The Woman Who Knew Too Little, Olivia Wearne

An historical mystery that mixes fact and fiction, THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE is set in Adelaide in late 1948. It's a story about female police officers built around the factual case of the Somerton Man, a notorious tale that has captured much speculation for many years until recently solved (with the decidedly non-edgy revelation of a missing Australian man whose disappearance went unremarked upon for many years). But the point of the inclusion of the Somerton Man in this story is designed to give a starting off point for the tale of Kitty Wheeler, a member of the Women Police, who were responsible for 'upholding the moral virtue' of Adelaide's at times unruly and publicly amorous citizens. Which is a sobering thought indeed.

Anyway, this tale is mostly about the complications of life for women in that era. The investigation into the Somerton Man is something Wheeler's missed the boat on, having spied the body without realising it wasn't just a man sleeping off a big night out. She's also preoccupied with decisions about somehow inserting herself into the investigation, or sucumbing to the pressure of expectation - husband / family / home duties etc.

The personal aspects of the story of Wheeler do take the lead in this novel, with the Somerton Man story perhaps not having quite the impact now it would have had, given that the truth of the case is well known. On the other hand, this is a story steeped in the society and conventions of the 1940's. The restrictions and expectations on women and the morals and virtues imposed on others are a stark reminder of just how buttoned up / nitpicky and nosy things used to be. The role of women in the workforce is something I've been reading up on a lot recently, but then the truth is not all that surprising, even my own mother was just expected to leave paid employment immediately upon her marriage.

This reader did find that the pace of this novel was slow to the point of glacial though, and I suspect part of that was the slightly mixed messaging. It's not quite a crime novel, although there's some concentration on the investigation and what it felt to be a witness to that. Given that the resolution to the question of who was The Somerton Man has happened more recently, it's a bit odd to be reading about an unknown that you know will not be answered in the framework of a story that starts out attempting to do so. It's also a commentary on our not so distant history, although this got a bit dragged out, perhaps because of that unclear focus of attention.

THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE does succeed in reminding us, yet again, just how small life in the past has been for women. How restricted, controlled, limited we have been by "expectations" (read power games). That's the bit I would have liked sharpened to a more precise, exacting, hammerable point.