Review: THE DUNBAR CASE by Peter Corris

Posted on February 24, 2013 by bernadetteinoz

In the 38th instalment of novels featuring Sydney-based private detective Cliff Hardy our hero is approached by a historian with a rather unusual request. The man believes he has new information about the wreck of a ship called the Dunbar which sank near the entrance to Sydney Harbour in 1857. History records there being a lone survivor of the tragedy but the professor believes there was a second survivor and that one of this person’s descendents, a man called Johnnie Twizell, may possess relevant documentation to prove it, including a family bible. He needs to involve Hardy in the pursuit of these documents because Twizell is currently serving time in prison for a serious assault and Hardy is more familiar with that setting than the professor himself. Of course things do not run smoothly and Hardy is soon embroiled in the seedier side of life once again.

In a recent radio interview Peter Corris explained that his protagonist has aged at roughly one-third the normal rate which is why he’s managed be only 50-something despite being into his fourth decade of crime fighting while his creator has reached a sprightly 70. So while Cliff has to swallow a collection of pills each day and is surprisingly touched by his role as a grandparent, he isn’t showing too many ill-effects of the ageing process; still keeping fit, working well and even managing a healthy sex-life. He is a no-nonsense kind of character who has a strong sense of morality, though this clashes at times with what might be considered strictly legal. My favourite trait of his is his rather acerbic line of observations about the world around him.

Personally I found the plot a little disappointing not because of any intrinsic faults but rather because it didn’t really continue its focus on the search for documents that would allow the re-writing of history. Instead it veered off into my least favourite crime fiction territory – the seemingly endless shenanigans that abound amongst criminal families and their extended ‘organisations’ I know it’s probably a more realistic arena and a hugely popular one but it does, I’m afraid, bore me absolutely rigid as I simply cannot summon up the necessary emotional engagement when life-long criminals start threatening each other.

That aside, THE DUNBAR CASE is the kind of pleasantly diverting read that a sweltering summer afternoon calls for. It doesn’t attempt to explore any aspect of the human condition but nor does it talk down to its readers and, an increasingly rare thing these days, it isn’t burdened with the irrelevant, boring filler so many of its 500+ page competition suffer from.

Publisher: Allen & Unwin [2013]
ISBN: 9781743310229
Length: 247 pages

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Notable Novel: OUT OF THE SILENCE by Wendy James

Posted on February 22, 2013 by bernadetteinoz

I am forever grateful to the softly spoken, American professor who introduced me to the study of ordinary people (as opposed to that of kings and generals and politicians which had previously been my lot) during my second year at University. If someone hadn’t done it I suspect I’d have stopped being interested in the subject all together. One of the first books he had us read was Edward Shorter’s A HISTORY OF WOMEN’S BODIES and if it didn’t change my life it is certainly one of the few books that has fundamentally changed the way I view the world. Having plucked my copy from its latest home I see that the first of many passages I underlined (with two exclamation marks in the margin) was from the first page of the preface

If we ask why it was that women weren’t demanding the vote in the seventeenth century, one of the answers is their own acceptance of [their] inferior status. Because they were sicklier, more at risk of dying, and generally more enervated by things like anemia than men, they accepted their subordination as part of the natural order.

Little wonder it got 18 year-old me all fired up.

The reason I have taken you on this jaunt down memory lane is that I could not help but be reminded of this favourite book when I started reading Wendy James’ OUT OF THE SILENCE. For, although it is ostensibly a novel about a crime, it is, at least for me, more a novel about how inhabiting a woman’s body has, for the vast bulk of history, been something considerably less than a barrel of laughs.

The book was, reportedly, the only début novel published by Random House Australia in 2005 which, having now read it, I can at least conjecture was due to the fact that other submissions paled in comparison. Even if the reason for it being the publisher’s sole risky investment that year was more prosaic it was certainly a good choice, offering something for fans of history and mystery and having a good few facts – in the form of real people and events – interspersed with the fiction that James has created.

It is the story of two women living in Victoria at the turn of the last century. Our country’s six separate colonies were still a year or so away from federating as the Commonwealth of Australia and only two of those six colonies allowed women to vote. At the outset of the story Maggie Heffernan is a teenager living in the country. She is happy enough with her lot, although the lack of any genuine affection from her mother puts a strain on her young shoulders, but becomes radiant when she falls in love with the nephew of one of her neighbours. Elizabeth Hamilton is a thirty(ish) English woman who has moved to the colony on her own, following a personal tragedy that has demanded she be more independent than she had ever thought she would need to be. She is engaged to be a governess for a local family but when that situation proves unsuitable she heads to Melbourne to stay with some cousins, one of whom ultimately provides the mechanism for the paths of these two women to cross.

