This is an earlier book from J.R. Carroll (although later books are thin on the ground now as well), set in Melbourne, where the discovery of eight bodies in the scrub at Kinglake is only part of what is happening. This book revolves around the man in charge of that investigation - Kerry Byrne. It's about him and his mates in the squad. It's about the problems that police have in staying uninvolved when what they deal with is indescribably horrible, and it's about the difficulties they have with their personal lives.
Sometimes the private life problems are self-inflicted though and Kerry is in serious hot water when he helps a mate - one of the squad - cover up the truth about a domestic incident. He's also in trouble in his own home - but that's less self-inflicted, although his work schedule doesn't help. In the meantime there are two possible options for the serial killer of all those women - although the truth behind who is killing them becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly for the reader.
As with all J.R. Carroll books - the pace of the story is rapid fire, the circumstances pretty horrendous, and the events complicated. There's also a lot of sex in STINGRAY and whereas in some other books I can refer to it as slightly entertaining, in this one, it's frequently overtly violent and quite nasty - and could well put some readers off. The resolution of the case was well down - with an element that was fairly telegraphed, but still somewhat surprising, and a great flawed, conflicted, difficult, prickly hard man character in Byrne.
This is one of those little books that I've been keeping an eye out for over the last few years, finally tracking down a copy recently. At 141 pages it was just the right size for dropping into the suitcase that we're dragging backwards and forwards between houses at the moment.
Mind you, I didn't really know what to expect with the book, the blurb mentions private investigation and consulting firms, but it doesn't really give much else away. It turns out that Sam has been called in to investigage possible financial irregularities. One of the partners thinks that somebody is ripping off his earnings. Mind you, none of the partners seem to get on all that well, but having said that, they are sort of bit players anyway. Mostly the book is about Sam - Sam's life, the way he thinks, the way he sort of wanders around the investigation and his sexual and romantic conquests.
In novella form, the book is really all about Sam - Sam is a bit of a devil may care, lone wolf, with a heart of gold and a complicated personal life (so no real surprises there!). It was quite an amusing little book though, although I will confess I spent most of it a bit confused about what the supposed crime was supposed to be and whether Sam would ever stop drinking coffee and chasing the receptionist for long enough to concentrate.
Okay, so the twist is very obvious and the investigation prefunctory to say the least, LOVE IS IN THE AIR-CONDITIONING is more of an amusement than an enlightenment (if you know what I mean). But it did work as a diversion for a little while.
Being a 14 year old girl is never an easy undertaking, but living in a dying town, in a family beset with problems makes Miracle's life that bit more complicated.
She's known as Miracle because she was born in the middle of Australia's biggest-ever earthquake. The same quake that so traumatised her older brother that he's been left living with an ongoing mental health / nervous issue. Her mother's agoraphobic, her father's not coping with unemployment, and the boy she really likes, Oli, is playing really cruel tricks on her. All in all, a bit of a mess. Anyone who has read Lane's first book ALL OUR SECRETS might see the ghost of Gracie in Miracle - she's a dab hand at the creation of strong, young girls, surrounded by chaotic families, stepping up and in.
Which would make you think that her father's new job at Compassionate Cremations would be a good thing, but that just ends up adding to Miracle's feelings of guilt because she's the one that pushed her father towards the job. When the Crematorium becomes the centre of town gossip about a spate of sudden deaths, and her father is arrested after a brutal attack on the boy she fancies there, the job seems less important, and her role in putting her father it, and her reactions to Oli's behaviour seems like the tipping point.
The connection that all readers will have to have to get MIRACLE to work is obviously going to be with Miracle herself. A brave, conflicted, complicated young girl, she's believable and really real - alternatively bolshie and fragile, whip smart and thick as a brick. The story really does centre around the concept of bravery, coping and pressing on. It's also about learning empathy and understanding, and finding the good in what seems like absolutely dreadful situations, and dreadful people.
The plot is cleverly constructed to keep the focus on Miracle, while all around her events seem to swirl and move into and out of focus, never quite giving the reader time to settle, or necessarily to pick up on a direction. In the early stages the role of the Crematorium, and its boss, her parents, her brother, her aunt and the extended family, and other members of the town shapeshift into and out of the main story line, with Miracle dealing with a very big signal to noise ratio at points. Her confusion is palpable, her panic very real, and the reactions of everybody around her used to highlight a complicated scenario.
At the end of the day though, as events spiral further, Oli succumbs to his injuries, and doubts start to emerge about Miracle's dad's involvement, the family pushes and shoves against each other, and Miracle finds out a lot about growing up. It's an interesting layer to place within a crime story, and one that I found utterly fascinating and disconcerting all at the same time.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/miracle-jennifer-lane
The second novel in the RJ Rox series, THE FESTIVAL KILLER is a crime novel, with a rejected manuscript at its heart. The connection between the past unsolved case of an ambassador's secret love child going missing at the Berlin Book Festival, and subsequent disappearances from similar book festivals isn't immediately obvious, but Agent Rox, and the clandestine organisation she works for known as Kingfisher, eventually find a link between them, and a well-known crime writer's most recent novel.
Being second in the series, there's a bit to the backstory of Rox that readers will need to take as a given, if they've done what I did, and come to this novel first. She's an excellent character though - flawed, realistic, and utterly determined. Even the idea of the clandestine organisation works well here, and the plot itself is nicely twisty, very clever, with just enough original ideas (vengeance isn't unusual, but a rejected manuscript and a writer's struggle with the dreaded second novel and the dilemma around adapting another's idea is territory less mined).
The story in The FESTIVAL KILLER is told in multiple voices, all of which are distinct enough to allow a reader to follow along, and when combined with that clever plot idea, compensated for an ending that sort of crashed into place, leaving a lot of questions unanswered. Definitely left this reader thinking there's perhaps a third book in the planning, although that's not my favourite method of ensuring a potential audience. Having said that, certainly made me add the first novel in the series to the “one to read” list.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/festival-killer-jo-mccready
Before starting out, this review is going to contain possible SPOILERS. I'm finding it almost impossible to talk about CATCH US THE FOXES without them.
Flagged as Twin Peaks meets The Dry, this is also described as a deliciously dark and twisted tale that unravels a small town.
Voiced in the main by the central character - Marlowe ‘Lo' Robertson, the novel starts out with her being introduced to a Sydney Opera House audience, about to speak about her best selling true crime book ‘The Showgirl's Secret', the account of the tragic death of her friend in their small NSW town, around seven years before.
Lo was a 22 year old journalist intern at the local paper when she found Lily's body in the stables at the showground, on the night of the local show. The place is teeming with locals, and carnival workers, and Lily was the winner of that year's Showgirl contest. Lo was there to photograph her and write a special story for the newspaper, or so she thought. But Lily ran, obviously scared by something to do with the Ghost Train, captured for a fleeting moment by Lo's camera, not long before she was found dead. Strangely, in a sinister way, as opposed to a keeping vital evidence quiet way, Lo's father, the local police chief, is particularly concerned to make sure that Lo doesn't mention some symbols carved into Lily's back. But that's nothing compared to the shock she gets when, after being given Lily's journals, it appears that there were reasons some of the towns most prominent citizens, including her own father, might have wanted Lily dead.
