9781862547605

The Sandra Mahoney series is computer crime fiction - with THE TROJAN DOG being the first in the series.   EDEN is the latest - which I reviewed recently.

 

THE TROJAN DOG has Sandra - with a husband working overseas - single handedly raising her young son, and working on a short-term contract in a Government Department, finishing off a report on out-sourced / home based workers.  The head of the Department is an old "friend" of her mother's - an unpopular woman, she is soon accused of fraud and facing criminal charges.  Sandra isn't convinced that Rae is guilty and she digs around.  With help from one of the resident IT staff in the department - Ivan, the Russian "eccentric" and later on a local policeman - Brook - she is more and more convinced that there's fraud going on - but not by Rae.

 

The early parts of this book are hard to follow and stay with.  There's a lot of build up and a lot of wandering around in Sandra's personal life that just go on and on, without the story seeming to move forward with any speed.  Once Brook joins the chase then things get a bit more focused and the story actually proceeds.  Sandra's an odd sort of a character as well - she's very hard to get a handle on - in some ways quite standoffish and offputting for the reader, it's something that continues into the later books as well - she's just very hard to get onside with, which makes reading these books quite an interesting experience.  A lot of the time is spent considering why it's so hard to be on Sandra's side as she fights on the side of the good.  

 

Still, the idea of computer fraud as a crime (rather than the more standard fare of murder and mayhem) is interesting.  Set in Canberra this is definitely a book that tells you something about the tensions in working in the public service - at a time of expected changeover of political masters.  

 

Sandra Mahoney and her partner Ivan are security consultants, so what she is doing poking around the death by natural causes of a well known politician seems to confuse Sandra as much as everybody else.  In EDEN, the third Sandra Mahoney series book by Dorothy Johnston, Sandra is home alone - Ivan and their daughter Katya are in Russia visiting his relations and it's summer in Canberra.  Sandra had originally planned to spend summer on the coast - with her son, but she's at a bit of a loose end when he heads off to Tasmania with his father, leaving her in hot, slightly dismal Canberra at a time when everybody else is normally somewhere else.  The death of Carmichael originally just seems a bit bizarre sure - the wig and a dress for a start - and then in a brothel, but Carmichael had hit the headlines before when his last heart attack had him doing a spectacular swan dive off a staircase in full view of half of Canberra society.  Nobody really thought he would survive that attack, and everyone knew he was retiring from parliament and slowing down.   Sandra's interest is triggered when there seems to be some sort of connection between Carmichael and something Ivan's been working on.  The Australian government has just passed Internet censorship legislation and the companies that make the filter software are juggling for position as preferred supplier.

 

The interesting thing about EDEN is that Carmichael's death isn't suspicious in itself, other than it being slightly odd, and there are some interesting connections between him and the Internet censorship legislation but there's nothing much else to go on. Except maybe a sneaking suspicion that people, who shouldn't be quite this interested in the events surrounding his death and the legislation, seem to be interested and the investigation that Ivan had already done into the background of one of the leading contender companies has turned up some rather odd coincidences.

 

There are a lot of things that appeal about EDEN.  The central character is female, slightly flawed - but not annoyingly so, persistent, capable and conflicted.  Her family life is so consistent with that hybrid type of family that's common these days, she's happy with Ivan and annoyed by Ivan and ever so slightly attracted to a local cop.  The sub-cast of characters - the brothel owner Margot, the prostitute Denise who was with him when he died play a major part in building up the story of the book, as do some of the lesser profiled characters - such as Carmichael's political rival but close friend Ken Dollimore.  The plot's nicely complicated, providing a real balance for the idea that there is no suspicious death at the beginning of this story.

 

There is crime being committed here, and people who have questions to answer for their actions.  At the end of the book you just can't help but feel that Eden Carmichael deserved better.