On an isolated stretch of road out of town, a car towing a caravan is forced off the road and the two occupants are found dead. Zara is the first person on the scene and is determined to find out what happened. Jack, of course, is also working on the case but is unable to provide her with any information. She therefore has to make her own investigations. Unfortunately these investigations pose a risk to her life.
An exciting well written crime novel embroiled in outback Western Australia.
Detective Jack Higgins has remained in Kalgoorlie while his partner Zara Ellison returned to Adelaide to recover from injuries she received when investigating a story. Jack has yet to decide what his future will be. Detective Sergeant Angie Sullivan has recently arrived in Kalgoorlie from Perth and is adjusting to her new environment. Angie and Jack combine forces to find out what happened to the missing boys. Did the boys leave of their own accord or were they abducted? Surrounded by desert and mine shafts, the boys could be anywhere. Then Bree also disappears.
The Missing by Fleur McDonald is the second book she has set in Kalgoorlie and like The Prospect and The Witness, there are graphic descriptions of Kalgoorlie and the surrounding area. The personal lives and challenges faced by the characters are important features of the books. In The Missing the life and challenges faced by Smurf, a Vietnam veteran, are important to the novel.
As well as being a crime novel, the book looks at the challenges faced by young mothers looking after their baby, especially when the baby has sleep issues at night.
The Witness by Fleur McDonald started slowly but improved as the investigation progressed, though I worked out the name of the person behind the deaths early in the book. This is the third book by Fleur McDonald set in the area around Kalgoorlie.
Grace's friend, Bea, works at the post office where she sorts the mail and makes deliveries each day. Through her job she becomes aware that the mail service is being used by some inhabitants of the island to report the possible misdemeanors of neighbours to the Germans. This is just one way some islanders place the lives of their neighbours in danger.
As the war drags on, life becomes more difficult for the locals living on an island where there are severe food shortages and their every move is watched by an enemy who becomes increasingly dangerous with the realisation that defeat is around the corner.
The Wartime Book Club is one of several novels written about life on the Channel Islands during the Second World War. Other books include The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, Dancing with the Enemy by Diane Armstrong and The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat. At the end of the novel Kate Thomson includes information about the sources used when writing the book plus events and people who inspired the creation of The Wartime Book Club.
During the First World War, Australian pilot, Fred Willets, rescued another pilot whose plane was shot down. The pilot did not survive but his father, Richard de Reve, was forever grateful to Fred for the attempt to save his son's life. Fred returned to Western Australia where he worked as a detective in the outback. Then in 1929 Fred was summoned to England for the reading of the will of Richard de Reve which included a bequest for him.
The de Reve family can be described as complicated. Fortunately a staff member has kept a copy of the family tree in her diary and the family tree plus plans of the house appear at the front of the book. Gradually we are introduced to the people invited to the family home for the reading of the will. As you would expect in an Agatha Christie style novel, it is not long before a series of crimes including a robbery and the discovery of two dead bodies occur.
The events occur at the weekend as a storm approaches so Fred is charged with the initial investigations. Assisting him is the local pharmacist, Prudence Meadows. It is obvious that the crimes were committed by someone in the house, but who and why?
Sound Mind Dead Body is an enjoyable cosy crime inviting the author to solve the mysteries.
Olive, a member of the Catholic Church, had difficulty in accepting that attitudes were changing and her mother-in-law was never going to accept any attitudes that were different from her strict Methodist beliefs. So when Cathy, who was studying to be a teacher, became pregnant outside of marriage it was immediately decided by older family members that she should leave home until the baby was born and adopted by another family. However, Cathy and her partner Andy stood their ground and insisted that they would marry and keep their child, although it meant that Cathy would not be able to finish her studies and become a teacher if she was a mother.
The Marriage Trap in many ways provides a social history of the period as Cathy adapts to her new life as a mother. She gradually builds a new network of friends and learns of a method of contraception becoming available to help women control their fertility. However it is some years before the Pill becomes readily available and there are still doctors who will not prescribe it.
The story is told showing the lives of Olive and Cathy as well as Evelyn who observes what is happening around her and when she turns 20 knows how she wants to control her life.
When Sabine Winters attended the grand opening of the hotel in December 1939 she did not anticipate the events that would lead her to Uruguay where she would be risking her life investigating Nazi sympathisers.
When the casino opens in Hobart, Jenny Davies has the opportunity to become a Ladybird, one of the casino staff. This results in her leaving home and making friends in a very different environment from the one she grew up in.
In her new novel Mary-Lou Stephens provides us with the events that dramatically changed the lives of these two women, along with their back stories, until the stories become intertwined by the end of the book. The hotel maintains an important role throughout the book.
Wrest Point Riviera - Pauline Connolly.com