Long story short, we're talking a very bizarre and nasty cult operating in this small town. Despite the fact that one of the local carnival workers is charged with Lily's murder, there's something threatening and very disturbing about the cult behaviour and Lo's determined to get to the bottom. Or is she?
Lo's voice is everything in this novel. It's well drawn too - starting out with her being funny, slightly odd, brave, and seemingly sure of her path. She was raised by her dad after the death of her mother, and there are lots of references back to that death, and the story around it. As with everything here though, nothing is really as it seems, and there's heaps of ambiguity, odd behaviour and slowly eroded trust, something that seems to matter more because of the smallness of the town. There's also a past history of bullying behaviour and homophobia and everything that you'd sadly expect from that timeframe and that sort of location. But there's also something edgy about Lo herself. There are suggestions she's suffering from PTSD, she muses she's some sort of psychopath, inwardly contemplates suicide at one point, she's never been quite right after the death of her mother. There are lots of hints that her narration may not be trustworthy, that she's not as “nice” or as “perfect” as she appears, it's subtle, clever at points, the author handles these aspects reasonably well.
There's also a very clever manipulation of place going on here as well - the use of a small town, externally pretty, a holiday location, that's controlling, dark, possibly corrupt. It's a town where insiders have plenty of things that they would prefer were kept private, covered-up.
Whilst many of the twists and turns in CATCH US THE FOXES really worked, some of them were considerably less convincing. There were so many stereotypes and cliches that it felt like checklist material. The creepy psychologist; the flamboyant gay man; the pushy journalist; the decidedly Stepford wives feel about many of the women, including Lily's own mother; the over-reaching reasons for the symbols engraved on Lily's back; aspects of the cult and their very weird rituals. It all sort of got a bit... over the top ...
Culminating in an ending to the novel that threw everything you could possibly have thought was coming out an unopened window, and you can see how it will create a bit of “will work for some readers / will drive others utterly bats” controversy. I'm really struggling with this ending - a while after finishing the novel, the more I think about it, the more conflicted I'm getting. I've got no problem at all with the idea that twists and turns can happen right up until the last minute when unreliable becomes downright nasty and everything comes down to something very base and venal but... I'm still not sure if it just didn't ring true, feasible, possible, or even vaguely likely; or did it feel less psychopath, more after-thought? Having said that, we're talking a plot that's all about a weird cult in a country town, dreadful things happening to young girls and people behaving badly, ridiculously, horribly everywhere you turn, so under those circumstances, why not a thumping great weird turn of events at the end.
CATCH US THE FOXES is one of those novels that I can't help thinking is going to have a very big, wide your mileage variation factor about it, and one I can't help thinking is going to make it onto bookclub lists in the not too distant future.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/catch-us-foxes-nicola-west
Not your average challenge this: “why not base a large part of your next crime fiction novel around the story of a disappearing camel”. Then set it in a Victorian seaside town, with some tenuous connections to a murder victim discovered along the Murray. Luckily Dorothy Johnston seems to be made of stern stuff and great skill as she has taken this most unlikely scenario and created a page turner in THROUGH A CAMEL'S EYE that, frankly, was a standout read.
Introducing two new characters - local man, long-time cop Constable Chris Blackie; and blow-in from Melbourne, rookie recruit Anthea Merritt, this book is a brilliant combination of personal and professional, character and plot, menace and mundane. Blackie's love of gardening, and the restrained manner in which he lives a life seems unbearably limited to his big city rookie sidekick. Merritt, on the other hand, battling a doomed romance with a bloke who frankly comes across as an utter prat, feels that this move to the seaside is a necessary, but unwelcome step in a career that she intends pushing places. Driven and slightly snippy, she's instantly astounded by small-town policing. Be it Blackie's careful maintenance of the police station rose garden, through to the way that everybody knows everyone and everything, and the most mundane deserves attention, Merritt's the picky, easy to arouse one; Blackie's the quieter, sanguine one. In reality, neither of them are all that happy with the way that life is panning out.
Set in the real-life town of Queenscliff on the Bellarine Peninsula in southern Victoria, the sea is a constant throughout this novel. Whether it's the danger (Constable Blackie's father drowned in a pilot-boat accident), or the calm of the processional cargo ships moving through the channel to and from the major port in Melbourne. The setting reflects the two main character's own personality traits, and personal battles - calm, wild, windy, sunny - and it's elegantly presented as a comparison and a companion. It's that style of comparison, and controlled, almost understated style in the writing of THROUGH A CAMEL'S EYE that makes it immersion reading. Right down to the presentation of a missing camel as something that deserves proper investigation and a resolution. Even at the same time as a connection between the town and the discovery of a woman's body on the Murray - close to where she came from, unfurls into something that again, seems perfectly reasonable to investigate, and the only sensible approach to take. Even if the connection seems innocuous and unimportant to many.
The inclusion of Riza the camel works beautifully as a catalyst for reaction. You can feel the distress of Riza's trainer Julie, faced with the loss of her lifeline, and stabilising influence, to say nothing of the terror of what could have happened to her beloved animal. For Camilla, cut off by the inexplicable loss of her voice, the camel becomes an outward focus, something to rouse interest in a life that's been inward and timid for a long time. Add to that the reactions of the farmer whose paddock the camel was kept in, the young boys in the town who have their own involvement with the camel's welfare and you end up with not just a rallying point, but a reason to search for this animal that makes sense. It might make a young city cop think that small town policing is going to be underwhelming, but there's an issue of community as well as animal welfare here that Blackie knows is as important as working through the discovery of a dead woman's coat in the sand dunes.
Whilst some of the “who done it” is going to be easy to made educated guesses about, THROUGH THE CAMEL'S EYE really is exploring the why. Why somebody kills, why somebody steals, why sometimes ending up in the last place you thought you'd be happy, actually works for you. It's also very much about small town life, with all it's foibles annoyances and strengths. It's a character study, wrapped up in a police procedural, with a very strong sense of place, and, one would hope, a long-term future as a series.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-through-camels-eye-dorothy-johnston
Having really enjoyed the first Jack Susko book, A DEADLY BUSINESS, it was music to my ears to find that the second book was on its way. THE BLACK RUSSIAN sees not just the return of Jack - but the return of all of Jack's problems - financial and personal.
In THE BLACK RUSSIAN Jack somehow or other manages, yet again, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Attempting to scrape up some much needed cash, he's doing a special delivery of an old art catalogue when the gallery he has just walked into is held up by a couple of masked thieves. Masked, yet there's something somewhere in the back of Jack's minds that is ringing bells about one of those gunmen. Beyond that, much more importantly, the thieves also pinched a rare first edition from his bag. So it's personal.
One of the fun things about the accidental detective genre is the way in which the author has to set up a scenario for our hero to get himself into trouble in. I love the inventive methods that so many of our authors use to come up with something that just seems so feasible - as long as you don't spend too much time wondering why your average accidental detective just doesn't lick their wounds and go home and feed the cat! Jack's detecting skills are still very much from the “poke around and make yourself unpopular school” but he does it with such aplomb (okay well he bumbles around with intent) that it's not only believable, it's frequently quite hilarious.
