Third Status Report on the Project 'KEEP THE READING QUEUE UNDER CONTROL'.
Successes
- Read Better Left Dead, Catherine Lea (review to come)
- Read Nothing But Murders and Bloodshed and Hanging, Mary Fortune (review to come)
- Read The Freezer, Kim Hunt (review to come)
- Started Humidity, Dan Kaufman
- Started A Fly Under the Radar, William McCartney
- Reviewed Panic, Catherine Jinks
- Reviewed Cold Truth, Ashley Kalagian Blunt
- Reviewed The Accident on the A35, Graeme Macrae Burnet
- Reviewed Three Boys Gone, Mark Smith
- Reviewed The Housemate, Sarah Bailey
- Reviewed The Reunion, Bronwyn Rivers
- Reviewed The Grapevine, Kate Kemp
- Reviewed Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta
- Reviewed Able, Dylan Alcott
- Reviewed The Campers, Maryrose Cuskelly
- Added a number of new books (Last Fortnight)
Failures
- Didn't manage to get to an older book (Again)
- Gave up reshuffling the stack, am now just pulling the next up from here (which is increasingly untidy so I figure one place at a time).
- Went to the library when I promised myself I wouldn't (again.. sigh)
-
Need to extract the reading digit on the following
- The Private Island, Ali Lowe (release date 25th February)
- 17 Years Later, J.P. Pomare
- Miss Caroline Bingley Private Detective, Kelly Gardiner & Sharmini Kumar (Release date 2nd April)
- Ripper, Shelley Burr
Plan
- The Private Island, Ali Lowe (release date 25th February)
- Boney Creek, Paula Gleeson
- 17 Years Later, J.P. Pomare
- Miss Caroline Bingley Private Detective, Kelly Gardiner & Sharmini Kumar (Release date 2nd April)
- Ripper, Shelley Burr
- Outrageous Fortunes, Megan Brown and Lucy Sussex
- Rural Dreams, Margaret Hickey
- Purgatory, Robert M. Smith
- Unbury The Dead, Fiona Hardy
- Lyrebird, Jane Caro
- The Pool, Hannah Tunnicliffe
Last update I noted this was all still pretty much fantasy and given everything that went on in February, including the death of a much loved pet sheep, I realise it doesn't look like much happened, but a lot did (particularly in the ongoing relayout project with the catchup now back as far as 2021).
As for March, well the fires are still popping up everywhere, a seasonal weather prediction which looks dire (although managing to not mention the word drought that continues to cause chaos and now death) and it's still so hot it won't be long before the bitumen's gone and the ground starts to fuse.
Better Left Dead
DI Nyree Bradshaw and her team have their work cut out for them once again. Local woman Lizzy Bean has been found dead, garrotted with a piece of wire. Lizzy's property, a 1970s beach house overlooking a pristine Northland bay, is overflowing with rubbish. Inside, the house is even worse.
As Nyree and her team delve into the case, clues begin to reveal an intricate web of connections involving a local crime syndicate, a kidnapped woman, and a group of ex-foster children haunted by the past.
Meanwhile, Nyree's own past is catching up with her. Forever racked by guilt that she has failed her son who is currently in prison for murder, Nyree might finally get a chance to redeem herself in his eyes . . . but it comes at a steep cost.
Nothing But Murders and Bloodshed and Hanging
A murderer is identified by a team of oxen. A dead man rises from a watery grave to indict his killer. A phantom hearse gliding through Melbourne’s slums foretells violent death. A seamstress turns detective to avenge her friend’s homicide. A locked-tent mystery.
Such are the themes of Mary Fortune’s ingenious and dramatic crime stories. Between 1865 and 1910 she wrote over 500 of them; they comprise the first ever detective fiction series written by a woman. Set in the outback, on the goldfields, and in the burgeoning metropolis of Melbourne, they offer a vivid account of life and death in colonial-era Australia. Fortune tackled subjects such as murder, armed robbery, bootlegging, and sexual violence with a frankness unprecedented for a woman in the 19th century, in styles ranging from melodrama and Gothic horror to social realism and what is now called noir. This collection comprises 17 of her finest stories, edited and introduced by literary historians Lucy Sussex and Megan Brown.
Born in Ireland in 1832, Fortune arrived in Australia during the gold-rush, which she observed firsthand and depicted in many of her stories. A brief, bigamous marriage to a policeman gave her inside knowledge to write about crime, and over the next 40 years her prolific output was serialized under the title The Detective’s Album in the mass-circulation Australian Journal. She often lived precariously, struggling with alcohol and unable to prevent her son drifting into a life of crime, and preserved her privacy by always using pseudonyms. Her anonymity meant that when she died in 1911 she was almost lost to literary history. Only recently has her true identity and her extraordinary life story emerged. This collection, appearing concurrently with a biography, restores her to her rightful place as a trailblazing crime writer.