It wasn’t until that cousin, Vida Goldstein, cropped up that I realised this book was based on real-world events (I never read blurbs before reading the book and picked this one to read simply because I enjoyed James’ most recent novel and wondered what her first, which won the 2006 Ned Kelly Award for best first fiction, might be like). In the novel, as in real life, Goldstein was one of Australia’s leading campaigners for women’s suffrage and the general improvement of women’s lives which is how she became involved in the story of the real Maggie Heffernan who was convicted of a very real, and truly awful, crime. Elizabeth, who is an entirely fictional character, provides an interesting counter-balance to Maggie in terms of the roles women of different classes are expected (and themselves expect) to play in society as well as allowing the author to tease out some of the fictionalised details of the events which might have led to Maggie’s fate. Most reviews and discussions of the book provide a lot more detail than this but in case, like me, you want to come to the novel with fresh eyes, I shall say no more about the plot.

Maggie’s story is told with a straight-forward, first-person narrative while Elizabeth’s unfolds via a mixture of extracts from her diary and letters to her journalist brother as he travels the world. There are also, towards the end, a few extracts from newspaper articles (I’m unsure if these are actual reproductions or a product of James’ imagination but it doesn’t matter – they add a nice detail either way). Differentiating the storytelling in this way helps the reader quickly and easily adjust to each switch from one woman’s narrative to the other’s as well as allowing the widest possible scope for the novel to have a personal aspect about the main characters and a wider, more public one about the role of women in the society being depicted. I thought the novel worked well on both levels and James achieved the right balance between these two elements. For example from what little I know of her I suspect an entire book devoted to good works of Vida Goldstein might make for somewhat…earnest… reading but her strategic placement at key parts of this story adds a necessary layer of social context and some fascinating glimpses into the local movement for women’s suffrage.

The characters here are highly nuanced and do not always behave as the reader expects. Both of the two central women are presented with options that, if chosen, would have changed their ultimate fate. For Maggie in particular this would have been hugely significant and I really liked the way neither she nor the author took the easy route. Of course James was driven in part by the facts of the case but if she’d wanted to present a less thoughtful but perhaps more socially acceptable storyline for Maggie she could have neglected to create such forks in the road for her fictional version of the woman.

As you can probably tell I thoroughly enjoyed OUT OF THE SILENCE. The historical detail provided via a mixture of fact and fiction, the thoughtful consideration of the roles women were given or, in some cases, made for themselves, at this time in history and the thoroughly engaging story are all equally strong elements to recommend the novel. And although it is not the classic whodunnit beloved of crime fiction fans, it is a very good example of the far more thought-provoking, and ultimately more satisfying whydunnit.

I suppose it is fitting that I read this book as part of my participation in the Australian Women Writers Challenge as it embodies everything the challenge represents for me. Of course it’s a book written by an Australian woman but it is also a good example of the kind of under-recognition of great work that seems to happen to writing by Australian women. The fact that its subject matter is itself concerned with the role and place of women in an Australian society that isn’t so very long ago is a further element to recommend the novel to challenge participants looking to ponder this issue as part of their reading experience.

I decided that as part of my participation in this year’s Australian Women Writers Challenge I would highlight some older novels of the crime genre that are notable for some reason or other, having won an award or contributed to the genre’s development in some way. It’ll be an eclectic mix, largely based on what I can get hold of via my library but if you have any suggestions for books that might make good features please leave a comment.

OUT OF THE SILENCE is the fourth book I’ve read for this year’s challenge.

Publisher: Random House Australia [2005]
ISBN: 1740513835
Length: 351 pages
Format: paperback

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Review: GOOD MURDER by Robert Gott

Posted on February 10, 2013 by bernadetteinoz

Robert Gott’s GOOD MURDER is, if you need a genre label, a comic historical caper. It introduces William Power, possibly the world’s most out-of-place Shakespearean actor, who in 1942 is touring rural Queensland while war wages across the globe. He and his fellow actors, touring under the name of the Power Players, are able to engage in their artistic pursuits because most are physically disabled in some way, with Will’s own flat feet being the least disfiguring ailment, and the remaining members are just plain unsuitable for conscription (one is a woman, the other ‘a queer’). With an allotment of fuel coupons they are allowed to drive the country bringing entertainment to the masses, though it seems from the outset that the people of Maryborough would much rather visit the circus or see a popular play than Will’s planned production of Titus Andronicus.

