2 Nov 2017

CRIME BOOK OF THE MONTH

Little Secrets by Anna Snoekstra

The regional Australian town of Colmstock is rife with desperation. Since the closing of the town’s automotive factory caused the job market to fall apart, much of the population has slumped into misery, including Rose Blakey’s family. Her mother now works at a grim poultry factory that leaves her too exhausted to care properly for Rose’s three younger siblings, and her long-haul trucker stepfather wants her to move the hell out – like, now. Rose, of course, can’t imagine anything better than doing exactly that: leaving her dusty hometown for the city, courtesy of the journalism cadetship she’s gone for at The Sage Review, a job she’s so confident about that she’s already packed. So when the rejection email comes through, and Rose is left with nowhere to live and no job to go to, she’s faced with the reality she can’t escape. A job pouring drinks for the cops and other customers at Eamon’s Tavern Hotel, avoiding the flirting of Senior Sergeant Frank Ghirardello, who spells out for her the doom that is Settling Down and Staying. The only way out that Rose can see comes through writing the journalistic scoop of a lifetime. And Colmstock has mystery to burn: in the aftermath of a deadly fire that killed a young boy, someone is leaving little porcelain dolls on the doorsteps of the little girls in town – dolls that look exactly like them. And so, keyboard at hand, Rose sets about investigating everyone in town, including the questionable yet fascinating Will, the hotel’s only resident. But Rose’s power in writing about these dolls may do more to the community – and bring more danger – than she ever expected.

Snoekstra – shortlisted for a Ned Kelly Award in 2017 for her debut work of fiction, Only Daughter – has created, with her hyperreal Australian style, a visceral world of heat, dust and sweat. With every moment detailed and crisply told, you can feel Rose’s need to escape – from Colmstock, from her stepfather, from her sticky, burning job. Rose can’t help but consider everyone around her as bleakly as she feels about the town, discarding their humanity and feelings in her quest to break through to the journalistic paradise she imagines. Much like the protagonist of Sarah Bailey’s bestseller The Dark Lake, the flawed character of Rose, who rails against everything that holds her to the community, elicits sympathy from readers who want her to escape, even though sometimes you want to reach into the pages and shake her. Full of twists, grit, and secrets not so very small at all, this is a sweltering summer read.

NEW CRIME FICTION

Bonfire by Krysten Ritter

Krysten Ritter – of Jessica Jones/Breaking Bad fame – has always cultivated a persona of scary-clever darkness in the roles she plays, so transferring those skills to the scary-cleverness that is crime fiction at its best is a logical transition. Abby Williams is an environmental lawyer who has perfected the new life she has in Chicago, but her hometown of Barrens, Indiana, is pulling her back. Her new case has her investigating Optimal Plastics, the company that almost singlehandedly keeps Barrens afloat, and her pursuit of truth sees her facing things she’d hoped to never face again, from her father to the memory of Abby’s vanished childhood friend, Kaycee. Soon, she realises that Optimal Plastics has more connections to Kaycee’s disappearance and other unsettling circumstances than she ever thought, and the tight grip the company has on the town will need all her strength to loosen it.

Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear

When eight-year-old Cat Kinsella hears her father lie to police about knowing Maryanne Doyle – a seventeen-year-old-girl who later goes missing – it fractures her relationship with him permanently. Nearly 20 years later, Cat is now a detective constable, determined to bring those in the wrong to justice, no matter how hard she has to work for it. When a woman is found murdered near the pub her father runs – a woman who, it’s discovered, has ties to Maryanne Doyle – Cat feels the past as clear as the present. Is the father she once revered truly capable of murder? Is her suspicion alone enough evidence? With a likeable cast of characters and murky moral decisions, this is a thrilling, entertaining debut.

The House by Simon Lelic

If you want to put yourself right off the idea of buying a home – wise in the current real estate market, really – read Simon Lelic’s disarming The House. When young couple Syd and Jack put in an offer for a perfect home (one they know to be far too low), they don’t expect at all to get it. But the owner accepts their offer, wanting a young couple to move in, and the pair take on all that the rickety home requires, including cleaning out the previous owner’s belongings. As we follow Syd and Jack in alternating journal entries, we discover that the attic led to a most disturbing discovery, and that the find, in turn, led to some unfortunate decisions. And that’s all before someone is found murdered behind their home – and the police decide to keep an eye on them. But the house has more than its share of secrets … and some of its possessions have far too much in common with Syd and Jack’s past. A haunting, smartly written psychological thriller.