The Freezer
In the endless tracts of the New South Wales bushland Ranger Cal Nyx finds a dead body under unusual circumstances. It soon becomes apparent this is a historic death. Growing attention on the crime puts the blowtorch to a murderer who’s managed to evade justice. For now.
Detective Inspector Liz Scobie leads the police investigation while her partner, Nyx, uses her own considerable - some might say unorthodox - methods to chase down a killer. With speculation growing in the small community, someone privy to information becomes a new target for the killer.
Join Nyx and Scobie in their dogged pursuit of a bold predator with everything to lose.
Humidity
Welcome to an Aussie town where the violence is rampant and the humidity’s hell
Ben doesn’t like being a nude model in a small country town. Then again, the local footballers don’t like their girlfriends ogling Ben.
Broke and desperately lonely, Ben falls for Marty, the ambitious and violent young woman rapidly taking over her brother’s drug and gun-running trade.
Once Ben gets pulled into their dark world of bikies and crime, he discovers a new level of violence that makes the footballers seem harmless – especially when his only friend is then murdered.
A Fly Under The Radar
Lawyers, drugs, deaths, and sneakiness, in New Zealand.
“A Fly Under the Radar is a ripping yarn. It’s cantankerous and unexpected, with an eccentric cast that includes a millennial side-kick, a conniving landlord, a dangerous accountant, and starring a misanthropic grump who unwillingly becomes a criminal mastermind. This book is bitingly funny, and astonishingly clever, like if Jack Reacher had a sense of irony.
Panic
BRONTE NEEDS A PLACE TO LIE LOW.
She posted a drunken rant that went horrifically viral. Now – jobless, friendless and broke – she’s forced to volunteer as a carer on an isolated rural property. She won’t be paid for looking after dementia sufferer Nell, but at least she’ll have a place to stay.
Bronte’s host is Nell’s daughter Veda, who runs spiritual rebirthing retreats. She also claims the rights of a sovereign citizen and rejects the authority of the state, refusing even to register her car. She has acquired a small but devoted following.
Are they harmless cranks, with their conspiracy theories and outrage at government overreach? Or dangerously paranoid domestic terrorists? And what is the dark secret that Nell, in her confusion, keeps harking back to?
Bronte, increasingly uneasy, would be getting far away from the whole place – if she had anywhere else to go.
Panic, Catherine Jinks
In her new novel, Panic, Catherine Jinks provides a timely take on online mobs, conspiracy theorists, and sovereign citizens.
Full Review at Newtown Review of books.
Cold Truth
Harlow Close has made a career as an influencer uncovering the secrets of Winnipeg, dubbed 'North America's strangest city'. The region is renowned for its sub-zero temperatures, dropping to minus 40 degrees - sometimes for months at a time. Yet, it's not just the frigid winters and geographic seclusion that render Winnipeg peculiar.
When Harlow's father mysteriously disappears amidst a particularly brutal cold snap, suspicions of foul play arise. It's not like Scott to miss phone calls - and he's been even more cautious sicne that time he was catfished by a romance scammer. Unhappy with the pace of the police investigation, Harlow launches her own search, enlisting her sister Blaise's reluctant help.
As Harlow struggles to uncover what happened to her father, she's forced to question everyone and everything around her - including herself.
Cold Truth, Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Set amid the ferocious cold of a Canadian winter, Ashley Kalagian Blunt’s new novel continues her exploration of the threats of life online. Full review at Newtown Review of Books
The Accident on the A35
The methodical but troubled Chief Inspector Georges Gorski visits the wife of a lawyer killed in a road accident, the accident on the A35. The case is unremarkable, the visit routine.
Mme Barthelme—alluring and apparently unmoved by the news—has a single question: where was her husband on the night of the accident? The answer might change nothing, but it could change everything. And Gorski sets a course for what can only be a painful truth.
But the dead man’s reticent son is also looking for answers. And his search will have far more devastating consequences.
The Accident on the A35, Graeme Macrae Burnet
Having read the third in the series A CASE OF MATRICIDE very recently I was intrigued enough by the prospect of the two earlier books that I managed to get the 2nd via the local library. Hence it jumped quite a long way up the queue in order to be able to return it.
Luckily this doesn't seem to be a series that is suffering from my backwards approach. Georges Gorski is a fascinating sort of character, bought to life, as I said in the review linked to above, by a writing style that combines wry humour and detailed observations. Everything's wonderfully understated, with a gentle, but skewering analysis of human nature along the way.
In this story, Gorski's personal life is imploding, and his professional life seems to be caught up in the most mundane of small town goings on. What seems like a straightforward death in a road accident twists somewhat after Gorski visits the widow to deliver the bad news. Mme Barthelme, seems surprisingly unmoved by the news of the death of her husband, and her teenage son Raymond, who has some problems of his own, instigates his own search for the truth about his father's whereabouts on the night he died with devastating consequences.