Amidst searching for lodgings and a suitable venue for their performances and undertaking rehearsals and some alarming alterations to the script to account for the number and limitations of the actors on hand, Will and his fellow actors quickly become embroiled in the town’s activities. In return for a reduced room rate one of the troupe takes over cooking duties at a run-down hotel and Will squires a young local girl to the pictures. Unfortunately for Will the girl, Polly Drummond, disappears soon after his date with her and when her body is discovered in the local water tower Will is the prime suspect in her murder. He is not overly surprised at the suspicion of the police and other locals but is a bit put out by his own troupe’s seeming willingness to accept his guilt. In attempting to clear his name he spirals further and further into desperate farce as the bodies, and the evidence of his guilt, mount.

Will isn’t a traditionally sympathetic character, being somewhat arrogant, self-absorbed and even dimwitted at several key moments. But his biting humour alleviates the worst of his traits and I couldn’t help fut feel sorry for his various predicaments. That a man with ambitions of producing memorable Shakespeare should end up playing in a still-operating skating rink in the cultural wasteland that probably was rural Queensland in 1942 seems a harsh punishment just for being a bit of a narcissist. The fact it is his own lack of social skills that provides most of the reasoning behind him becoming an object of suspicion is something I can personally empathise with.

There are a lot of other characters in the novel, almost too many really for any to really shine, who collectively add local colour and some depth to the story. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Peter Topaz, the one local cop who doesn’t make snap judgements about Will’s guilt, though Will’s most trusted fellow actor Arthur (who has only one arm and one testicle) is also quite engaging. There is a melancholic overtone to his relationship with Will towards the end of the novel when Will is quick to suspect Arthur’s own role in things criminal and fails to see the irony of his own rush to judgement after having been on the receiving end of similar vilification. I liked the fact that Will didn’t suddenly shed is self-absorption or suddenly develop psychological insights beyond is capabilities as might have happened if this were a different kind of novel.

GOOD MURDER’s atmospheric depiction of wartime Australia alone is worth reading it for, offering a myriad of small details that bring the period alive. The various means people have of circumventing austerity measures imposed by the government, the way some towns thrived due to being able to provide infrastructure for the war effort and the many ways that normal life goes on regardless of the dire state of world affairs all play out here. Its combination of satire and farce won’t appeal to everyone but if you do like that kind of humour and can handle a bit of judiciously placed crude language then I highly recommend this novel.

Robert Gott’s William Power series currently stands at three novels and this month he published an unrelated historical novel entitled THE HOLIDAY MURDERS.

Publisher: Scribe Publications [2004]
ISBN/ASIN: 1920769250
Length: 293 pages
Format: paperback

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Review: WEB OF DECEIT by Katherine Howell

Posted on January 31, 2013 by bernadetteinoz

By now the excited anticipation with which I approach each of Katherine Howell’s new novels is tinged with a smidgen of dread that her normal high quality won’t be maintained. But within a few pages of starting WEB OF DECEIT I knew my worries were needless as I was reminded that Howell has few equals when it comes to the consistency of her intricate plots that manage never to stray into ridiculous territory while gripping the reader from the outset and not letting go until the final page.

Howell’s sixth novel starts out with paramedics Jane and Alex attending a minor car crash where the victim, Marko Meixner, appears to be uninjured but possibly suffering from a mental illness as he refuses to be removed from his car and talks of being followed. After finally coercing him from his car they take Meixner to the nearest hospital and leave him waiting for a psychiatric consultation. Later that day they are called to assist with a body recovery from underneath a city train and the victim is Meixner. Jane expresses her doubts that it is a case of suicide to Ella Marconi, one of the detectives called out to the scene. Ella and her partner Murray are soon deeply involved in trying to determine if Meixner fell, jumped or was pushed under the train, all the while fighting against their new boss’ penchant for bringing cases in on budget.

The novel is aptly titled in more ways than one as its plot really does form a web of stories which meet and part and meet again in surprising ways. The police must investigate Meixner’s past, in particular a single incident from nearly 20 years ago, as well as his current life to uncover who, if anyone, might have had a motive for killing him. Is there something dodgy happening at his seemingly normal workplace or could he have become the victim of his wife’s stalker? I loved the way that each person they talk to – wife, colleagues, doctor, friends – describes a different version of the same man and it’s up to the detectives to build an accurate picture from everyone’s impressions. This helps to keep the reader guessing about who the culprit might be, if indeed there even is a culprit, as well as offering genuine insight into the phenomenon that we humans seem to have an infinite capacity to be different people depending on the environment we’re in.