Part of the attraction of both of these books is the stereotypes, delivered with a dead pan Australian sensibility and wit. In THE BLACK RUSSIAN, the hero is beaten, threatened, put upon, abused and mistreated. The villains are, well villainous - menacing, threatening and sinister, surrounded by lots of big, dumb and violent sidekicks. The girls are gorgeous, dangerous, mad and not to be trusted under any circumstances. The cat is aloof. The settings evocative and fresh and clear - you can see the slightly dowdy look of Susko Books, you can hear the off engine notes of the beaten up cars. The dialogue is frequently funny and Jack does a great line in wise-cracking commentary, lines that definitely have their roots in the hard-bitten, hard-boiled Noir heroes of earlier days.
THE BLACK RUSSIAN is great fun, and very well done, and something that surely should make your average reader rush out to the bookshops for a copy. (Perhaps incorporate a search through the nearby second-hand bookshop on the way home, just in case there's a real-life Jack lurking around in there, contemplating a risk just to make a living).
I always think of these books as Jane Austen meets Crime Fiction. Which is probably somewhere between extremely unfair and absolutely acceptable depending on your own particular point of view. LAST NOCTURNE is from author Marjorie Eccles - who is best known in these parts for the Gil Mayo series, which was made into a short TV series that became quite a favourite.
Whilst Grace Thurley's decision to break off her engagement to a rather pompous local man secretly pleases her mother, moving to London to take up the position of paid companion and secretary to Dulcie Martagon is regarded slightly more sceptically. Dulcie has been recently widowed, when her art gallery owning husband Eliot seemingly committed suicide. Whilst there's nothing immediately suspicious about the death of Martagon, why a supposedly contended, slightly conventional man would have taken such extreme action makes no sense to anybody. What makes even less sense is the suspected suicide of an up and coming young artist, whose only connection to Martagon seems to be the exhibition of his paintings in Martagon's gallery. As Inspector Lamb digs it seems that young Theo Benton's death isn't so easily written off as suicide. Meanwhile a connection to Vienna and the mysterious widow of independent means Isobel Amberly indicates that all was not as it seemed in Eliot Martagon's life, regardless of what his widow may think.
Set in 1909 this is a very classically styled tale with a lot of traditional elements. The son, Guy Martagon has to fall for the quietly competent paid companion Grace, although the romance doesn't get going until much later in the book. The young daughter of the household has to be a little bit of a tear-away at some stage. Dulcie Martagon has to be just a little bit not quite right for her station in life and poor Eliot has to be, well poor Eliot I guess. There are some twists from the expected though, and the reader is taken into the life of Eliot, in particular, his time in Vienna as well as that of Louise Amberly. The police investigation into the deaths runs alongside the various family machinations until all is revealed.
There's just a little touch of spice, although nothing risky or questionable for readers who prefer things on the slightly more chaste side, but overall the book has quite a feeling of the time and society in which it is set. Having said that, this is not my preferred sort of reading fare, and I will confess I struggled enormously with the predictability of much of the ancillary story lines - the romance and the high and mighty attitude of Dulcie come to mind immediately. But that's very much a personal reaction and I suspect that readers who are not adverse to a little romance will find the intrigue around Eliot's life extremely satisfying. Add to that a little feeling of the tensions and difficulties of Vienna in that period of history and this could be just the book for fans of this sort of historical crime fiction.
THE LONG GLASGOW KISS is the second book from Craig Russell featuring Lennox, Canadian raised, returned soldier, Private Investigator who dances a fine line between the law and the gangsters. Glasgow in the 1950's is controlled by the Three Kings, dangerous men who have divided up the spoils of organised crime and negotiated a sort of working relationship. It goes without saying that they don't trust each other, and Lennox often finds himself caught up in the middle. But Lennox is one of those lone-wolf; act first, think later; never take a step backwards sort of characters - somehow perfect for post-war, gloomy and complicated Glasgow.
Of course there's lots of lone wolf style characters in crime fiction and it's hard to avoid stereotypes, but Lennox does add his own particular flavour to things. A little unlucky in love, it's more that he doesn't really try that hard - rather than constantly being used and abused. Okay, so when he's deep in act first, think later mode he's very inclined to get beaten up - and to hand out a few thumpings of his own. Often he's dancing that fine line between the law enforcers and the law forcers, but with Lennox is less Quick Step and more The Stomp. And he does have a tendency to bite off a bit more than he can chew - in this case too many simultaneous investigations. He's been hired to look for a missing brother, heavied into working out what's going on with a prominent boxer and sort of “johnny on the spotted” into searching for the killer of Jimmy MacFarlane - father of his current, well girlfriend's probably too strong a word for the sort of relationship they have.
In order to pull off this workload Lennox uses an interesting combination of help on the side from all sides, a bit of adroit juggling of time and focus, a bit of luck, and a lot of his favourite method of investigation - the “poke something with a very big stick” and see what bites back method. And that's part of the reason why I really like these Lennox books. There's an absolute honesty to the way that Lennox works - part who you know / part what you know / part knowing who knows what you don't know / part who you can annoy until they spit the dummy and reveal more than they intended. He works the streets, the people, his friends and his foes with adroitness, but at the same time there's a basic decency and loyalty about the man that really fits not just his persona but the time and place. A fundamental loyalty that sits well on the shoulders of a man with a past, who is struggling a lot with what his future will be.
Because of the timeframe of the books you can forget computers and mobile phones. We're talking shoe leather and phone boxes. Because of the location we're talking dark, and gloomy. Glasgow is still very much in the thrall of the Second World War, partially because so many of its denizens are also still struggling with the reality of war, and the deprivations afterwards. We are also given a glimpse into a future of drugs and international influences which don't bode well for anyone. Now I'm waiting patiently for the next book because you just can't help wondering what's going to happen to the kingdom of the Three Kings, and where Lennox goes from here.
Josephine Pennicott has written three dark fantasy novels, and won three Scarlet Stiletto Awards from the Sisters in Crime Australia, so it's no surprise that her latest offering, POET'S COTTAGE has a little of the sensibility of both genres.
Set in the small, fictional town of Pencubbit in Tasmania, POET'S COTTAGE is really a story about generational memory. Sadie, and her teenage daughter move to Poet's Cottage after Sadie's mother Marguerite dies. The house, childhood home to Marguerite and her older sister Thomasina, and their parents Pearl and Maxwell is also the place where Pearl was brutally murdered. Pearl was a children's writer, an eccentric and erratic woman, capable of profoundly shocking behaviour particularly in that time and that place, remembered very differently by her two daughters - Marguerite with affection, Thomasina with loathing.
Sadie returns to her mother's childhood home to write a book about her grandmother, to uncover the truth of her death, to recover from her own divorce and grief at the death of her mother. Along the way she finds why Thomasina loathed the mother that Marguerite loved, and why the locals were so shocked and scandalised by Pearl.
The book moves backwards and forwards between the time of Pearl's life and her antics and the current day. The conduit for much of this movement is Birdie Pinkerton. Childhood friend and then long-time lover of Maxwell after Pearl's death, Birdie is still alive, albeit nearly 100. Her connection is multi-part. She was part of Pearl and Maxwell's circle during the time that they lived in Poet's Cottage, part of Maxwell's life post Pearl and the writer of an earlier book about Pearl that was part of what set Sadie on her path. She still lives in Pencubbit and has a connection with the town, the architecture and the people that is informed by her interest as a historian, and also because she has been there for such a significant period of time.