The story turns on the question of personality, and control. The dead man's presence weighed heavily on his household, his behaviour a burden for them all. His beautiful wife might seem a little ineffectual, but she can manipulate, something Gorski must learn for himself. Their son has chafed against the control of his father, and you'd think, his curiosity about his father's activities might be a way to purge some demons, but nothing is ever as straightforward in these novels. Whilst Gorski is busy trying to piece together the timings, and paths that lead to the accident, young Raymond is trying to understand a father who was always aloof. An austere figure of rigid rules and behaviours, the lead up to his own death seems to be the most unpredictable thing about him.
As with the earlier book, this is another masterful psychological study of human nature and small town life. In the small moments, the day to day angst and small humiliations of growing up, and living lives closely observed by those around you, THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35 is as much about the death of a tyrant as it is the lives lived around him.
Three Boys Gone
'First rule of rescue: don't create another casualty.'
Grace Disher is about to face every teacher's worst nightmare.
Three of her students are going to die.
On a high school camping trip, three boys slip away for an ocean swim. By the time Grace catches up, the perilous surf conditions are overwhelming the teenagers. If she goes in, she will die trying to save them.
Should she have given her life?
The question haunts Grace as investigations begin and her decision not to attempt a rescue comes under scrutiny. Hounded by conflicted staff, grieving parents and relentless media - all dissecting her actions, all looking for someone to blame - Grace's safety is compromised and she must be careful who she trusts.
And she's not the only one with a secret.
Three Boys Gone, Mark Smith
When three 16 year old boys on a school hiking trip run into perilous surf, the only witness is Grace Disher, the teacher in charge of the trip, who reluctantly defers to the first rule of rescue: don't create another casualty and stands helplessly by as the boys disappear.
Switch then to the remaining boys in the party, and the two other teachers who were with them on the hike as Disher was setting up for the group's arrival at their next destination. It was when she was hiking back in to meet them that she came across these three, who inexplicably it seems, simply ran straight into the ocean in conditions that nobody would think to swim in. Then to the frantic search for a phone signal, the arrival of police, SES and search and rescue. The remaining boys and the two (male) teachers are evacuated out to a nearby town and a motel for the night, but Disher opts (insists) on staying in the area, providing what assistance she can to the searchers, being interrogated by a local cop as to the circumstances of the drownings, and why she didn't try to rescue them.
The story rapidly becomes about that decision - should she have sacrificed her own life in what she could see would be a fruitless attempt to save the boys? As the story is taken up by the media, the witch hunt grows, Disher's safety is compromised, and her home life exposed. Assumptions are made about her competency and there's plenty of hints that a woman, worse still a lesbian, should not have been in the position she was in - in charge.
I have to confess to being very challenged by THREE BOYS GONE. On the one hand, one hell of a premise - should you follow that "rule" of rescue, or should you throw caution to the winds as the only adult in the area. Good point, and one that is well worth considering in these sorts of circumstances, as is the human tendency to blame when the inexplicable happens. On the other hand there's a lot to the delivery of the premise that seemed convenient. A lesbian, a woman, worse still a "not a mother" she stuffed up the risk assessment process, she was there when the boys entered the water, she didn't rescue them from the impossible conditions. It just seemed to take an age for anybody to ask what made the boys do what they did, and where were the male teachers who had been with them at the time? What were they doing? To say nothing of the oddness of the scenario - a bunch of traumatised kids put up in a motel miles from home after such an event, no parents charging in to collect them, a headmaster whose response was frankly weird, and then all IT gubbins which just didn't ever reach the vicinity of the general area of plausibility.
For this reader, as the implausibilities piled up, the inevitability of the twist at the end got more obvious and that original premise disappeared in a soup of stalkery, homophobic, misogynistic byways and assorted red herrings that went off and started to pong.
The Housemate
Three housemates.
One dead, one missing and one accused of murder.
Dubbed the Housemate Homicide, it's a mystery that has baffled Australians for almost a decade.
Melbourne-based journalist Olive Groves worked on the story as a junior reporter and became obsessed by the case. Now, nine years later, the missing housemate turns up dead on a remote property. Oli is once again assigned to the story, this time reluctantly paired with precocious millennial podcaster Cooper Ng.
As Oli and Cooper unearth new facts about the three housemates, a dark web of secrets is uncovered. The revelations catapult Oli back to the death of the first housemate, forcing her to confront past traumas and insecurities that have risen to the surface again.
What really happened between the three housemates that night? Will Oli's relentless search for the murderer put her new family in danger? And could her suspicion that the truth lies closer to home threaten her happiness and even her sanity?
A riveting, provocative thriller from the bestselling author of The Dark Lake, Into the Night and Where the Dead Go.
The Housemate, Sarah Bailey
A standalone from the author of the well-known Gemma Woodstock series, THE HOUSEMATE is a story told in two timelines. Back to nine years ago when three housemates were sharing a property, one of them is killed, one goes missing, one is accused of murder. The current timeline sees journalist Oli Groves, who worked on the original murder story as a junior reporter, still a reporter, drawn back to a case she has always been obsessed with, when the missing housemate turns up, possibly as a suicide, at a Dandenong Ranges property.