In addition to this side of the book there are threads dealing with the work and personal lives of the paramedics which, not unreasonably, intersect with the work of the police on a regular basis. Alex’s story is particularly heart-wrenching as he is the single dad to a teenage girl who is being particularly troublesome and, when the book opens, he has recently returned to work after a very stressful incident left him psychologically damaged. This incident, as well as several others described throughout the book, shows how demanding and traumatising this work must be which is something Howell, an ex paramedic herself, manages to do with sensitivity that never crosses the line into being maudlin.

To top all this off WEB OF DECEIT has real heart in its depictions of the people affected by trauma and violent crime, be they victims, investigators, paramedics or family members. When Ella and Murray are confronted with the wife of a victim who refuses to accept her husband is dead the dialogue, the awkwardness and the emotions ascribed to all involved are touchingly realistic and an example of what makes the book such a great read, if a sad one on occasion. At different times the key players are dedicated, frustrated, exhausted, frightened or desperate for a brief respite and as readers it is easy to be drawn into their emotional journeys because at least some of the situations in which they find themselves are ones we recognise from our own experiences and the rest are easily, scarily imaginable.

Fans of the series will be pleased that a development in Ella’s somewhat rocky personal life awaits them in this instalment but I have to say this is one series you can start anywhere. Personally I’d recommend you read all six books, starting with FRANTIC, but if you’ve not read any of Katherine Howell’s novels you could easily leap right in to her version of Sydney with WEB OF DECEIT. It’s a fast, clever, sometimes sad, sometimes funny romp of a tale. Highly recommended.

WEB OF DECEIT is released in Australia on 1 February 2013

I’ve reviewed three of Katherine Howell’s earlier novels here at Fair Dinkum Crime: COLD JUSTICE, VIOLENT EXPOSuRE and SILENT FEAR.

I’m counting this as my third book for the Australian Women Writers Challenge for this year

Publisher: Pan Macmillan [2013]
ISBN: 9781742610306
Length: 349 pages
Format: Paperback

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Notable Novel: DEATH DELIGHTS by Gabrielle Lord

Posted on January 21, 2013 by bernadetteinoz

In 2002 Gabrielle Lord’s novel DEATH DELIGHTS won the Ned Kelly Award for best fiction. Although it was the sixth year the award had been given this was the first occasion a female writer was to receive it, an achievement that has only been repeated once since then with 2012′s PIG BOY by J.C. (Jane) Burke. Lord had been beavering away at the crime and thriller writing caper for at least 22 years by the time she won this award, having released her first standalone novel, FORTRESS, in 1980 and publishing a total of eight books prior to DEATH DELIGHTS.

The novel is a procedural which introduces forensic scientist Jack McCain. Once a cop with the NSW police force Jack studied to become a scientist and now works for the Australian Federal Police based in Canberra. Though when the novel opens he is on leave and is back in Sydney. His old partner asks him to help out with an investigation into the deaths of two men who have been murdered in a particularly grizzly way. Jack (having a vastly different definition of ‘being on leave’ than I do) throws himself into the case.

Jack has more than his fair share of personal troubles as well, several of which come to a head as DEATH DELIGHTS progresses. His teenage daughter Jacinta ran away from home 18 months earlier and Jack and his estranged wife Genevieve are out of leads on where to look for her when police receive and anonymous tip regarding her whereabouts. Jack immediately follows up, learning facts which have disturbing repercussions for his entire family. In addition Jack has never really given up wanting to know what happened to his little sister who also disappeared as a teenager; kidnapped from near their family home when she was 13, some 25 years earlier, and never having been seen alive since then. When it appears there is a connection between his sister’s disappearance and the case of the murdered men whose bodies have been mutilated Jack wonders if he will finally learn what happened to his sister.

DEATH DELIGHTS is complex and suspenseful and while there is some gruesome violence it is not gratuitously dwelt on. Lord weaves together all the elements of Jack’s personal and professional lives with consummate skill and the reader is never left floundering for something interesting to look out for. I particularly like the way this novel combines the traditional investigative type of case, with interviews and surveillance and so on, with the scientific elements. Unlike episodes of CSI or some of the more formulaic novels I’ve read there’s no instant case solving by finding a particularly unlikely fingerprint but the science, always well explained, offers an added dimension to matters at hand.

