Australia

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.

Twenty years ago Cormac Reilly was a fresh faced, rookie cop, who thought he had been sent to a standard domestic problem. In a rundown old house that took forever to find, what he ended up discovering comes back to haunt him all these years later. Fifteen-year-old Maud Blake and her five-year-old brother Jack are in the house with the body of their alcoholic mother, dead from an apparent overdose. After taking the children straight to hospital Reilly discovers that Jack has been the victim of abuse, while Maud vanishes into the night. Twenty years on, Reilly's moved to Galway from Dublin, put on cold cases for his sins, and handed the re-investigation of Hilaria Blake's supposed overdose when Jack seemingly suicides and Maud reappears.

Complicated story then, handled with considerable aplomb. The narrative switches between Reilly and Jack's girlfriend Aisling. Maud's unannounced return to Ireland after many years living in Australia gives Aisling a difficult but necessary ally in doubting the police's all too rapid conclusion, but Maud's presence is also the catalyst for the re-investigation of her mother's own overdose. All these layers and wheels within wheels work well, each of these characters are seamlessly and cleverly worked into the present and the past; into their shared positions of catalyst, questioner, cause and outcome. Even Reilly is provided with traces of a back-story, his return to Galway, complications in his personal life, and reasons for his colleagues to mistrust him. Done as hints and pointers, Reilly's story is part of THE RUIN but it's not everything. The balance between his story, and the story of a family of 3, now 1, and the reasons why is, rightly, the focus.

Obviously there is plenty of social history here and THE RUIN does not pull back from addressing the history of child sex abuse, the role of churches and authorities, under-resourced social workers, and good and not so good policing. This isn't a novel that goes into detail about the actual abuse, but it doesn't leave anything to the imagination when it comes to the causes, complicity, or even consequences. There are scars aplenty and not everything ends with justice being served.

THE RUIN is set in McTiernan's original country of Ireland and it's one stonkingly good debut novel. Populated by excellent characters, dripping with intrigue and menace, and heralding heaps of long and very enjoyable series potential.

It has been another great year for Australian crime debuts and Derval McTiernan’s The Rùin continues this run. Much like Adrian McKinty, McTiernan sets her first Cormac Reilly novel in the old country, aka Ireland. But her take, while still procedural, is more contemporary and less overtly political.

The book opens twenty years before the main action. Reilly, a fresh faced rookie policeman, is driving down a dark country road looking for the source of a call about a domestic. He does not expect what he finds – Maud, a self-possessed fifteen year old girl, her five year old brother Jack and their single mother, dead of a heroin overdose. Reilly takes the children to a local hospital where Maud disappears and Jack goes into the care system. Twenty years later, now detective Reilly moves back to Galway from Dublin where, for his sins, he is put on cold cases. After the apparent suicide of now twenty-five year old Jack and the reappearance of his sister Maud, Reilly is handed their mother’s cold case to reinvestigate.

The narrative follows not only Reilly but Aishling, Jack’s pregnant girlfriend. Aishling believes the original theory that Jack may have committed suicide but is convinced by Maud that something is not right. McTiernan explores how Aishling moves through the stages of grief and how, when she starts to get her life back together, she could track down information that may have eluded the police.

McTiernan manages to ramp up the personal pressure on both Reilly and Aishling as the revelations start to flow. Reilly has plenty of backstory, particularly his reasons for coming back to Galway, but all this is kept firmly in the background. McTiernan gives readers enough information to get the gist, and to understand why Reilly might be targeted by his colleagues, while leaving some secrets to be revealed in future instalments.

At the same time, The Rùin addresses deep wounds in the Irish psyche. The history of child sexual abuse, the role of the church and the complicity of courts, social workers and police in the system, is explored in painful detail. Everyone, adults and children alike, is scarred and there is a recognition that there is some damage that cannot be undone while many of the perpetrators remain unpunished.

The Rùin is a deftly written, page turning procedural. It is a strong start to a new Australian crime series (and there is no doubt that this will be a series – the first chapter of book two was tantalisingly included in my copy). If you are finding it hard to keep up with the number of new Australian crime writers coming onto the scene, McTiernan is definitely one to look out for.

Back when we were all a quite a bit younger Carolyn Morwood had a couple of books out featuring Melbourne based, female, professional cricketer Marlo Shaw (AN UNCERTAIN DEATH and A SIMPLE DEATH). She followed that up more recently with the Eleanor Jones series, set around the time of World War I (DEATH AND THE SPANISH LADY and CYANIDE AND POPPIES). Her latest novel DIG TWO GRAVES has a more contemporary timeframe, and is set in Southern Spain around an artist's retreat / residency.

Leaning more towards the crimance sub-genre than the earlier books, DIG TWO GRAVES features six international artists - all specialists in different forms of art (writing / painting / sculpture etc) and their interactions, past / present and future. A tricky mix of ego's, insecurities, ability, jealousies and downright self-centredness the early part of the book sets up a cast that might leave you wondering how somebody is going to rise about the general horribleness to end up qualifying as a potential victim.

The quote at the start of the book explains the title:

'Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.' Confucius

Which is a particularly intriguing idea, built into a novel that's a slow burner. The hook in the early stages relies very heavily on the character build up. For reader's to stick with that long lead in these people have to grab or engage you. Their stories are littered with romantic angst, longing, regret and - let's be frank here - some really odd behaviour. For each person that repels or annoys, there could be another in the cast that engenders sympathy or interest. But there are a lot of perfectly unlikeable people here, and Morwood seems to be playing with people's conception of "artistic temperaments" as much as she is on the question of adults behaving flat out badly.

But ultimately DIG TWO GRAVES relies heavily on a descriptive, languid writing style, full of portents and observations, internal musings and a lot of that angst, longing and regret. This will be a novel that works incredibly well for fans of that style.