The basis of this story is an intriguing one. The reasons for the three housemates supposed falling out was never really explained, their lives at the time of the murder never fleshed out, the missing girl never located. The problem is now the housemate accused of murder is out of jail, the missing girl is assumed dead by suicide, and there's something in the past that everyone's trying to keep quiet. Cue Oli back on the case, only this time, reporting has changed, and the paper she is working for have decided that podcasting is the new thing, so Oli is paired up with Cooper Ng, a young, relentlessly cheerful millennial producer. These two are destined to clash, and yet they might also be able to find a way to work together.
That is if Oli can dig herself out of the personal mess that she's buried herself in, and her obsessive nature. Engaged now, to the widower of the original police detective on "The Housemate" case, who was killed in a mysterious hit and run leaving her husband with two small twin daughters to raise. Only he was having an affair with Oli in the past, she was in a relationship with one of the cops that's now on the case, the twins are now older, and he mostly seems to be looking for a live in childcare provider, or something that certainly doesn't feel right. The personal story in this is novel is BIG, and it's complicated, messy and more than a bit overwhelming. In fact, I wouldn't recommend THE HOUSEMATE to anybody with an allergy to huge chunks of personal angst. Needless to say, the ex-boyfriend's the good bloke, the fiance a controlling creep, and Oli seems to be unable to sort out her feelings about the personal or professional. There are times when Ng's relentless upbeatness is a bit of a relief to be honest.
In amongst all the personal stuff there is a crime story lurking, with the story leading up to the original murder likely to explain the current housemate death. Or not. There are plenty of red herrings, complications, missteps and misleading elements in there - more than enough to keep a reader guessing. That aspect of the story was interesting, and cleverly constructed, but for this reader, not quite cleverly enough to have it rise beyond the soap opera threatening to subsume it.
The Reunion
Ten years ago, six teenagers hiked into the Blue Mountains wilderness - and only five came out alive.
The survivors have barely seen each other since the tragic bushwalk. Yet when an invitation arrives to attend a 10-year memorial of their friend's death, Hugh, Charlotte, Alex, Laura and Jack find themselves travelling back into the rugged landscape where it all began.
The weekend at an isolated homestead in the bush - no phone signal, no distractions - should be a chance to reflect and reconnect.
But each of the friends has been carrying secrets from the fateful hike. And someone will stop at nothing to get the truth.
The Reunion, Bronwyn Rivers
Ten years ago six teenagers hiked into the wilderness and five of them came back alive. They were school friends. Ed (whose family farm was their starting off point), Hugh, Charlotte, Laura, Jack and Alex, close, but with the sorts of slightly complicated romantic attachments and fractures that you find in groups of kids of that age. Nobody for a moment thought that this would be a dangerous hike, they were experienced walkers, fit, and Ed knew this area from a childhood growing up here. Only Ed died, and for the ten years since his mother Mary has had plenty of time to think about her beloved only child's death.
Maybe it was triggered by the anniversary, maybe it was too much time on her hands since the inquest into her son's death, then the suicide of her husband, Ed's father, but the house wasn't the same happy place that the five returned to, invited by Mary for an anniversary weekend. The once immaculate place is ramshackle and neglected, and there's something very odd about Mary. The problem is that none of remaining five friends could ever have imagined just how obsessed, how determined to get to the truth she is, until it's almost too late for all of them.
Told in a series of differing POV chapters, the early part of the book will require some concentration on the part of the reader as you're taken back to each person's teenage years, as well as who they are as adults. There's reminiscence and past transgressions to be fleshed out, as well as present life changes including marriages, pregnancy, careers that have taken some in unexpected directions. Importantly, there are the connections between them then and now, events that shaped their interactions and relationships, and the cryptic questions laid out in notes that they start to find around the property, as they search for ways out of the intricate and very specific trap set for them.
Whilst it's a thriller in nature, there's also something surprisingly reflective about THE REUNION. Whether it's the contrasting experiences and pasts of the main characters, including Ed, and the sorts of secrets they have been keeping for a very long time, or their individual responses to pressure, these are adults forced into confronting their pasts and who they were and have become. Making the reader unsure at every step of where this is heading, setting up some really tricky characters as people that you may just end up with some respect for, leading to a resolution that did feel like it might be surprisingly gentle on a lot of very traumatised people. Until a final kick in the tail that readers less rattled may say they could see coming, but put this reader, by then, in the thoroughly rattled camp.
A debut novel, THE REUNION, started out as a bit of a sleeper, ended up as a haunter of nights.
The Grapevine
There are secrets behind every closed door in the Warrah Place neighbourhood, and who killed Antonio Marietti is the biggest one of all . . .
It's the height of summer in Australia, 1979, and on a quiet suburban cul-de-sac in Canberra a housewife is scrubbing the yellow and white chequered tiles of the bathroom floor. But all is not as it seems. For one thing, it's 3 am. For another, she is trying desperately to remove all traces of blood before they stain. Her husband seems remarkably calm, considering he has just murdered their neighbour.