But the book has other layers too. It is almost like an adult coming of age story for Jack who has so many threads of his personal life to keep track of and so many past mistakes he feels the need to atone for. Lord has explored the notions of family and of how we learn to be good parents, siblings, partners and so on. The idea that this all comes naturally seems to be a given in society but through Jack, who is by no means a deadbeat, we see how hard it can be to take on these roles without a handy instruction manual. What was perhaps most realistic was that even when he knew what the correct behaviour or gesture should be Jack couldn’t always bring himself to give that hug or spend the necessary time with the person who needed him. In other words he was a very realistic human.

DEATH DELIGHTS has something for every crime fiction fan containing procedural, forensic and cold case elements as well as a thoughtful family drama. It can easily hold its own against the more well known imported offerings in these genres, with the added bonus of a thoroughly Australian sensibility. A highly recommended novel that should be seen as a classic of the genre.

For my re-read of this novel in preparation for this post I chose to listen to the unabridged audio version narrated by Aussie actor Francis Greenslade. It’s a terrific edition of the book and Greenslade does a first rate job of the narration, managing to provide a range of natural sounding voices for the large array of characters without once falling into the trap of getting too ‘ocker’. Elsewhere I bemoan the dearth of locally available audio books with affordable pricing and good format options, so here I must direct you to the US Audible store if you are interested

DEATH DELIGHTS is the second book I’ve read for this year’s challenge

Publisher: Bolinda Audio [this edition 2011, original edition 2001]
ASIN: B00AWV712C
Length: 13 hours 25 minutes
Format: mp3

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Review: THIRST by L.A. Larkin

Posted on January 9, 2013 by bernadetteinoz

I had planned to read something else as my first book for this year’s Australian Women Writers Challenge but when the mercury headed beyond 40ºC locally I felt the need to virtually head somewhere nice and chilly. Set amidst the icy crevasses and snowy blizzards of Antarctica, THIRST fit the bill nicely.

As I discovered when participating in the global reading challenge there is a certain ‘sameness’ to the relatively small number of fictional tales in this setting: they are almost all action-packed thrillers with clearly defined bad guys trying to do something awful while good guys try to stop them (and cling on to their own lives in the process). Broadly THIRST, set in the near future, does conform to the tropes but it is a highly entertaining addition to this tiny sub sub-genre of novels.

In this instance the bad guys are led by wealthy Chinese businessman Robert Zhao Sheng who is hell-bent on extracting Antarctica’s fresh water, ostensibly to save his over-populated country from the very real threat of running dry really to prove to his abusive tyrant of a father that he is not the useless nothing dear old dad believes him to be. Larkin’s done a nice job drawing this character who is entirely unlikeable but for whom I couldn’t help but feel a shred of sympathy as I pondered how much damage has been wrought upon the world because of astonishingly shitty parenting.

Central among the good guys is Luke Searle a half-Australian, half-French glaciologist working at a fictional Australian station. He and a small group of researchers are gearing up for the long Antarctic winter…seven months during which it will be impossible to leave or have new people arrive as ships cannot make it through the ice…when the ice harvesting plans require putting Hope Station, and its inhabitants, out of action. During the attack several of Luke’s colleagues are killed and the rest must go on the run: an activity which has all the danger you might imagine of such inhospitable terrain. Mayhem ensues.

This is Larkin’s second novel and, for me at least, a better read than her first in which I struggled to believe the characters’ behaviour and motivations. Even in thrillers, where the action-packed plots require a willingness to suspend disbelief at the outset, a reader needs to be able believe that the characters would do and say the things they are doing and saying in the context of the world created for them. We also need to be provided with enough details about their personalities to care whether the good guys triumph or not. Happily that was the case with THIRST. I certainly wanted the despicable Mr Zhao Sheng to come to a grizzly end and was mentally cheering on Luke, his station leader Maddie and the Russian tour guide they picked up in their escape. And I have to say the story was a ripper of a yarn, keeping me happily absorbed in its chilly action while the mercury soared.

It’s clear from the content (and an afterword) that Larkin has done a lot of research for this book but it’s incorporated pretty well into the story without sound too lecturish. I particularly liked the way she included some titbits about the history of Antarctic exploration, a subject I have become fascinated with thanks to our state museum’s excellent Australian Polar Collection and associated exhibits. The environmental themes she explores are also backed up well and it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine some version of this future for our poor, mishandled planet. All in all THIRST is a thoroughly enjoyable romp that should give you a little pause for thought about a world in which water is fought over in the way oil is today.

