A rural-crime novel about finding out how to survive and surviving what you find.
In a small country town, an act of revenge causes five lives to collide. Early one Christmas morning, Graeme Sweetapple, a man down on his luck, is heading home with a truck full of stolen steers when he comes across an upended ute that has hit a tree. He is about to get involved with Luke, an environmental protestor who isn’t what he seems; a washed-up local politician, Caroline Statham, who is searching for a sense of purpose, but whose businessman husband seems to be sliding into corruption; and Carson, who is wild, bound to no one, and determined to escape her circumstances.
Into their midst comes Retribution, a legendary horse worth a fortune. Her disappearance triggers a cycle of violence and retaliation that threatens the whole community. As tensions build, they must answer one question: is true retribution ever possible — or even desirable?
Retribution, Richard Anderson
Another entry in the expanding Rural Noir category, it's sometimes hard not to come to these novels with a slight sense of foreboding. The "new big thing" is all too often a marketing ploy - more experienced in the hype than the actuality. Fear not however, RETRIBUTION is a good one, different, unusual and a refreshing twist on crime fiction as a whole. Up front - there's not a human murder to be seen here, although the fate of one animal in particular will not impress those readers from the "don't care what you do to the people, but touch one hair on that animal's head and..." camp. A category I will admit a leaning towards, particularly if there's the slightest sense that animal deaths are gratuitous, for shock value. In this case there's a sinking inevitability about it, but to be honest, the reaction of central character Graeme Sweetapple made up for that in many many ways.
But the book itself. RETRIBUTION is as laid back, disaffected and disarming as they come. The central character is an interesting choice in that you can almost see him flinching from the limelight. He's one of those blokes, last in a long line of farmers where the trickle down effect of kicking small farmers in the head over many generations has finally achieved something. His family farm shrunk to a small holding, his small place in the world supported by a bit of cattle rustling, a bit of horse handling for wealthier "townie" farmers, and a bit of whatever it takes to get you through the day. He's a resourceful, quiet, purposeful sort of a bloke, imbued with ingrained sadness and regret, possessed of enormous ingenuity when it comes, in particular, to the cattle rustling game. There were tricks of the trade revealed in this book that impressed - bald tyres, night time drives without headlights, and best of all a stunt to get around the DNA police that had never ever occurred. A slightly distant character, Sweetapple is a real and very appealing human being.
You can certainly see why he would appeal to young Carson - another local with little desire to move away, and yet an underlying yearning for something that she can't quite describe, but knows damn well is there. The attraction between these two is beautifully understated, underplayed and realistic. There is much here that is bittersweet - content in a way with their lot, never indulging in wool over eyes pretence, it kind of makes sense that when eventually jolted from a sort of life on auto-pilot scenario, there's something slightly haphazard about their response - as determined and utterly understandable as it is.
Add to this mix an incomer with agenda's in all directions, and you've got a catalyst, a nuisance, an explainer, a potential rival, part of a revenge plot and an instigator of one of his own and you've got a firey mix, destined to go pear-shaped no matter how you look at it.
Elegantly written, beautifully evocative of the sense of place, and people in it, Richard Anderson knows that of which he writes. The subtle interplay between incomer and long-time local, the tension between "amateur" farmer with money versus lifelong farmers with affinity for the land and the livestock is nicely done - never preachy, never overt. There's also heaps of social issues from the bush that are drawn out, from those local problems right through to the coal mine activists and the mixed feelings about their activities.
All in all this is good rural-noir. It comes from the place and the people that it's written about and it's got the authority, and the touch that comes from living in the world that it's describing.
Retribution, Richard Anderson
The people in RETRIBUTION come across as quite desultory and disaffected so it’s a relief when they are given a purpose, doomed as it is. Sweetapple, Carson and Luke are struggling to stay focused and it’s a diversion from their own mess when they band together to do some harm and make a stand. Really hesitant to jump on the bandwagon of labelling this work ‘bush noir’ as whilst there’s illegal acts detailed within, RETRIBUTION is not what you might consider a work of crime fiction. This is a drama novel set in the outback and as with most novels with a rural setting, the described environment is all important in framing not just the physical threats and boundaries, but also the potential mental isolation experienced by its characters.
RETRIBUTION drifts along with a sense of quiet desperation, showing how easy it can be to become trapped, either by economic circumstances or as a result of your own lassitude. As with all small towns the residents have that toxic awareness that everyone else knows what they are up to at any given time, and that helps to craft the necessary close and tense atmosphere in this read. There does spring the wish to cattle prod our three leads into being a little more proactive about the mess they’ve found themselves in. Make no mistake, these people are suffocating and floundering for air.
RETRIBUTION is an elegantly written novel that convincingly takes the reader to a place of both great beauty and deep ugliness. The acute observations of Sweetapple about his position in life are piercingly bittersweet, interspersed as they are in a work about what it means to feel trapped and powerless to control your own future. Can see that this book would be a fantastic choice for the all the book clubbers as there is an immense wealth of social issues contained within RETRIBUTION that would make great discussion topics.
RETRIBUTION is the second novel of author and New South Wales cattle farmer Richard Anderson.