Deadlier edited by Sophie Hannah

When you love reading crime, sometimes you settle into the cosiness of reading only the authors you feel safe with. You wait for Kathy Reichs to release something new, hope for translations of Karin Slaughter’s books from years ago, or wait 45 minutes for a new James Patterson. For those readers – or for those who voraciously gobble up anything on the crime shelves – this is the book for you: 100 short stories from some of the best female crime writers around. Edited by Sophie Hannah, and with stories from Val McDermid, Daphne Du Maurier, Emma Viskic, Agatha Christie, Kerry Greenwood, Margaret Atwood, Enid Blyton, Ellen Davitt (of the prestigious Australian Davitt Awards), Ngaio Marsh, Angela Savage, and many, many more, this is packed full of excellent stories for all tastes.

Sleep No More by P.D. James

If missing out on P.D. James in the Deadlier collection stuck in your craw, never fear: here are six stories from one of crime’s most sorely missed writers. Featuring never-before-collected stories from magazines and the like, tales include ‘The Girl who Loved Graveyards’ and ‘The Yoyo’. It’s recommended that you read them in order. You’ll find yourself thoroughly spooked by James’s skills as a storyteller, earning her status as the master of the whodunit – as you’re taken for a ride in the mind of a multitude of characters: from those who commit the perfect murder, to those who keep the darkest of secrets.

The Wrong Child by Barry Gornell

A dark meditation on grief and revenge, set in a small Scottish town, this follows a chain of events in the past and the present: the lead-up to the accident that claimed the lives of 21 schoolchildren six years before, and the present day, where the single child still alive now roams the town like an animal, abandoned by his guilt-ridden parents, and hated by the townsfolk for the loss he represents. As the chapters lead up to the mysterious accident that befell the children, we find out why Douglas Evans – now known as ‘Dog’ – leads the life he now does, and how a small village can become so twisted by vengeance and hate.

Clear to the Horizon by Dave Warner

After winning the Ned Kelly Award in 2016 (during a memorable event that involved him singing one of his greatest hits), the excellent Dave Warner is back with two of his greatest literary big-hitters: P.I. Snowy Lane and D.I. Dan Clement. Almost two decades ago, Lane was hired to find three women who vanished from outside a Perth nightclub, but he never found out what happened to them. Now, when another young woman goes missing, Lane is again put on the case – but now, he’d risk anything to find out what happened to her, and to the women he’s never been able to forget. Warner’s sharp wit and western grittiness are on full display here, in a story as broad as Western Australia itself.

The Darkest Day by Håkan Nesser (translated by Sarah Death)

The first in a new series by Swedish stalwart Håkan Nesser starts with a birthday party in the small town of Kymlinge, where the Hermanssons get together to celebrate father and daughter Karl-Erik and Ebba in another year’s journey around the sun. But whereas most family parties end in tears over who has to take their copy of season one of The Bridge back to the shop after everyone buys it for their dad, the Hermanssons have a different outcome … not every family member will still be around by the end. With the philosophical Inspector Barbarotti on hand to investigate the disappearances, this family may no longer be able to hide the unsettling knot of secrets it has been – unless he’s too late to make a difference.

Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart

In Hackensack, New Jersey, sheriff’s deputy Constance Kopp is up to her ears in problems. As the matron of the local jail’s women’s section, she can’t help but become frustrated at the reasons women are imprisoned – for unmarried cohabiting (a crime your gentle reviewer is also guilty of, but has yet to be jailed for), for waywardness, for suggestiveness. Despite the usual opposition encountered by a lady officer of the law in 1916, Constance will fight for women not to have their small-scale problems of the past ruin their future. Respecting women’s choices is all well and good, of course … until Constance’s own theatrical younger sister, Fleurette, decides to join the circus. Between Fleurette and young Minnie Davis (who’s on a path to reform school there’s no easy way back from), Constance will need to use all her powers – and a few more – to help them both.

Fiona Hardy is our monthly crime fiction columnist, and also blogs about crime fiction at readingkills.com.