Publisher: Pier 9 [2012]
ISBN: 9781741967890
Length: 501 pages (actually this doesn’t sound right, it was the first book I’ve read via iBooks and unlike other eBook platforms the pagination appears to not be static so it changes with font size and orientation of the screen – the paperback is 332 pages for more of a guide)
Format: eBook (via iBooks)

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Review: PROMISE by Tony Cavanaugh

Posted on January 2, 2013 by bernadetteinoz

Darian Richards was once in charge of Victoria’s Homicide Squad. But after promising a mother her kidnapped daughter would return home only to have that prove untrue he resigns. Throws his gun in the sea and moves to Queensland. A year later someone starts killing young girls in the place Darian now calls home. After half a dozen have been taken, tortured and killed Darian decides he’s going to find said killer and stop him.

This is not my kind of crime fiction. It’s a very popular form of the genre. Indeed it’s what I think a lot of people think all crime fiction to be, but it’s not my personal cup of tea. That doesn’t make it bad or mean you shouldn’t read it (unless we happen to share a particular set of dislikes).

The first thing that makes this not my kind of crime fiction is that I found its protagonist an arrogant, insufferable bore. He’s a genius, the smartest male cop to have ever lived (in Dairan’s world all other male cops are dumb) (though all female cops are smart so he gets a point for not mixing misogyny in with his silly generalisations). He is the one who understands victims. He is so committed to them that never took a day off when he worked Homicide. He knows how to deal out justice better than any pesky old justice system. He is, naturally, a martial arts expert. His ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound is implied.

I know these kinds of super-hero characters (he reminded me of Jack Reacher) are supposed to be a bit of fun but I find them boring. And in some ways not unrealistic enough. I know people who think they’re gods and everyone around them is a loser and I think they’re boring too.

Next up is the subject matter. I have had enough of serial killer novels, especially ones jammed full of the notion there is such a killer lurking in every neighbourhood. As if the relative few that really have existed are not frightening enough. Throw in chapters depicting endless and gruesome sadism and violence from the killer’s point of view, make the killer someone who also thinks he’s a genius then pit the two egos against each other and you’ve just about marked off the entire checklist of things I don’t like in my crime fiction.

That said the book is well-written and, unlike so many books published these days, not at all bloated. Cavanaugh can capture a scene’s essence with just a few words. Like when Darian lies to a group of victims’ family members and realises “They believed me – except for Juanita whose stare told me she knew bullshit a year away…” I love that line. In fact when it focuses on something other than the duelling egos of the killer and his hunter, the novel can be insightful.

It also has a really solid sense of place. There’s an unsettlingly credible picture of the Sunshine Coast as a serial killer’s wet dream (surely no parent who reads this will ever let their teenager daughter go to schoolies) (or…you know…out the front door) and more broadly the setting is Australian to its core, though it might not bring in the tourists. There’s even some dry humour and some potentially interesting minor characters.

I was looking for the kind of escapism offered by PROMISE on a particularly lazy summer day but I still wanted to be engaged by some aspect of the book. If not the story then the characters. Darian bloody Richards and his over-inflated ego matching wits with a barking mad serial killer didn’t do it for me but I’m fairly sure I’ll be in the minority of readers who react this way. PROMISE has the feel of a Lee Child or early James Patterson book and I know those are hugely popular. Most readers will undoubtedly not see Darian as a giant, boring ego and most readers probably haven’t read enough crime fiction to be well and truly fed up with seeing the world from the point of view of a madman. To all of you: enjoy.

As always other opinions are available and here are just two that differ fairly significantly from mine at Aust Crime Fiction and Bite the Book

Publisher: Hachette Australia [2011]
ISBN: 9780733628474
Length: 327 pages
Format: Paperback

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Review: POET’S COTTAGE by Josephine Pennicott

Posted on December 21, 2012 by bernadetteinoz

Newly divorced Sadie and her teenage daughter Betty move to the Tasmanian home Sadie inherited upon her mother’s recent death. Poet’s Cottage is in a small fishing village half a world away from the bustle of Sydney where the two have come from. It is Sadie’s mother’s childhood home and the place where Sadie’s grandmother, well-known children’s author Pearl Tatlow, died in suspicious circumstances in the 1930′s. As well as trying to build a new life for her small family Sadie is determined to write about Pearl Tatlow’s life and possibly her death, which leads her to start uncovering the hidden secrets of her family and the village.

Because these days it seems books must be labelled clearly with a single genre stamp POET’S COTTAGE has been marketed as a mystery. This is fine as far as it goes but I know several readers who would be turned off because they ‘never read crime fiction’. I’m sure they would enjoy this absorbing mixture of old-fashioned whodunnit, gothic romance and ghost story but they may never find out about it because they never venture into the crime shelves of their local book stores. Which is all a long winded way of me saying genre labelling does more harm than good (a complaint I have made before).