As the sun rises on Warrah Place, news of Antonio Marietti's death spreads like wildfire. Gossip is exchanged in whispers and suspicion mounts. Twelve-year-old Tammy launches her own investigation, determined to find out what happened, but she is not the only one whose well-meaning efforts uncover more mysteries than they solve.
There are secrets behind every closed door in the neighbourhood, and the identity of the murderer is only one of them . . .
The Grapevine, Kate Kemp
A slow burner novel, THE GRAPEVINE is the tale of a murder from the perspective of its fallout in a small suburban community in Canberra, in 1979.
It's also a breathtakingly clever takedown of much of what remains flat out stupid - xenophobia, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and the restrictions placed on women. Done so cleverly in fact, that it may take a while for reader's to get to grips with what's going on in THE GRAPEVINE, which leads the reader oh so gently, persuasively into a false sense of the mundane, the suburban, the predictable.
Helped in that undertaking by the weather. It's a stinking hot summer in 1979, without the benefit of the ubiquitous air-conditioners and backyard pools of the current period, this is the sort of summer that many of us remember from our childhoods. When it's so hot that moving is an effort, clothes stick to damp and sweaty bodies, car seats are an unbearable combination of heat and sticky vinyl, and people get very snarky.
In Warrah Place, the sun rises to the news of the presumed death of Antonio Marietti. He's from the "Italian House" in the street, an outsider, but the neighbourhood is transfixed with the horror and, frankly for some, excitement, of a murderer in their midst, before the adults all take up a divide and conquer model that does not play out well for any of them. Meanwhile twelve-year-old Tammy, amateur observational scientist, switches her attention from tracking ant colonies and their behaviour, to tracking the nearby human equivalent. Getting herself into a lot of hot water along the way, and very nearly dragging young Colin, their neighbour, a sad, lonely little boy, into it all with her.
For fans of traditional crime fiction, where a murder investigation forms the major focus of a story, THE GRAPEVINE will be an unusual undertaking. What this novel is doing is looking at the outward waves from a murder that shake a small community. By creating this focus on the small place, a few houses clustered together, a few mismatched families with their internal divisions and problems, it starts off slightly claustrophobic and uncomfortable viewing for the reader. Add to that the tensions within the community and the outspoken awfulness of the 70's - the overt racism, xenophobia and homophobia, and if nothing else, THE GRAPEVINE should serve as a reminder that this is NOT a way of living that anybody should be aspiring to. The interactions of a small cast here serve to reinforce just how pathetic preconceptions based on mindless bigotry are. In an elegant twist, a pointed choice has been made here in terms of us and them. The us forms from a group of outsiders, the them insiders. Frankly if I had to choose, it would be the outsiders every time - the insiders were just plain awful people - even if there were excuses posited for some.
By using the perspective of a young girl, the observational aspects of this novel are clear-eyed, and cutting. The layers of justification and explanation that adults tend to have put into place for behaving like buffoons haven't formed in this young girl, and her identification of short comings all the more crystal clear, as she searches to find descriptors for them. The resolution to the murder has a kicker of a twist sure, but even then, the fallout from that is the thing. The characters in this novel, alive and dead are vibrant, and the observations cutting, and unflinching.
Sand Talk
A paradigm-shifting book in the vein of Sapiens that brings a crucial Indigenous perspective to historical and cultural issues of history, education, money, power, and sustainability—and offers a new template for living.
As an indigenous person, Tyson Yunkaporta looks at global systems from a unique perspective, one tied to the natural and spiritual world. In considering how contemporary life diverges from the pattern of creation, he raises important questions. How does this affect us? How can we do things differently?
In this thoughtful, culturally rich, mind-expanding book, he provides answers. Yunkaporta’s writing process begins with images. Honoring indigenous traditions, he makes carvings of what he wants to say, channeling his thoughts through symbols and diagrams rather than words. He yarns with people, looking for ways to connect images and stories with place and relationship to create a coherent world view, and he uses sand talk, the Aboriginal custom of drawing images on the ground to convey knowledge.
In Sand Talk, he provides a new model for our everyday lives. Rich in ideas and inspiration, it explains how lines and symbols and shapes can help us make sense of the world. It’s about how we learn and how we remember. It’s about talking to everyone and listening carefully. It’s about finding different ways to look at things.
Most of all it’s about a very special way of thinking, of learning to see from a native perspective, one that is spiritually and physically tied to the earth around us, and how it can save our world.
Sand Talk include 22 black-and-white illustrations that add depth to the text.
Sand Talk, Tyson Yunkaporta
There's a few books in this house that sit on the "reread bits" stack permanently, and this is one of them. There are so many coloured tags sticking out of my copy it looks like it's growing something, and in a way it is.
