The Philanthropist is the first novel by Melbourne barrister John Tesarsch. Charles Bradshaw, a high-flying businessman, is in his late sixties when he has a heart attack while swimming at Brighton beach. He is rescued from death’s clutches and awakes in a hospital room, weakened and scared. Slow to recover, Charles fears that his time on earth is limited. But there is something else he is afraid of. He is visited in his dreams by a familiar face from many years ago. The book explores Charles’s relationships: with his son and daughter, his wife, his estranged lover from many years ago and with his own father. It portrays family dysfunction that is as easily inherited as the family’s business and wealth. Charles, despite his money, is unhappy, feels alone and is still struggling to come to grips with terrible mistakes made in his past.

Guilt, justice and retribution are examined here, not only through Charles’s character but through the rest of the book’s cast, and Tesarsch is clearly familiar with the corridors of the courthouse. Yet as a character novel, The Philanthropist lacks the depth and touch of comparable books in the genre. Colm Tóibín’s The Heather Blazing is a controlled and moving study of an ageing man that also uses the law as a vehicle for examining the protagonist. But whereas Tóibín captures his character with deft prose and restrained writing, Tesarsch’s Charles Bradshaw is simply not as well-formed.

It is difficult to write an unlikeable character and can be even harder to read about one, but when it’s done well it can be a masterpiece. The Philanthropist is ambitious in its premise but doesn’t quite achieve what it sets out to do. However, the ideas here are strong. Read it for familiar glimpses of Melbourne, an insight into the law and an exploration of guilt and conscience.