No Good Deed, Katherine Kovacic

NO GOOD DEED is a very welcome Australian crime fiction book, written by one of the leading local writers in Katherine Kovacic, set in the stinking hot outback, featuring Rena - a 60something retired geologist on a trip through the area that is partly fulfillment of a long standing plan, partly an attempt to heal a broken heart after the death of her much loved husband. Rena and Tom had been planning this trip for years, both of them retired, a camper van fitted out with careful thought to being very self-sufficient and mobile, they wanted to get out into the remote areas, with just each other for company. Only Tom died suddenly of cancer, and Rena headed out on her own, devastated by the loss, moving through the the sorts of country that she knows well, as a healing exercise, and a search for purpose.

Very early on in the trip, she comes across signs of a fire burning off the highway. Venturing out to see what services would be required the scene is confronting -  a crashed vehicle, consumed by flames, the driver still inside. The eventual revelation that the driver was a fellow geologist that she hadn't seen for 20 or so years, a disreputable character with a very dodgy past, piques the interest of a woman who is more than ably equipped to do a lot of outback sleuthing, much of which revolves around mining interests in the area, and a rumour of stolen, rare and very valuable, pink diamonds.

It's very obvious when reading NO GOOD DEED that Kovacic has done her research well. But she's too good a writer to turn this into a geology / mining text book. The tale here is interesting, and the character of Rena and those she pairs up with along the way are really believable, and extremely personable. It's hard not to want to really cheer the use of an older, talented and resilient female character at the centre of this story, but it's not done gratuitously or as some sort of nobler than thou feminist treatise. Instead, this character fits into the scenario effortlessly, she's believable, very emotionally fragile, but physically capable, experienced and it just makes sense that she would follow the leads in a field that she knows particularly well. The plot here is well laid out, perhaps not as suspenseful, or fast paced as some, but set within the overarching disruption of big mining, amplifying the competing priorities of small towns looking for economic impetus, and indigenous communities trying to protect their sacred places and country. The depiction of the colours of the landscape, the stark beauty and the all too oppressive heat are spot on, as is the vastness of the locations, and the oddness of encountering people in the most unexpected of locations. Not all those people mean well though, and whilst there are a couple of aspects of the plot that aren't that hard to work out, the resolutions to many threads take an unexpected path.

There is also a sly, very Australian, dry as the dust around her sense of humour about Rena. She's aware of her emotional fragility, aware that leaping into the investigation of a murder that is nothing to do with her is dangerous, and equally aware that there's no reason for her to be doing what she's doing. But she does. Partly it's that search for purpose, partly it's her natural sense of justice, partly it's incurable curiosity. Whilst curiosity this time around didn't quite kill the cat, there were points when you had to wonder whether or not she should have been having a long hard think about her choice. Then again, Rena doesn't seem like the sort of person that backs off when the going gets tough. Let's hope there's another book in her story.