Very pointed and frequently subversive Yunkaporta's voice in this one is incredibly strong, powerful and just ever so slightly sarcastic at points. It's funny, it's generous, and it's educational. So lives up to the subtitle "How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World". I mean I have no idea why we would for a moment think that a culture and people that have survived and thrived (up until we arrived with our diseases and our European thinking) in a harsh and difficult country like this one would not have lots and lots and lots of wisdom, insight and learning to pass on. Well, let's face it, I do. And I will continue to dip into this book, particularly when the white world screws it up again, and again and again. Much like now, right at this point in history, when history is something so many people are happily ignoring. To say nothing of future planning.
Able
The astonishing life of Australia's most inspirational athlete Not long after he was born in 1990, Dylan Alcott was found to have a tumour on his spine. The surgery to remove it was successful, but left Dylan a paraplegic. Part of an average Aussie family in Melbourne, Dylan experienced his fair share of bullying and loneliness growing up. By early high school he was feeling pretty low - depressed, overweight and fearful for his future. Then, somehow, he discovered sport - swimming, basketball and tennis. Fast forwards 10 years or so and the Order of Australia recipient has climbed to the top of not just one sport but two, winning gold and silver at two Olympics and in two sports. Now the four-time winner of the Australian Open, is not only a sports star, but a motivational speaker, triple j radio host, music fan, keynote presenter, business owner, and youth mentor with his own youth foundation.
Able, Dylan Alcott
I listened to Alcott read this memoir himself so that was a bit of a joy in and of itself, there's something about the infectious tone of his voice that's very engaging, and pretty funny in places. He's got a dry sense of humour that's for sure, but in ABLE he doesn't shy away from the complications of a life spent with some physical restrictions as the result of a tumour on the spine that he was born with. In 1990. Sheesh, the things this man has achieved in his lifetime make me wonder what the hell I've been doing for all my years.
I'd definitely recommend reading / listening to this memoir though. It's a reminder that life's not straightforward when you have physical disabilities, and the complications come from all sorts of places the rest of us aren't considering. Salting iced footpaths might help with walking, but it's havoc for wheelchairs just as one small example. But that doesn't mean everyone doesn't deserve a place, a voice and a chance.
Brilliant book. Brilliant bloke. How lucky are we to have him around. (And do look up Wheelchair Crowd Surfing Gone Wrong on YouTube).
The Campers
An engrossing and provocative exploration of privilege, hypocrisy and justice by the bestselling author of The Cane.
Leah has a good life. She lives on The Drove, an inner-city cul-de-sac, with her husband Moses and their two children. She and her neighbours - the drovers - look out for each other. Theirs is a safe, community-oriented enclave and that's the way it's going to stay.
When itinerants set up camp in 'their' park, some of the drovers are unsettled, some are outraged, and all of them want the campers to move on. Not even Sholto, the campers' charismatic leader, can put their fears to rest.
Why is Sholto - handsome, charming and apparently with other options - living in a tent, and why has he chosen to pitch it beside The Drove? And why is Leah tempted to put her family and her comfortable life at risk when Sholto turns his wolf-like gaze towards her?
A compelling and revealing novel, The Campers shows what neighbours will do when threats of the unknown and unmanageable come too close for comfort.
The Campers, Maryrose Cuskelly
The first line of the blurb for THE CAMPERS describes it as "An engrossing and provocative exploration of privilege, hypocrisy and justice... " which is about as perfect a description as you'd ever want. This is discomforting, confusing, and confronting reading, a story that is classified as crime fiction for unusual reasons.
The first crime, and the obvious one, in this novel is the juxtaposition of the have and the have-nots. A safe, seemingly community-orientated enclave in the inner-city, "The Drove" is an idyllic location for those privileged enough to be able to live there. A community with its own messaging group, that shares abundance of produce, social interactions, and a desire to protect the natural beauty that they live within. You'd think it was a community that had nailed coherence and cooperation, until the itinerants set up camp in the park opposite the houses.
The catalyst to the second crime is in some of the wildly varying reactions to the "campers" as they are called by the community members. The resentment, the intrigue, the attraction and the virulent hatred that slowly builds in people who, on the face of it, have everything, to those who have nothing. That's not to say there weren't triggers and noise where there is normally none, and pointless vandalism, but the explosion had been building, as they argued about their reactions to the interlopers
The second overt crime is the rioting of the campers, a loud party leading to damage and wanton destruction (and yes some animal cruelty towards defenceless chickens), at which point the simmering rage community to outsiders, turns partially inwards as well and becomes a mishmash of hatred, power playing, resentment and tension.
At the heart of all of this are Leah, her older husband Moses, their young children Fleur and Harley, and his son Miguel from his first marriage. It's this family that holds the focus throughout this novel - with an externally happy marriage, beset with suspicion, and money problems. Leah's currently a stay at home mother, obsessed, in particular, with her baby son Harley, she was a tricky customer for this reader to deal with. Conflicted by the need to return to work, paralysed by a fear of loss of connection with Harley as he goes into childcare, she's suspicious of Moses having an affair, whilst sleeping once with the "leader" of the itinerant group - an alpha male type called Sholto, who is, manipulative, and quite obviously up to something. Even the other members of the camping group are aware that Sholto is not all that he seems, and his behaviour becomes increasingly threatening and overbearing, as the "Drovers" become increasingly fraught and snippy.
