Random House Australia

THE DEVIL'S GARDEN was a book I picked up because the case it covers - The Claremont Serial Killings - is unfortunately still unsolved, and because I've been reading a little about a number of cases in WA recently.  It made me want to find out more about the nature of the investigation into the murders of two young women, and the disappearance of a third in 1996 and 1997.

What I discovered from this book is an inkling into the tunnel vision of the police force which appears to be consistent with the attitude displayed in another case in the same state of Australia.

I also managed to discover a little about the girls who died, the impact their deaths had on the families, and in particular the devastation felt by one family, whose daughter's has never been found - assumed dead at the hands of the same killer.

True Crime for me works best when it either lays out the facts of a case allowing the reader to come to a better understanding of the events or when, in the case of miscarriages of justice or unsolved cases, it investigates, analyses the evidence and builds a possible scenario with supporting details.

What doesn't work for me is something that I'm increasingly noticing from books from this author - gratuitous intrusion of the author into the story.  Fair enough if the author is interviewing witnesses, drawing out aspects of the case, working on an investigation on behalf of a wrongly convicted person, then observations / commentary are expected.  What's not expected, and seemed increasingly discomforting are the author's "feelings" on driving around in cars in Perth, the way that the scene where one of the poor girls was found "felt", and enough other off-pitch elements that left me with an increasing impression of grandstanding.  

Which is unfortunate, as this is a case that seems to deserve a considered, factual telling.

BEYOND FEAR is journalist Jaye Ford's first book, billed as an adrenaline-pumped suspense thriller.  Which, if you're reading it with that aim in mind it absolutely is.  The book starts out with one of those scenes that just make you know something bad's going to happen.  Something very bad.  Four thirty-something women are heading off for a regular girls' weekend away, champagne in hand, towards a remote, recently renovated barn deep in isolated country Australia.  Jodie, the main character of the book, is a woman with a secret from her best friends.  So, when these woman are run off the road in the middle of nowhere by a mysterious ute, have to deal with a taxi that doesn't get to them, a tow truck driver with a past of his own and an encounter with a bloke already suspected of killing a young girl in the local pub, there could very well be more than a bit of doubt as they head off to their isolated holiday destination.  

Part of the reason that the alarm sirens in the back of the brain weren't deafening at this point is possibly that none of the other women have quite the same sense of fear and worry that Jodie does.  Okay in itself that got a bit odd, but Jodie is also the only person who has the encounter with our creepy bloke in the pub, Jodie is the one mostly talking to the tow-truck driver who seems to know a lot about what's going on, Jodie is the woman with the background.  It's possible, unlikely granted, but possible that she may be overreacting...  

Of course that's not going to be the case, and things in the isolated barn get rapidly worse and worse once our creep from the pub, Kane and his weirdo brother show up - taking the girls captive, bashing, terrorising, shooting and generally causing a lot of mayhem all, it seems, in pursuit of something from the past.

So at this point, the plot's starting to wobble badly.  Having said that, the pace remains breakneck, and to be frank, it's written as quite a page turner.  Which made the reading experience just a little bit odd.  It could undoubtedly be a scary book, although somewhere around the middle of the thing, everything that could happen, seemed to have happened - well apart from the ultimate question of who would "win" Jodie and friends, or the bad guys.  Everyone had stepped into their allotted roles and played out their main pieces to camera, Jodie was the brave heroine fighting her past demons, aware of the threat.  Her friends all took their role of doubting Thomas, some even taking on walking wounded to make Jodie's life just that little more complicated.  Our tow truck driver went from possible threat to white knight, and the two bad guys were ... inconceivably and oddly bad.  Violent, extreme, uncontrolled and yet, somehow, what could have happened to four women in this position never quite got way too bad.  Having said that, there were four of them, two bad guys and a lot of cooking with frying pans.... there was something in the back of my brain that kept saying, okay girls, let's look at the odds here....

In BEYOND FEAR's defence, the tension didn't waver, and if you ignored the flashing neon warning signs about plot points, it was, on the surface a reasonable thriller, although it did rely a little too heavily on the madder than mad, big bad lunatic for the threat which is most definitely not a personal favourite.  Perhaps another one of those thrillers which is just the thing for people who want something fast-paced, where the good people win regardless of how much they are doubted, how the mad and bad get their just desserts, even if it is in the nick of time and after rather a lot of rushing around and bleeding on all sides.  It may even appeal particularly to those who are comfortable with the idea that the isolation of rural existence means that there's just got to be a lot of nasty weirdos lurking behind the nearest gum tree.