When overworked forensic pathologist Nicola Fox arrives for a long-overdue break at her holiday house in Brunswick Heads, on the NSW north coast, she's shocked to discover someone sunbaking on one of the sun lounges in her backyard. And that the sunbaker has been dead for some time.
Rumours soon emerge that the sunbaker took more than a few dark secrets to his grave, secrets many people - and especially the police - were keen to bury. When the arse-covering and finger-pointing begin in earnest, Nicola finds herself a suspect.
New to town, she only knows one person who might be able to save her: Jack Harris, a journalist at the local newspaper, The Beacon. When he begins investigating, the police organised crime unit arrives, and soon they are threatening both him and Nicola, leaving Jack to wonder if it was the police themselves who had committed the crime.
Can Jack uncover who really killed the sunbaker, and why the body was left in the backyard of a forensic pathologist, before the escalating threats to his own wellbeing become more than just threats?
The Sunbaker, P.A. Thomas
The second in the series, THE SUNBAKER is another one of those novels that could be read as a standalone, but add THE BEACON to your reading list anyway. For those that haven't yet had the pleasure, Jack Harris, disgraced son of a "major" media baron, was sidelined to the stable's least important paper - The Beacon - located in Byron Bay which turned into a happy career and personal move in the first novel. Caitlin is the lawyer daughter of the longtime, much admired editor of the paper, who met a very grisly end in that story, and she and Jack teamed up to solve that case, forming a firm friendship with a sprinkling of romantic attachment.
Fast forward to this second novel and Jack's ensconced as a journo in Byron Bay, and Caitlin's moved from her high-powered Sydney based job to work as a legal assistant to a local barrister. A high flyer in his own right, this barrister has some very dodgy clients, not that Caitlin has come across any of them. Fast forward a bit more, and local pathologist Nicola Fox heads out from Byron to her holiday home in Brunswick Heads only to discover a staged corpse lounging in a deck chair by her pool which, conveniently, points the finger of initial suspicion directly at her, but why are the organised crime squad suddenly in the picture?
There's a quote on the novel cover from William McInnes
'P.A. Thomas has a clinician's mind, a photographer's eye and the gift of great storytelling. A wonderful book'.
Given that the author has trained as a nuclear medicine specialist he does bring that clinician's mind to these novels. It's evident in the romantic frisson between the two main characters - Jack and Caitlin, prompted by medical complications. Making the romantic tension less will they / won't they and more can they? Then there's the prologue that comes with the sort of black humour that will undoubtedly ring bells with medical and ancillary support staff. Given that this is, though, the story of a series of bizarrely staged deaths, medical and forensic viewpoints are a big part of the picture, as is location and the people that keep popping up in unexpected places. This reviewer chooses to put the lock picking, housebreaking and hacking undertaken by Jack and his lifelong best friend Ricky down to that storytelling gift though.
The photographer's eye comes out in the sense of place, and the observational details scattered throughout the book. Whilst the main location for "The Beacon" newspaper and the cast of characters is Byron Bay, the crime all seems to be happening in Brunswick Heads. This gives the author a chance to draw a picture of tourist town Byron versus quiet, locals mostly, Bruns. There's a sense that crime would never happen in Bruns, and when it does, the laid back nature of the place reveals itself in the slightly haphazard observations of goings on. It also gives Thomas a chance to introduce a supporting cast of a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, way too many bands playing Simon and Garfunkel covers, and a persistent bin chicken.
Mind you, there's also the imposed humour of Caitlin's wish-list of daring doings, way too many of which require a head for heights, which Jack most definitely does not have. And then there's the distinct possibility that Jack's developing a thing for pathologist and prime suspect Nicola, which is pushing more than one or two of Caitlin's buttons.
It sounds like a lot but Thomas most definitely has a gift for storytelling. It's rollicking, fast paced, serving up of twists and turns, delivering a roller coaster of a reading ride with no sign of second novel jitters. The characterisations are great, the romantic tension believable and not at all offputting, and it's peppered with sly humour and clever hook lines. THE SUNBAKER bodes well for the life of an ongoing, long-running series.