Reading this novel, you'll spend a lot of time in Leah's head, which frankly, is an uncomfortable place to be. Not only younger than her husband, she's one of those impulsive, but then regretful people who float around making bad decisions, judging everybody else, panicking about the implications of people knowing what's she's done with Sholto, and just being, off-putting. While she's dithering about though, the community around her is increasingly falling apart.
THE CAMPERS isn't a traditional crime novel in that the riot and the wanton destruction is the crime. There are arrests made over that, there are repercussions and there's a community, and a marriage and family left teetering on the edge. Maybe the real crime here is the reactions of everyone. The "get rid of them regardless" versus "but they have nothing". The "not our problem" versus "they need help", the uselessness of the authorities, the lack of options, services, preparation for events like the ones that play out here. Given that homelessness, mental health, the working poor, and the lack of services and options for people who find themselves on the fringes - frequently through no fault of their own - is an increasing problem, you have to wonder what it's going to take for everyone to wake up to the ramifications of lack of funding, preparation and empathy.
The Private Island
New Year's Eve, Loloma Island, Fiji. At one of the most exclusive island resorts in the Pacific ocean, the champagne is poured, the fireworks are ready, and the countdown to new year is just beginning. It's set to be a night that no one will forget.
Especially when a body washes up on the shore...
But it's impossible to find answers when everyone here has a motive.
The billionaire's daughter, glamorous, untouchable, hungry for her inheritance.
The start-up founder, out of money, and out of time.
The young dive instructor, in way over his head and struggling to stay afloat.
The husband, blinded by desire, in all the wrong ways.
And the lover, hidden in the shadows, where no one can see them....
One person's holiday of a lifetime is about to be the last they'll ever have.
Boney Creek
When several small-town locals die under mysterious circumstances, an aspiring journalist is determined to prove the connection between them, only to discover the dangerous secrets they left behind.
Boney Creek is a dying town where not a lot happens. The perfect solution for married couple Addie and Toby who are escaping their own personal tragedy. But a quiet and simple life is not exactly possible with so many recent, strange deaths.
Seven locals, all gone too soon. That’s the nature of tragic accidents. And in a town this small, there’s no room for too many questions.
But Addie isn’t so sure. Although she never followed through on her dreams of becoming a journalist, she still has a reporter’s instincts. And her gut—not to mention all the small-town gossip—is telling her that whatever’s happening in Boney Creek is not as random as it seems.
There’s no such thing as coincidence, especially when it comes to seven bodies. And while burying her own secrets, Addie digs up far greater ones that will have her asking if she will be the town’s next so-called accident.
17 Years Later
Is the truth sometimes best left buried?
A crime masterpiece by bestselling author J. P. Pomare
The violent slaughter of the wealthy Primrose family while they slept shocked the nation of New Zealand and scarred the small idyllic rural town of Cambridge forever.
All of the evidence pointed to their young live-in chef, Bill Ruatara, who was swiftly charged with murder and brought to justice. The brutal crime is now infamous, and Bill a figure of contempt who deserves to rot in jail for life.
Seventeen years later, prison psychologist TK Phillips is fighting for an appeal. He is convinced Bill did not receive a fair trial. When celebrity true-crime podcaster Sloane Abbott takes a sudden interest, it's not long before she uncovers new evidence that could set fire to the prosecution's case.
As TK and Sloane dig deeper into the past, they become tangled in a complex web of danger and deceit. With Bill's innocence far from assured and their own lives at stake, will they risk everything to unearth the truth, or leave it buried for good?
Miss Caroline Bingley, Private Detective
A missing maid. A murder most foul. A highly imprudent adventure. Only her fine eyes can uncover the truth.
Two years after the events of Pride and Prejudice, Miss Caroline Bingley is staying at her brother's country estate within an easy ride of Mr and Mrs Darcy's home, Pemberley, and wondering if there's more to life than playing cribbage and paying calls on country neighbours. So when Georgiana Darcy's maid, Jayani, vanishes - and worse, Georgiana disappears in search of her - Caroline races to London to find them both, and quickly discovers a shocking, cold-blooded murder.
Soon Caroline and Georgiana are careering through the gritty, grimy underbelly of London assisted by Caroline's trusty manservant, Gordon, and demanding answers of shady characters, police magistrates and mysterious East India Company-men to discover the killer. Along the way they uncover the cost of Empire on India and its people ... and Miss Bingley's incomparable powers of investigation. As Caroline puts her superior new talents to work, she finds out exactly what an accomplished, independent woman with a sharp mind and a large fortune can achieve - even when pitted against secrets, scandal, and a murderer with no mercy.
Ripper
Gemma Guillory knows her once-charming town is now remembered for one reason, and one reason only.
That three innocent people died. That the last stop on the Rainier Ripper's trail of death seventeen years ago was her innocuous little teashop.