I understand that part of the plot line of POET'S COTTAGE was inspired by the story of children's author Enid Blyton, whose own daughters have conflicting opinions on Blyton as a mother. Whilst that might be an inspiration, the process of revealing the reason for the differences is interesting in this book, and Thomasina, who still lives in the vicinity, is a complex portrayal both in childhood and as an adult. In fact there are a lot of vaguely unpleasant characters littered throughout the book - some of whom go onto be revealed as maybe just a little misunderstood, some of whom remain unrepentant.
POET'S COTTAGE was a most unexpected reading experience, and one of the problems with writing a review of a book like this is avoiding revealing much of the detail - as this is a very detailed, complicated but extremely readable story. It is really less about solving any mystery around who murdered Pearl, although that is eventually revealed, but more about 4 generations of women in the family, and the women and to a lesser extent, the men, around them. The concentration is very much on the worlds that those women inhabit. Influenced by war, judged by society norms within all the generations, tempered by the isolation and tightness of a small community, connected to each other via flawed and accurate family recollection, POET'S COTTAGE uses a lot of threads to build a beautifully woven story.
Since finishing THE DARKEST HOUR I've been trying to think of another author who uses such an unusual protagonist's viewpoint of violent crime. I can't, which simply could be my aging brain, or it could be that Howell is looking at violence from an angle that not many have first hand experience of.
THE DARKEST HOUR is Katherine Howell's second book - the first - FRANTIC - was a tremendous debut and she's followed up with another tight, taut and suspenseful book, using parallel viewpoints which almost become plotlines in their own right. THE DARKEST HOUR reintroduces Detective Ella Marconi who shares the limelight this time with paramedic Lauren Yates. Lauren is the ambulance officer called to a series of violent deaths that Marconi is investigating. Unfortunately for Marconi, Lauren Yates knows a lot more about the killer than she's prepared to divulge - frightened for her family and herself by the violent and menacing Thomas Werner.
Less of a mystery as the killer is clearly identified at the start of the books, THE DARKEST HOUR is a thriller in styling, as Marconi tries to identify the killer, that Lauren is only too aware of. Both women find themselves personally threatened and frightened, although unaware of each other's position. Lauren's life is further complicated by her relationship with her working partner - Joe - and the affect this is having on his fiancé.
Whilst it is undoubtedly the difference in viewpoint that make THE DARKEST HOUR (and FRANTIC before it) such fascinating books, there needs to be more to it than just that. And there is. THE DARKEST HOUR provides an overwhelming sense of menace, interwoven with a real sense of the life, in particular, of a paramedic. The complications of potential romance with a work colleague, the exhaustion of a bruising work schedule, the difficulty in talking about the awful things that are seen on a day to day basis, are all very starkly drawn in THE DARKEST HOUR and they really serve to make, in particular, Lauren feel very real. That's not to say that Ella is not a well developed character in her own right - with the problem of what to do with elderly and ailing parents, and the pressure that comes with being a daughter in those circumstances.
THE DARKEST HOUR is definitely up to the same standard as the first book and it's very pleasing to know that Katherine Howell is currently working on a third novel.
Before we get started here, a bit of housekeeping. Because the covers on the versions of the 4 books in the Madeleine Brooks series I received caused a bit of confusion on my part, the order is:
DEATH IN COLD WATERS
DEATH AT CHERRY TREE MANOR
DEATH AT VALLEY VIEW COTTAGE
DEATH IN LACHMORE WOOD
Reading this series in order, Madeleine Brooks goes from being a married Senior Probation Officer with a pain in the rear boss, a teenage daughter, and an ungrateful husband who turns out to be a philandering bastard into the bargain; to a real-estate agent in rural England, with a fresh beginning and an uncanny ability to discover mysteries at every new listing.
In the first book - DEATH IN COLD WATERS - there is a lot of build up to the ultimate change in career that's the main focus in the other three (this is most definitely a series that needs to be read in order). The case at the heart of this book is that of a long-term probationer who has been returned to prison on suspicion of murdering a child. Despite there being a lot of similarities between the new accusations, and the crime that sent him to prison in the first place, Maddie's not convinced, and a work suspension by a revengeful and idiot boss, means that she's got the time and energy she needs to find out what happened in the earlier case, and why her client's been accused again. Heaps of set up here for the ongoing series, lots of personal as well as professional angst but definitely one for fans of the mildly annoyed, very put upon, style of female amateur investigator (although to be honest why she tolerated as much as she did without going postal on at least the ex-husband's derriere I'll never understand).
Getting into the second book in the series, DEATH AT CHERRY TREE MANOR, you get a real feel for the character Madeleine Brooks, who is one of those very chatty, middle-aged-woman-whose-husband-has-turned-out-to-be-a-bastard types, with the styling being on the cosy side. In this outing, Maddie has left the aforementioned husband, and her job, and started up as a real estate agent in the English country side. An interesting idea here, with a grand old house intended for sale, only the owner is an elderly woman who just vanished one night. The seller is also the believed inheritor of the property, which means not just prepping and selling, but establishing the heir's right to sell - which leads to investigating his great-aunt's disappearance. Along with the trials of establishing yourself as a newly separated woman (with a drain on resources ex-husband) there's a LOT of real-estate chat in this one. Perhaps a bit too much because I kept struggling to keep track of the alleged victim, and where we were all heading. Having said that, it's very much in the cosy style as already mentioned, and could very well be just the ticket for fans of that sub-genre.
The third book, DEATH AT VALLEY VIEW COTTAGE, sees Maddie more established as a successful real-estate agent, officially an ex-wife, although her latest listing comes via a recommendation from her ex-husband. There's something very suspicious about the owner of this recently renovated cottage though, and Maddie's left wondering what exactly her ex is up to as well as the owner. Nothing compared to what happens when a body is found in a shallow grave at the cottage. Still hefty amounts of real-estate chatter, but you can see very clearly now where this series is heading, and how Maddie is growing into her new life.
The fourth book is DEATH IN LACHMORE WOOD. In this outing things have gotten very messy, with three deaths, and a childhood friend in shock and struggling. Peggy Fox has just lost her daughter and son-in-law in a car accident, leaving her with custody of her four-year-old grandson, sole survivor of the crash. Days later her ex-husband dies of a drug overdose, whilst her grandson's paternal grandfather, a very wealthy, abrupt almost rude sort of a man, offers to buy a house with garden for Peggy to raise young Leo in. When the police decide that Peggy's ex-husband was actually murdered, things get even more complicated, and Maddie goes from real-estate agent, and friend, to investigator. This outing had a really interesting plot idea at the core of it, complicated without being overly complex, tangled and very believable. Perhaps because there was much to be considered in the plot, the real-estate info dump took a backseat, and the balance of this novel seemed to work a lot better than the middle two.
Madeleine Brooks is a character that's going to appeal to fans of cosy mysteries with a bit of bite, and a leaning towards older women back out there, re-establishing their lives after a marriage breakdown. There is now a fifth book in the series as well - DEATH AT THE OLDE WOODLEY GRANGE, so if you like this series, you've got quite a few books to be getting on with.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/death-cold-waters-death-cherry-tree-manor-death-valley-view-cottage-death-lachmore-wood
Journalist Katherine Firkin has written her debut crime novel, inspired, according to the blurb, by the many criminal trials she has covered. You can't help but spare a thought for the sorts of things trial attendees have to sit through when finishing STICKS AND STONES.