But I shouldn’t be grumbling when I have spent a most delightful afternoon escaping the worries of the world tucked up in my favourite reading chair in my own little cottage reading this very engaging novel. Pennicott, who earlier this year won her second Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Award for the best short story by an Australian woman crime writer, has created a marvellous cast of characters who play out something of a saga in a very evocative setting.

The past and present are cleverly linked here as one of the first people Sadie meets in the village is the elderly Birdie Pinkerton who was a friend of Pearl’s and married her widower husband some years after Pearl’s death. Birdie published the only book about Pearl Tatlow ever to have been written. Although she has read the book before Sadie is thrilled when Birdie gives her an unpublished version of the book that, she is promised, contains more details of Pearl’s life than has been generally known. Chapters from this manuscript are subsequently interspersed with the modern day narrative so we readers learn about the past events at the same time as Sadie.

There is a lot more going on here than just a whodunnit, as entertaining a puzzle as that is. One of the most intriguing elements for me was the exploration of the different ways in which a single person can be perceived by those around them. Pearl Tatlow is loved by one of her daughters (Sadie’s mother Marguerite) but despised by her other daughter (Thomasina who is still living nearby to Poet’s Cottage when Sadie and Betty arrive). She is adored by her husband, fawned over by several young men, reviled by the conservative women of the town and admired by Birdie and another young girl who find her exotic and beautiful. Who is the real Pearl Tatlow and which version of her did someone want to kill?

The gothic element of the story is provided in part by the setting – the house and the location which is as close to the haunted English moors as you will find in Australia – and partly by the dark romance of several threads. There’s not a great deal of happily ever after for the lovers of POET’S COTTAGE. Throw in a couple of secret tunnels and a ghost or two and you have all the necessary ingredients.

Both the present day and historical stories within POET”S COTTAGE offer intrigue in the form of the secrets people keep, either willingly or unconsciously, and Pennicott has woven them together into a great yarn.

Publisher: Pan Macmillan [2012]
ISBN: 9781743345535
Length: 392 pages
Format: eBook (ePub)

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Review: SAY YOU’RE SORRY by Michael Robotham

Posted on December 2, 2012 by bernadetteinoz

SAY YOU’RE SORRY is the fifth novel to feature clinical psychologist Joe O’Loughlin who, at the beginning of the story, has sworn off police work and returned to his clinical practice. Of course there wouldn’t be a crime novel if that were the case for long and the device with which he is drawn back into police work is skilfully deployed. Joe is asked to ensure that the questioning of a troubled young man police think responsible for a brutal double murder and arson attack does not go too far. But Joe is unconvinced the suspect had the ability to pull of such an attack and is increasingly intrigued by the possible connection of this case to the disappearance three years earlier of two teenage girls, Piper Hadley and Natasha ‘Tash’ Barnes. Although they were unrelated to the Barneses, the couple killed in the attack which the suspect is in custody for lived at the farmhouse where Tash was living with her family when she disappeared.

This story is told from two points of view. It’s done fairly conventionally from Joe’s perspective as the investigations into both the present-day case and the re-opened case of the disappearance of Piper and Tash unfold. Joe is struggling to make sense of the disparate facts, convince police they don’t have all the answers tied up neatly with their suspect and juggle his family commitments. Separated from his wife Joe is meant to be looking after their teenage daughter Charlie during the period of this book and when he can’t give full attention to the case and his daughter things inevitably go awry. Happily Joe’s old friend, retired police detective Vincent Ruiz, can offer practical help with the case and his personal problems.

Piper Hadley’s ‘journal’ (notes scribbled in notebooks and whatever paper she can find while in captivity) provide the second, far more harrowing, point of view for the story. Readers don’t know if she is still alive but we do know she was alive for at least some time after her disappearance and that she did not run away with her best friend as police suspected at that time. She and Tash were taken by a man they call George and, over the course of the novel, we learn about the circumstances in the girl’s lives that enabled the kidnapping to take place and the grim time they’ve had since being taken. I have to acknowledge this portion of the novel is well-written, really capturing the essence of the teenage girl’s perspective, but it’s also quite confronting and, at times, hard going. I had the added bonus (?) of listening to the words being expertly read by one of my favourite voice actors, Seán Barrett, who helped make Piper’s story a truly chilling one. But even in print form I’d suggest this is not a book for the faint of heart.