She knows that the consequences of catching the Ripper still haunt her police officer husband and their marriage to this day and that some of her neighbours are desperate - desperate enough to welcome a dark tourism company keen to cash in on Rainier's reputation as the murder town.
When the tour operator is killed by a Ripper copycat on Gemma's doorstep, the unease that has lurked quietly in the original killer's wake turns to foreboding, and she's drawn into the investigation. Unbeknownst to her, so is a prisoner named Lane Holland.
Gemma knows her town. She knows her people. Doesn't she?
Outrageous Fortunes
The gripping story of Australia's first female crime writer and her career-criminal son
When Mary Fortune arrived in Melbourne with her infant son in 1855, she was determined to reinvent herself. The Victorian goldfields were just the place.
After a time selling sly grog and a bigamous marriage to a policeman, Mary became a pioneering journalist and author. The Detective's Album was the first book of detective stories to be published in Australia and the first by a woman to be published anywhere in the world. Her work appeared in magazines and newspapers for over forty years – but none of her readers knew who she was. She wrote using pseudonyms, often adopting the voice of a male narrator to write about 'unladylike' subjects.
When Mary died in 1911, her identity was nearly lost. In Outrageous Fortunes, Megan Brown and Lucy Sussex retrieve Fortune's astonishing career and discover an equally absorbing story in her illegitimate son, George. While Mary was writing crime, George was committing it, with convictions for theft and bank robbery. In their intertwined stories, crime fiction meets true crime, and Melbourne's literary bohemia consorts with the criminal underworld.
Rural Dreams
Margaret Hickey’s Rural Dreams takes a look at life outside the big smoke, featuring the kind of characters you might expect in the country – as well as some you might not.
A football coach ponders obsession . . . a mouse plague dictates school yard politics . . . a failed playwright asks ‘who gets the farm?’ . . . and a young woman returns to her fire-ravaged town.
People we know. People we grew up with. Some of them might even be us . . .
Funny, heartbreaking and true, Rural Dreams highlights the richness of life on the land and showcases the beauty of lives lived outside city walls.
Purgatory
IT IS THE EARLY 1980’S.
Greg Bowker is a young senior constable forcibly transferred to a one-officer station in a remote and dying Mallee town.
Welcomed by a brutal combination of heat, dust, isolation and primitive amenities, the new officer expects to waste years of his career in ‘purgatory’.
He is greeted with warmth by the community but becomes increasingly worried by the behaviour of two delinquent teenagers, one of whose family history hides a secret he cannot resist investigating.
A subsequent disappearance and murder set a new challenge for the young officer that leads him down a path into an unspeakable world of darkness and deception
Unbury the Dead
Best mates Teddy and Alice are hired hands with flexible moral boundaries. Whatever the mess, they can be relied upon to fix it with no questions asked. But sometimes it's not as simple as cleaning up.
Teddy is searching the suburbs for a missing teenager with her occasional sidekick Art, while Alice's mission is to drive one of Australia's richest men along Victoria's east coast to his final resting place before anybody finds out he's dead. But when a surprise revelation sees their cases collide, Teddy and Alice turn the tables on their wealthy employers to shake out the truth.
Lyrebird
Lyrebirds are brilliant mimics, so if they mimic a woman screaming in terror and begging for her life, they have witnessed a crime. But how does a young, hung over PHD student and a wet behind the ears new detective, convince anyone that a native bird can be a reliable witness to a murder, especially when there is no body and no missing person?
And what happens when they turn out to be right?
A sound froze her blood. A woman. A woman screaming in pure terror. Screaming and sobbing—begging—out here, in this desolate place.
Twenty years ago, ornithology student Jessica Weston panicked when she heard a woman screaming for her life in the remote Barrington Tops. Her relief, when she discovers that it is a lyrebird making the sounds, is profound. She is thrilled to have caught his display on video. Then she remembers—lyrebirds are mimics. Whatever the wild creature has heard must have really happened, and happened nearby.
Jessica takes her video to the police. Despite support from newly minted detective, Megan Blaxland, with no missing person reported and no body, her evidence is ridiculed and dismissed.
Twenty years later, a body is unearthed, just where Jessica said it would be.
Horrified they let the case go cold, Jessica, now an associate professor, and Megan, recently retired but brought back to head up the investigation, reunite and join forces. They are determined to find the killer, whatever it takes. What they don't realise is that they are not just putting their lives in danger, but also the lives of those close to them . . .
The Pool
Prince of spin and life of the party, Baz King, is missing. Nine years ago, at an innocent summer barbecue in Melbourne, everything imploded. For the Kings and the four other young families there that fateful day marriages fractured, friendships crumbled and lives were upended.
Nothing would ever be the same.
Now in their forties and their children teenagers, Baz King cannot be found. Has his charm finally run out? With a history of dodgy dealings and no shortage of motives, anyone could be a suspect – his ex-wife, Birdie; his colleague, Alex Turner; his lover, Jess and her husband, Richard; his friend’s nanny and new wife, Madison – who wants him out of the picture?
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