It's difficult not to assume that this is intended as the beginning of a series, particularly as there's quite a hefty dose of personal and back story here, and for quite a while, readers might be a bit confused about who the central character is intended to be: recently promoted Head of the Missing Persons Unit, DSC Emmett Corban or his wife who is struggling to return to work after experiencing severe post natal depression.
Overall, there's a lot of characters being introduced, and some complicated scenarios playing out in the early stages of this novel and readers may find keeping track of who is who, or working out the parts they will all play a bit overwhelming. Alongside the personal trials of Corban, his wife, their child, her job, her Svengali-like mentor and their relationship, there are a series of rapidly introduced police colleagues and some backstory to Corban's career. Then there's the disappearance of a young woman who didn't turn up to her invalid brother's birthday party, a young mother and wife who dropped her kids at vacation activities and vanished. The first has an overtly anxious brother looking for her, the second an angry and overbearing husband so there are suspects galore and not a lot of leads even when a body shows up.
At this point the head of Missing Persons becomes a homicide investigator and frequent followers of crime fiction may find themselves pausing to consider how that bit of procedural overrule gets ushered through, but stay with it.
It's a testament to the power of the storytelling here that a plot that rapidly becomes a bit unwieldy and felt over populated with people, suspects, sidelines and byways, still mostly engages the reader. There's some hefty work going on to introduce a character and his backstory, and as this novel involves a serial killer with his own past, there was some work involved in getting a glimpse into his mindset. The only way, these days, that a peek inside the serial killer's viewpoint can contribute positively, is if it provides insight, or illumination. Just doing it for menace sake doesn't really cut it anymore, and with that in mind, this viewpoint did provide some explanation of the way that this damaged mind worked.
Having said all of that, STICKS AND STONES is a debut, and it's telegraphing much in the way of potential, especially from the viewpoint of Missing Person's, and that does suggest the happy prospect of Corban and his colleagues returning to the field.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/sticks-and-stones-katherine-firkin
Despite constantly “bragging” that we live about an hour from just about anywhere... it does mean that every trip in the car do to anything takes a while. We've recently turned to audio books to fill in the hours of dodging kangaroos and potholes and the most recent that we've been listening to is DEAD MAN'S CHEST by Kerry Greenwood. Number 18 (good grief.. really!) of the Phyrne Fisher series, the audio version is read particularly well by Stephanie Daniel who does an excellent job of individual accents for each of the characters - and there is a lot of characters in this book, many of them are new to the series.
That is probably because Phryne, companion Dot, daughters Ruth and Jane and dog Molly are on holidays in Queenscliff having to deal with missing servants, cleared out pantries, lost dogs, no cook or kitchen maid, an errand boy, surrealists on one side and a rather overbearing lady and her son and his rather nasty friends on the other, a mean old lady over the road who watches everything, her companion and... well lots of things really.
DEAD MAN'S CHEST is classic Phryne Fisher, albeit without a few of the normal extended household from Melbourne - but with the nice additions of some quite colourful locals to keep the story moving. The sub-plot of this book is the phantom hair snipper terrorising the young ladies of Queenscliff by sneaking up behind them and pinching their plaits - who eventually seems to be involved in something much more violent. But the main plot is the missing cook and butler from the house in which Phryne's family are holidaying. This normally reliable, staid and serious couple just don't seem the sort to up and disappear - particularly not the sort to leave their much loved little dog behind. Phryne investigates, Ruth gets her long held desire to be a cook, Jane finds a library full of books, and the possibility of smuggling and other nefarious goings on brings Dot's much loved policeman fiancé to town so everyone is happy.
As light entertainment, particularly willing away the hours on the road, Phryne Fisher books work well. There are enough touches of humour to keep the driver and passenger's awake and involved in the story, the stories aren't the most taxing of plots to follow so occasional interruptions when not driving aren't the end of the world and the antics of everyone in Phyrne's family keep your interest no matter how long it takes to work your way through the book.
Phyrne Fisher books are not my normal reading fare - but we've found that as audio with the wonderful reading style of Stephanie Daniel and the excellent production from Bolinda Books - they are becoming increasingly popular car listening.
I used to read a few cosies, although I was never totally addicted. But I've always been a huge fan of the quirky, odd and the just ever so slightly bats. Colin Watson, Charlotte MacLeod have been favourites for years. I'm adding Pierre Magnan to the list now.
Originally published in French in the late 70's, DEATH IN THE TRUFFLE WOOD was translated into English around 2005. There are a number of books in this series featuring Commissaire Laviolette, although I don't think Roseline makes an appearance in any of the others. Roseline is a truffle hunting pig, and a creature that has made me pine for a pet pig in a way that you simply would not think is possible. Mind you, I never thought I'd want a dachshund either, but this book made me rethink that as well.
On the outskirts of the small village of Banon, a group of outsiders have established a small hippie community. As they start to disappear Commissaire Laviolette is sent to investigate, but nobody is prepared for the discovery in the freezer of a local hotel, when a wedding party is trapped by snow and extra food is called for. (Obviously the freezer would just have to be replaced!)
Soon Roseline is leading the police to a cache of more bodies, and forensic assistance is reluctantly called upon.
It's going to seem an odd thing to say, what with bodies littering hotel freezers and family vaults, but there was something really joyous about reading DEATH IN THE TRUFFLE WOOD. Refreshingly down to earth, quirky, almost tongue in cheek in some places, and just plain funny, DEATH IN THE TRUFFLE WOOD draws a vivid picture of small village life and the wonderfully individualistic people that all so frequently inhabit those places. Perhaps it is partially because of that setting, but there's no feeling of the story and the environment being dated - it's easy for the reader to assume that village life continues in that manner now, and as far back into the past as you want to imagine. Along with the murders, there's a fabulous outline of the clash of cultures - the villagers and their quiet existence, the outsiders and the effect that they have. Definitely a book for readers who are looking for something light, fun and just that little bit slightly bats!
Ray Moody is washed up. He drinks too much and won't look after himself. He's separated from his wife (it's more complicated than that), living in the house that her family still pays for and he's got a full time pre-occupation with separating himself from his career. So explaining the double disappearance of Blanca Nul in small-town New Zealand becomes his quest, as well as an excellent way of pretending that the meltdown that is his own life isn't happening.
BLUE HOTEL is darkest crime noir. It takes place in old fashioned newsrooms, questionable newsagencies, seedy bars, S&M clubs and cars. It's as New Zealand-as, but it's not. Moody is as New Zealand-as, but he's not. He's a lone wolf by personal preference, a private investigator for distraction purposes, and equal parts good bloke / absolute waster. The reader is free to choose which applies at many many points in the story.
