Stephanie Jones: Book Review - The Fixer by John Daniell

John Daniell’s award-winning first book, Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary, betrayed his unromantic view of professional rugby as a New Zealander who spent much of his career playing in France. If you’re not representing your own city, province or country, what could be a greater motivator than money? In the taut and often acerbic The Fixer, Daniell explores themes of temptation, pride, corruption and masculinity as he drives his protagonist towards a confrontation with his own moral code.

Former All Black Mark Stevens feels little guilt over pursuing a French payday, his financial obligations being wide-ranging and substantial. At 33, his income from club rugby is far greater than he could derive from any other line of work, and he is largely supporting his father, sister and nieces. Though his form is solid, in rugby years he is geriatric, he is carrying an ill-disguised ankle injury, and the club president is unsentimental about lining up replacements. Mark has no post-rugby plan, and coaching gigs are hard to come by.

It’s the perfect set-up for a girl with a dragon tattoo, an alluring Brazilian journalist named Rachel da Silva who approaches Mark to be the subject of a profile piece and quickly makes her way into his bed and his psyche. Daniell shows himself adept at subtlety in his depiction of Mark’s entry into the world of match-fixing, which is so gentle as to seem accidental. At first, Mark need do nothing more than share his thoughts on his upcoming game with Rachel, and he receives a Rolex by way of thanks from a faceless benefactor.

As might be expected – and Mark is too smart not to see it coming – things get real awfully fast. Even as the money rolls in for the couple, and luxurious getaways are had and ambitious plans made, Mark wants to slow the roll. A competitor above all, he wants to draw the line at compromising his team by throwing a game. He is rewarded by a speech from Rachel to rival Lady Macbeth’s critique of her husband’s manhood. At every turn there is a reminder that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

The Fixer is a curious case of setting rivalling plot; the description of Mark’s environment is every bit as enthralling as what befalls him. Daniell knows well the politics and emotion of professional rugby: the need to speak carefully in public, lest you get offside with media or sponsors; the sense of ownership felt by armchair analysts; the pressures and protocols of the team executive.

As Mark views it, “[t]he higher up the ladder you go, the easier it is to play”, with perhaps the optimal career in rugby riding on a metaphorical conveyor belt that pushes players smoothly through the New Zealand age levels into international play and finally lucrative European clubs. Everywhere, though, there is evidence that this is a blood sport, such as the prolonged palaver Mark goes through to legitimize the ankle-bolstering local anaesthetic he needs before each game.

Daniell’s writing is characterized by a frank immediacy and dry, changing-room humour. There is another novel altogether to be found in Mark’s teammates, hedonists who include Rich, an Australian “with the morals of a goanna and the sensitivity of a crocodile’s back”, and a Canadian who owns a t-shirt reading ‘Vietnam: we were winning when I left’. In the case of The Fixer, the result is a fascinating portrait of a talented man forced to assess the substance of his own character.