Crossing the Lines

Crossing the Lines by Saluri Gentill, published in the USA as After She Wrote Him, is a crime novel with a difference. In 2018 Crossing the Lines won the Ned Kelly Award for crime fiction.

Madeline (Maddie) d'Leon is a writer of crime novels living with her husband, a doctor, in a NSW rural town. Madeline is best known for a series of crime novels featuring a female protagonist but she wants to write a stand-alone crime novel. She wants to write something different. This time, in her new crime novel, her protagonist is a writer of literary fiction, Edward (Ned) McGinnity. Edward McGinnity is also writing a new novel and decides that the protagonist should be named Madeline d'Leon.

As the reader follows the writing of the two books, the plots become to some extent merged as main characters begin to take on a life of their own and intereact with the thoughts and even lives of their authors. The reader is left wondering who is the actual author and who is the protagonist? As she writes this new novel Madeline attempts to include more background and an understanding of her characters as occurs in literary fiction while Ned discovers that as events unfold his literary work is becoming a crime novel. The relationship between Madeline and Edward begins to expand outside the writing of the books.

At one stage (page 31) when Edward is asked about his new story he replies: "It's an explanation of an author's relationship with her protagonist, an examination of the tenuous line between belief and reality, imagination and self, and what happens when that line is crossed."

Later he adds: "The story's about what goes on in her head and how powerful that becomes."

This exploration on the writing of novels is interwoven with solving a crime and a study of relationships. The reader needs to allow plenty of time to read and enjoy this stand-alone novel by the author of the Rowland Sinclair series.