Styled as a traditional private eye, noir story, the backstory of Moody, and his wife in particular, reveal themselves as he doggedly pursues a really odd disappearance. In 1987, leather-clad (in not the right weather for that sort of attire) tourist Blanca Nul walks out of a small-town bar in quiet rural New Zealand and vanishes. Moody gets a lead on her past life as a porn model, only to crash his car, lose his job and commence a long, slow life stuff-up adding the recovery from serious injuries to the things he gets wrong. When Blanca is sighted a year after her original disappearance, Moody seizes on this as a way to get, at least, his career back on track. Which the reader will always know is going to tank on him, but how and why might surprise.
Fans of noir are going to enjoy BLUE HOTEL. It's structured exactly as you'd expect of an entry in the genre, and it works in the setting and timeline the author has constructed. Moody is a perfect example of a lone-wolf, seedy, slightly pathetic noir hero (? anti-hero), full of personal angst and questionable decisions, clawing himself precariously towards high-moral ground on occasions, with a decidedly shaky grip all the way.
Loved this book, summed up a lot by this final line from the blurb:
“As he searches for the real story Ray will learn how desperate, damaged and lonely people from all walks of life can be, and that the truth is hard-won and painful.”
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/blue-hotel-chad-taylor
SMOKE & MIRRORS is the second Canberra based novel to feature Australian Federal Policeman Brad Chen. Ex-football star, Chinese extraction, first name Bradman - Chen is not exactly a normal policeman. For a start he's almost constantly injured. He pops pain pills like the rest of us attack the Vitamin C at the first sound of a sniff in winter. He's also - as is the wont of so many fictional protagonists - perpetually unlucky in love, although in SMOKE & MIRRORS he's a real chance for a short time with a couple of elderly ladies who live at the retreat where the bodies of ex-Witlam Minister Alec Dennet and his editor Lorraine Starke are discovered. The murders are just flat out odd - the pair were at the retreat working on Dennet's memoir. But it's been a long time since the Whitlam era and what on earth would Dennet have to reveal that would get him killed. Mind you, how many political assassins undertake their role with an axe. A knife maybe, but the general chaos revealed at the crime scene certainly doesn't seem to add up to an assassination. The manuscript is missing though, and everything seems to be pointing to the cause being something in that book. A bunch of menacing South African's and some blokei in a Fedora seem to point that way even more strongly.
Called back to work despite still convalescing from events at the end of the first book - Dead Set - Chen is instantly very very busy. It's not helped when his Russian study room mate Anna from the University (studying is therapy after the injuries) disappears after a bit of a misunderstanding with Chen's ex-wife. The room mate is actually supposed to be under his protection - along with the lurking South Africans, the Russian Mafia are also not adverse to roughing Chen up.
In SMOKE & MIRRORS Chen's at least got 2 working legs (sort of), although the busted nose, and the battered face are causing him all sorts of problems. Mind you, it all looks like a squad of the walking wounded - his new partner - Constable “Voodoo” Filipowski is lugging around his own set of pain killers and a startlingly well endowed Chihuahua named Bluebell.
SMOKE & MIRRORS is a worthy entrant in the happily increasing list of humorous Australian Crime Fiction. Aside from the use of humour throughout, the reader is treated to an exciting and surprisingly plausible plot - given Robertson's Canberra seems to have Russian Mafia and South African heavies lurking behind every second shrub. The use of the Whitlam era connection was a fascinating plot device - it's been quite a while since 1975 and I, for one, was scrambling for the reference books to try to remember the whys and wherefores of the Dismissal (and the author provides a useful summary at the end of the book into the bargain). The humour is well-pitched and very pointed at points. Okay there are some instances that are obviously inserted for their funny side, as opposed to moving the plot forward, but who cares - it's a book that you read for enjoyment after all.
Certainly reading SMOKE & MIRRORS makes you think of Canberra as somewhat more exotic and edgy than most Australian's would expect, but as long as Brad Chen is in town, we can all rest easy. Sort of. In DEAD SET Kel Robertson showed the characters and storyline had real potential for an ongoing series, and SMOKE & MIRRORS delivers a very strong follow-up. I do hope that Robertson decides to cut Chen a bit of slack in the injury deparment in book number 3. Maybe a dose of hayfever would suffice?
Reviewing true crime books, particularly one that discusses such a recent case, is a complex undertaking. There are obviously people out there for whom this case is still very raw and who are still dealing with the fallout of a violent death and the associated grief and loss.
The attraction of true crime books, for me at least, is the chance to assess the events, understand the reality of crime, and maybe understand why the crime happened. True Crime books often, however, aren't able to explain why. Perhaps because the offender themselves has never clearly said why - perhaps because they are denying culpability, perhaps because they aren't able to explain. Sometimes the why isn't explained because the book identifies flaws in the case against the offender. In WHAT THE MOTHER KNEW the murder of Jody Galante is resolved, in that her husband Mark finally pleaded guilty. For the reader of the book, however, the why isn't so clear. The motivations of her husband Mark aren't clear. His behaviour remains, to the end of the book, slightly enigmatic, something seems slightly odd. You're left deciding if he's just a damaged individual or if he is actually an evil, manipulative man.
The most poignant part of this book (and it's not a particularly comforting read, it's quite disturbing in places), is the affect that this murder had on both Jody and Mark's families. Much of Jody's background, in particular, is revealed pretty starkly - mind you, family in this day and age is a complicated beast and the days of idyllic “Leave it to Beaver” style Happy Families are well behind a great majority of us. But there's something particularly poignant and breathtaking about a girl who has grown up in the not most idyllic circumstances, who came out of that as a basically happy person, who just wanted a family of her own, who ends up shot dead in the bush - the victim of her own husband, who then can't bring himself to clearly say why.
It all seems so pointless, so very very pointless. The murder itself seems utterly pointless, the games played by Mark Galante in trying to prove a mental illness pointless. Continuing to push that line of defence after pleading guilty seems so pointless. A little girl with a dead mother, and a father she'll not see until she is an adult (if at all). A mother who has lost her youngest daughter. A mother and father who have to deal with the reality of loving a son, but never forgiving him for what he did. WHAT THE MOTHER KNEW is a worrying, disquieting, disturbing book. But then crime and the reality of what happens in our society these days should be. It should be read - violence is ultimately so pointless, and WHAT THE MOTHER KNEW is one of the starkest reminders of that that I've read in quite a while.
Book 13 in the Hana Du Rose Mysteries series and boy oh boy do I wish I'd read at least one of the earlier novels as I really struggled to work out what and who and how and why coming in at this point. Young Adult series that moves around the extended Du Rose family as far as I could tell, Phoenix is a strong, fair minded, well-meaning young woman fleeing family conflict, by attending a summer camp full of promise.
A very capable horsewoman she quickly becomes a mix of camp attendee and camp helper, particularly when it comes to some of the younger, less-horsey kids, but when she finds something hidden in a barn near the camp, everything starts to go wrong. Fleeing from one sort of danger, could very well have put her in the path of yet more problems.
I understand that Hana (of the series title) is Phoenix's mother (earlier books in the series have Phoenix as a babe in arms by the looks of the blurbs), and there's something in this outing about her father, and some past conflict but I must have missed what or how that all worked - it seems like a rather complicated family from this viewpoint. Ignoring all of that however was possible, and there's a reasonably good mystery at the heart of this novel to compensate, and despite times when I was wishing for a bit more pace, the resourceful, and caring nature of Phoenix is well executed.
