer to home. As the ABC’s defence correspondent, Brissenden says while he only spent a little time in Afghanistan he spoke to a lot of veterans who had returned from too many tours of the country.

The issues they face with post-traumatic stress disorder inform both the main character and the victim. The book also comes as the country grapples with how the deployment to Afghanistan was handled. The suggestion of war crimes is raised in the novel, but the larger focus is on the damage inflicted on soldiers ordered to go too often, and without enough time between rotations to recover.

“Clearly people came back from the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts with quite serious issues to deal with, a lot of people still do,” Brissenden says.

“I’m not saying the government should be totally responsible for everything but clearly we can do more and should do more to help some of these people.”

Brissenden hopes to spend more time in the fictional realm. He wrote the first, The List, while working full-time – “you just have to make time to sit down and do it” – and used long-service leave to finish the second. He cares deeply about journalism, and the importance of keeping politicians to account even when it can seem like a circus, but says he is coming to the end.

“It’s been a great ride, I’ve been there for 35 years. I don’t know for how much longer I’ll stay working with that sort of intensity in journalism.”

In 2017, for the first book in the series, there were appearances at writers’ festivals and book store visits but launching a novel in a pandemic is an awkward experience. Brissenden is hoping it resonates not only for holding a mirror to society but as a gripping read.

For a man who we’ve seen on screen and heard on radio for all these years, Brissenden is a bit nervous. From his perspective the novels are far more personal than any of his other work.

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“Every day we put stuff out that we’re reporting on other people, other people’s experiences. Making it up, putting it in a book, putting it out, it’s about you. Writing non-fiction, it’s either a good book or it’s a bad book or whatever but it’s about other people. Writing fiction I find is a much more personal creative endeavour.”

Dead Letters (Hachette) is out now.

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