The Hitwoman's Guide to Reducing Household Debt, Mark Mupotsa-Russell

You know the type - small time crims / druggies / fringe dwelling bikers who cause havoc. Only this time the violent robbery they've just committed gets a lot worse when they kill the very young daughter of a family who were just out on a bit of a day trip. Turns out the law catching up with them might have been their only way to survive.

Olivia Hodges is not your average Dandenongs dwelling, PR company running, vaguely harassed mother of two. A lot of her life is pretty normal, but the company was originally formed as a blind for laundering a lot of money. Money she earned as a hitwoman for a Spanish crime syndicate. She was a very successful hitwoman. There's a lot of money. And it definitely means that the grief and horror shared by all the members of the family when their young daughter is killed by a bunch of losers, doesn't quite engender the same sort of overall reaction in Olivia.

Olivia's family is pretty typical, husband Jai a Canadian gamer, daughters Edith and Leena, mother / wife / ex-hitwoman Olivia all dwell in the leafy, hipster enclave of the Dandenong Ranges (the Hills) just outside Melbourne (a place I know a bit about, having spent 20 years living in places not a million miles from locations in the book that a reader in the know might think seem a bit familiar). Jai mostly runs the family life, Olivia has that PR company that she supposedly shows up at regularly, the girls go to school, do ballet and generally be kids. They've got a dog. The family has it's arguments and spats, but there's love and connection between them all. Then Edith is killed and everything falls apart. 

Jai is grieving and struggling to process his loss, Leena is missing her sister dreadfully, and Olivia is distraught. So distraught that the earlier arrival in Melbourne of an old friend from her Spanish crime days had been a hell of a shock (and very nearly a bit of a disaster) but now seems to be suggesting something, even if he's gone more hippy than she'd ever dream of. Regardless, she's got a gang of dunderhead criminals to be getting on with ... and not in a nice way.

Despite the sadness of this scenario, this is very much a tongue in cheek style of novel (how could it not be with that title) which just works. Everybody's believable, everything is sensible, in a twisted weird sort of a way. It's a hell of a ride as it lurches, with the family, between sadness and white hot anger, paced to keep you reading, with more than enough twists and turns in the plot (mostly related to Olivia's revenge). There's also pathos and personal trauma here as you watch a marriage, family and people fall apart in the face of an unimaginable tragedy.

Difficult to say a lot about the plot without spoiling great swathes of it, so let's just say that the revenge is not exactly what you'd assume from a talented and ruthless hitwoman. I'd defy any reader not to be cheering a lot when it all starts to become crystal, unmistakably, clear.

When the publicist for this novel sent me an outline, it mentioned she'd read it in five hours. A challenge I was happy to accept. Lost by 1 hour.