Overall it felt like a realistic example of a young girl who is capable, and kind, and just a little bit doubtful and conflicted. It's undoubtedly a good portrayal for readers of Young Adult fiction to work with, but it's a series that I'd be recommending really strongly that you start somewhere a bit sooner than book 13.
DARK EMPIRE is an historical mystery novel, with at it's core, characters created by Katherine Mansfield:
“Katherine Mansfield created some of literature's most chilling characters, not least Harry Kember and his wife. They seemed out of place among the families enjoying summer holidays at Wellington's Days Bay. Some of the women at the Bay thought that one day Harry would commit a murder.”
I have to confess I had to look up Katherine Mansfield's character Harry Kember, and found amongst other entries THE GARDEN PARTY AND OTHER STORIES, which I'd totally and utterly forgotten about - in it Kember and his wife show many of the character traits that Horrocks has reflected in DARK EMPIRE.
Standing alone as a novel in its own right, DARK EMPIRE is the story of Kember's control of Wellington New Zealand's criminal underworld, told with some pertinent photographs from the time incorporated. An expose of fraud and criminality in high places, if nothing else this novel serves as a reminder that nothing much ever seems to change when it comes to corruption, influence and crime.
It's an interesting twist on crime novel stylings though, and obviously a lot of research has gone into this work. At times it did read a lot more like an essay than a crime novel, with elements that came across as a recitation of facts and therefore a little flat in this context, but overall a readable reminder of how little things change in so many ways.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/dark-empire-john-horrocks
About 3/4's of the way into BARRENJOEY ROAD, in the week starting 15th March 2021, I did wonder if it was possible to physically explode from rage whilst simultaneously feeling so desperately desperately sad that so many young women have been raped, and sometimes murdered in this country, and it constantly looks like nobody in authority gives a shit. (And honestly, if you're going to get all po-faced over a bit of language in a review of an account of an appalling travesty of justice in this country (in a long list of appalling travesties of justice against women, people with disability and people of colour), then my timeline is not the place for you.)
Because, frankly, the true story behind BARRENJOEY ROAD is rage inducing, it's infuriating to the point of making you swear loudly and insistently, rant, seethe and frankly question everything and everybody.
It's not just the desperately tragic story of young Trudie Adams, who disappeared one night, never to be seen or heard of again. A young woman simply enjoying a night out, doing the sorts of things that all young women in that day and age did (as did I). It's the story of countless young women who were abducted and raped, yet the prosecution for sexual assault that the police bought to court was one where the victim was a young man. It's the story of two potential offenders identified and then just seemingly filed in the who gives a shit basket, until years later some cops did their jobs and were given the resources to do so. But by then it was too late. The evidence that was initially dismissed, discarded (left lying around in a clearly described crime scene in the bush for god's sake), or just flat out ignored... The multiple identifications of perpetrators that were just ignored... The obviousness of timelines of offender presence and absence in the area, versus abductions and rapes... It would be gobsmacking if we all didn't know exactly what was going on here.
Divided into three sections, BARRENJOEY ROAD starts out with Part One - covering the disappearance of Trudie Adams and the story into the investigation of that. Part Two gets into the background of the prime suspect, and Part Three covers a plethora of cases that fit patterns around Adams disappearance and the inquest into that. There is some attempt to explain the issues with resourcing and certainly individual police had made attempts to look into the suspected murder of Trudie Adams, but really, the blasé manner in which a truly staggering number of abductions and rapes were regarded is utterly unforgivable. It does, however, provide a perfect example of why so many women don't even bother reporting sexual assault. The victim blaming that went on is staggering, the disregard palpable, the entitlement breathtaking. Then there's the police corruption - and whilst it could be argued this is also the story of a single cop who managed to cover up a lot of (mostly non-related) crimes by one man, it's also the story of a police force that didn't police its own.
Inspired by the Walkley Award-shortlisted #1 podcast and acclaimed ABC TV series, this is one of those true crime books that's really hard reading because of the subject matter. It's also particularly illuminating that there's an entire section devoted to the main suspect, with a record that goes back to his childhood, and so much known about him. Yet on the victim's, and the impact of the crimes ... so little. So depressingly, tellingly little. It's distressing, rage inducing and it's books like this that remind you it bloody well has to stop.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/barrenjoey-road-neil-mercer-ruby-jones
THE MURDER FARM was one of the books that I purposely read as I was seeing the author at a Melbourne Writers Festival session. I actually picked it up to take on the train in with me - a journey of just on an hour in total. I can't remember the last time I was tempted to stay on the train and keep reading because a book was so good, but this book definitely tempted me to do so.
Based on true events, but with a different timeframe and a resolution (the true crime remains unsolved), THE MURDER FARM covers the brutal killing of an entire family. The family live on a small farm, on the outskirts of a small farming community, the place is quiet and enclosed and vaguely claustrophobic. The family themselves are also quiet, enclosed and vaguely claustrophobic - they are outsiders from the rest of the community. The father - Old Danner is a nasty piece of work, his wife devoutly religious and very standoffish, his daughter has a bit of a reputation. There are lots of rumours about the parentage of her son - as her husband ran off years ago.
The style of the book is unusual and it works unbelievably well. The story of the killings is slowly intertwined with “witness statements” - testimony of neighbours, workers and people in and around the area in the time leading up to the discovery of the bodies. The killer's own story is told - partly as his own testimony, partly in prayer. Time and time again, the style of the book has the author taking the reader almost to the edge - almost to the point where you can see who the killer is, and time and time again you're whipped back. Time and time again I thought I knew, but I wasn't quite sure. Ultimately, it is one of those books that has such a fabulously creepy, scarey, sobering, disquieting affect on the reader. It's voyeuristic. It's distressing that you're so close to these people. It's odd that you know that the killer must be from that quiet, claustrophobic little community - is probably one of the witnesses whose words you are reading.
When Andrea signed my copy of the book, she asked me where I was up to - I wasn't quite at the point where I knew for sure who the killer was. Her inscription was “I hope you like the killer, too.” I did. I liked how the killer was revealed, and, for some strange reason in a book that absolutely enthralled, that was potentially disturbing and actually quite brutal, I liked the person as well.
All right, all right. All those people who know me personally can stop snorting with laughter. The idea of me and a book about the love of shoes doesn't work. We all know that. Now if it had been hats, well maybe. But shoes. I've never seen the point - you've only got one pair of feet after all, and there's nowhere that a reasonably clean Blundstone can't take you if you look like you might bite back.
But I digress.
LIFE, LAW AND NOT ENOUGH SHOES is a memoir from Judith - a top criminal barrister and Associate Professor in Forensics in Western Australia. But this isn't a soul searching, deeply reflective consideration of a life lived. It's a light-hearted and sometimes tantalisingly capricious memoir that recounts some stories.
It's what I'd call a “queue book”. Perfect to tuck into a handbag for a bit of a light read when you have a few moments, the stories range from a few very brief peeks at life as a single mother - struggling to study, through to some of the cases that Judith has been involved with, and finally into some of the outcomes of her change to a career in academia.
