It’s very hard for me to imagine my daughters buying their first home. Partly, it’s because they’re aged only four, six and eight, but mostly it’s because house prices have become ridiculous.
Twenty years from now, they’re going to need millions to get into the Sydney market. Millions. And no bank is going to lend them that kind of money, unless of course it’s the Bank of Mum and Dad.
So what are parents to do? Scrimp on education and put away the money for a home deposit? Or, you know, rob a bank or something?
How far would you go to provide for your child’s future?
It’s the question at the heart of Caroline Overington’s latest crime thriller, The Lucky One, which is set in California’s Paso Robles - a town in turmoil for more reasons than one.
Sitting halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the rancher village has been discovered by the foodie scene. Kale has arrived! And so have developers like the Pinkhound Corporation, which has purchased the 150-year-old Alden-Stowe Estate with plans to raze the castle and family cemetery to make way for orchards.
But when the excavators move in, there’s a nasty surprise waiting for them. A corpse. A fresh one, that’s been partially burnt.
Mothers with a motive
Detectives quickly establish the body is that of family patriarch, Owen James Alden-Stowe III, and suspicion immediately falls on the three women who stood to gain the most from his death; his dull and destitute daughter Fiona, his son’s gold-digging widow, Jessalyn and his long-suffering housekeeper of many years, Penelope.
They all have motive. His death makes them rich and gives them a chance to set-up their adult children for life.
But is that enough reason to kill? And what about the second skeleton that turns up on the property?
Author, Caroline Overington will be a familiar name to many readers. A veteran of 11 books, Overington knows exactly how to produce a fast-paced, page-turning read that offers its fair share of black humour.
Entertainment with a capital E
While the Walkley-award winning journalist’s early novels (Matilda is Missing, I Came To Say Goodbye) made important statements on the state of society, The Lucky One is the kind of novel that you’ll enjoy while you’re reading it, but won’t trouble you too much when you’ve finished. It’s entertainment with a capital ‘E’ and is actually the second in Overington’s ‘neon’ series - a set of four domestic-noir books which can be read in any order but all contain one particular detail that the most eagle-eyed of readers will be able to spot across all four. Last year’s yellow book The One that Got Away was a huge commercial success and The Lucky One seems set to follow suit.
Overington keeps you guessing and she gives more ‘twist’ than a 1950s rocker. In the end, the kids will get their money, and other family members will get what they deserve – but in this novelist’s deft hands, you’ll have no idea who gets what until the very end.
Read a preview of The Lucky One and find out about the Sisterhood of Reading.