I’ve found this series to be a bit of a hit or miss affair, having really liked the first two books and been progressively less intrigued by their successors. I think this is partly due to my developing more of an interest in reading about the more realistic crimes that happen when ‘normal’ people get into tight corners than in ‘serial killers making suits of human skin’ type stuff. So for me this book was a return to the earlier form I liked so much, focusing on the victims and their families and what on earth can have gone wrong to provide circumstances in which the utter disappearance of two teenagers is accepted as something they chose to do. I’m still not sure I really ‘bought’ the ending and who the perpetrator turned out to be but that almost didn’t matter as the heart of the book – Tash and Piper’s story – was very believable.

Kerrie reviewed SAY YOU’RE SORRY earlier this year and our occasional guest reviewer Josh has also taken a look at this book

Publisher: Hachette Digital [2012]
ASIN: B009I237OC
Length: 12 hours 4 minutes
Format: audio book (mp3)
Source: I bought it

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Review: SISTERS OF MERCY by Caroline Overington

Posted on November 21, 2012 by bernadetteinoz

I suspect SISTERS OF MERCY doesn’t quite qualify as crime fiction but as it is at least ostensibly about a missing person’s case and much of it is made up of letters written by its main character from prison I have decided to incorporate it into my personal, broad definition.

On the surface it is about the disappearance of an English Grandmother, Agnes Moore, who goes missing in a Sydney dust storm, having travelled to Australia to meet the sister she never knew she had until the death of their father, who lost track of Agnes while away at war, a few weeks earlier. But really this is the story of that sister, Snow Delaney.

When we meet her Snow is in prison for a crime that is not revealed until near the end of the novel. She writes a series of letters to Jack ‘Tap’ Fawcett, one of the journalists who covered her trial. At first she seeks corrections of fact but slowly reveals her life story in an effort not to justify, she doesn’t feel like she has done anything warranting justification, but to provide evidence of the proof of her version of events. And, almost irrespective of whether you believe Snow’s version or not, it’s a fascinating story. Snow moves from a childhood overshadowed by a cold, undemonstrative mother to an adulthood lacking emotional maturity and ends up in a most unusual place.

I loved the character of Snow though she is not loveable in herself. But she is a character impossible to ignore. Is she evil? Self-deluded? Coldly calculating? Pragmatic? Disturbed? Somewhere in the middle? As a young nurse she trains to work with people who have been living in mental institutions for many years as there is a government push to identify people who can live in the outside world. But the lofty ideals of the program are at odds with the reality of dealing with the severely mentally disabled and Snow is soon disheartened. However, her involvement does lead to her meeting Mark Delaney who will become her lifelong partner. A gambling addict and philanderer Mark doesn’t seem like much of a catch but is the closest thing to an object of affection in Snow’s life. As Mark never does a day’s paid work Snow must work to support them both and Mark’s addiction. Ultimately the couple become foster carers for severely disabled children, a task they seem, at least in Snow’s eyes, uniquely suited to.

We do, via Jack Fawcett, learn a little about Agnes Moore and the somewhat lackadaisical search for her though neither of these characters is even half as fully realised as Snow and that, for me, was something I was looking for to offset the overwhelming nature of Snow and her view of life.

The essay that prompted me to read this book discusses a legitimate concern that could be levelled at the book which is derisive about several almost sacred cows. I don’t share all of those concerns though certainly can see why the essay’s author is troubled by certain aspects of the book. But we seem to agree that even with, or perhaps especially because of, these imperfections it is a book worth recommending. The issues that Overington raises in it are incredibly important and, as is often the way, largely ignored by society in their day-to-day application. It is true, for example, that few people would argue against the principle that the severely disabled (those who require around-the-clock care) should be looked after. But when it comes to the practicalities few of us know – or , if we’re brutally honest, really want to know – just what hard, exhausting graft is involved. Is our collective abdication of responsibility to faceless bureaucrats something we can, or should, be able to live with? Overington’s depiction of an overwhelmed system bogged down in assessing gradations of disability and arbitrarily assigning ’adequate’ levels of entitlement to those who manage to qualify is harsh but, to my second-hand knowledge, realistic.

There are other elements that I could highlight if I had the time but I hope I’ve given you enough of an impetus to want to read this unsettling but compelling book. You won’t regret it.

Reading this book also reminded me why I hate the phrase women’s fiction, a subject I ranted about at my other blog

This is the 15th book I’ve read for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2012

My rating: 4.5/5 stars (rating scale is explained here)
Publisher: Random House [2012]
ISBN: 9781742750446
Length: 246 pages
Format: eBook (ePub)
Source: I bought it

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