Most of the sections of this book wander around from subject to subject and they are quite brief. It needs to be read as a retelling of tales, yarns, a story that you'd tell a mate over a glass or two of something. As already mentioned, it's not deep, it's not soul searching and it doesn't provide a lot of detail on how a woman goes from a single mother of 4 with very little in the way of prospects to the heights of the criminal barrister world in Perth, through to becoming an Associate Professor. In fact it makes absolutely no attempt to really discuss anything in any depth. I would have loved to have know a little more about some of the cases and the defendents that Judith has worked for, but these are real cases, about real people and those people have a right to their privacy (and in some cases what dignity they can muster). I understand extra detail could have been difficult, and ultimately this probably wasn't what the book was aiming for. For what it is, a bit of light entertainment, it was really enjoyable.
But I really have to clarify:
“There the glitterati dispose of their once-worn Chanels, Diors, Tods, Pradas, Guccis, and most importantly Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos. [Note to males reading this section: ask a woman, any woman and she will tell you the significance of the preceding sentence].”
Don't, please don't, ask this woman. No idea. I mean I understand the words but I have no idea of the significance. If you can't wear it mucking out a chook shed chances are I've never noticed them.
The thing with reading a book like MY LIFE by Roberta Williams seems to be, to me at least, to remember that this isn't “yet another book about the Gangland Wars in Melbourne”. It's a book about a specific person's life. In that I'm not reviewing her life, I'm reviewing a book she wrote.
So I came to this book with a number of requirements in mind - did it feel like an honest portrayal of her life? Was this an attempt to put a positive spin on her involvement with some of the most well-known criminals in recent Melbourne history? How much did she know about what was going on? How does somebody end up in the position that she did?
So, on question one - did this feel like an honest portrayal? Roberta obviously had a difficult childhood, it seems like she was a bit of a wild child. No matter how tough she was, (which trait I would suspect has had a lot to do with her surviving this long), Roberta's childhood wasn't what you'd call normal. Frequently locked out of the house as a young girl (8 years old), in the less than salubrious neighbourhood of Frankston in those days, the fact that she ultimately turned to drugs and drug trafficking could be seen as a bit of positive. A fractious and difficult relationship with her mother, a difficult and deprived physical environment, opportunities that lead you smoothly in the wrong direction, a set of siblings that have come and gone from each other's life since then, we're not talking about normal lives here. Whatever else you may think of Roberta Williams, you have to give her points for her survival instinct. The voice in which the book is written feels very authentic, and that's not just because of the swearing, or a couple of standout moments of settling some scores - there are points in the book where Roberta acknowledges mistakes made, where she says there is nothing glamorous or fabulous about the sort of life she and Carl, in particular were living. Sure there are some aspects that maybe somebody with a different moral compass might find a little odd, perhaps there are areas that were fudged or hedged a little, but all in all, this seemed to this reader at least, like a pretty honest portrayal of a life.
Was this an attempt to put a positive spin on her involvement - overall I'd have to say not overtly. Telling the story of your own life, obviously you're going to have a perspective on things that happen to you. Whether or not that perspective starts out as the truth, or as how you want to see things, is next to impossible to tell. To this reader at least there wasn't so much a reputation restoration going on, as an opportunity to say a few things from her own perspective. Certainly there are elements within the book - such as her reaction to the shooting of Jason Moran at an AusKick function, surrounded by kids, that if the author had been looking for an opportunity for a little reputation restoration, she perhaps would have approached in slightly more sympathetic terms.
In terms of how much she knew about what was going on - this is probably less clear. There are some things that the author openly admits to knowing about, to being involved in - such as early days as a drug trafficker, knowing where the money that was funding their lifestyle was coming from and so on. In terms of the killings, probably less clear, but there is also some indication of how little control she, and probably most of the wives and partners of some of these crims have in these circumstances. Sure they could pack up and leave - to go where? Perhaps this is the only point on which I could draw no obvious conclusions. Sure, once she and her kids were threatened, Roberta started to pull away from life with Carl - but exactly when that happened, what was going on around her at the time, I couldn't get straight in my own mind.
And that leads me straight into how she ended up married to Carl, seemingly in the middle of the biggest gangland war that Melbourne has seen in a long long time. As is so often the way when you start out life badly, life choices aren't your strongest point. Married to a man who beat her, her romance with Carl Williams actually seems to have been a haven. Despite his unfaithfulness, he was a kind man. He was good to her kids, he didn't beat her up, he provided. It must be hard to pack up and walk away from something that maybe the rest of us would be horrified about, but ultimately, to Roberta may have seemed like a safe place to be.
There are elements in Roberta's story that are going to appeal to some readers - her devotion to her children, her loyalty to her man despite all. As I started out saying, this isn't a book about the Gangland wars, but a book about a participant. It gave me some insights into Roberta's life which were sobering. I was relieved that she makes no pretence about the world being glamorous or clever or attractive. I admired the way she acknowledged that there were things in her life that left her feeling embarrassed.
I was constantly reminded, however, of Justice Betty King's answer when I heard her asked what she felt were the main contributors to crime in this society. Paraphrased - lack of education and poverty.
THE SNOW THIEF is set in Tibet, with a Chinese Detective as it's central character, fighting her bosses for permission to look into the mysterious deaths of multiple little boys. It's a story of murder, a serial killer, stalking the entire country, obviously killing to a pattern, but it's also the story of the tensions between Tibet and China and the way that every step could be your last if you offend the wrong people.
Told with what feels like great authority, Carver has created central characters in this novel that draw you into the story, and the place deeply and completely. She declares, in the acknowledgements, that THE SNOW THIEF is a labour of love stemming from a childhood visit, bolstered by numerous returns as an adult. It's a story that's as much about a country under severe external pressure, a people who are desperately trying to hold onto their own identity in the face of overwhelming pressure from a mighty power, as it is the individual stories of Chinese Detective Shan Lia and those around her. Exiled to Tibet after a fall from grace and the death of her beloved husband, stuck in a very strange place, with only her husband's elderly relative, Fang Dongmei for company, there's much to her personal story that's tragic, and very moving.
As is the story, in the opening chapter, of six-year-old twin boys. One of whom, after an important visit to the local monastery, is found dead, from a broken neck, obviously murdered. Shocking enough, but when Shan Lia discovers he is the fifth boy to die of a broken neck in five weeks, she's shattered when rebuffed by her bosses who seem to be desperate to downplay the possibility of a serial killer in the countryside. Only one man, her immediate superior, seems willing to allow an investigation, but even that comes with potential personal cost to Shan Lia, although there's twists and turns, and official interference even there.
Readers with some knowledge of the tension between Tibet and China, the background to the exile of the Dalai Lama, and a bit about the structure of Tibetan Buddhism might be able to work out what the pattern of killings means, and therefore get some idea of the why, how and who. In some ways that's less important than the fact that it's happening, the impact the killings are having on families and communities at the time they are happening, but the chilling bit is more to do with the long-term outlook, the impact that these killings will have for years to come. It's murder with a long, cruel, manipulative viewpoint and all the more sobering because of that.
In particular, the backstory of Shan Lia's marriage is very moving, and the tentative forming of a relationship between the two women, exiled to Tibet through no fault of their own, each with their own grieving to be done, is beautifully done. Atmospheric and gripping THE SNOW THIEF casts light on the political situation between China and Tibet, reflected elegantly in the way that personal relationships work when there are power imbalances as well.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/snow-thief-cj-carver