Review: SISTERS OF MERCY, Carol Overington

• 
  This edition made available through Libby by my local library
  
• Published: 1 November 2012
• ISBN: 9781742750446
• Imprint: Random House Australia
• Format: EBook
• Pages: 320

Synopsis (publisher)

Sisters of Mercy by Caroline Overington is the haunting crime novel story of two sisters - one has vanished, the other is behind bars...

Snow Delaney was born a generation and a world away from her sister, Agnes.

Until recently, neither even knew of the other's existence. They came together only for the reading of their father's will - when Snow discovered, to her horror, that she was not the sole beneficiary of his large estate.

Now Snow is in prison and Agnes is missing, disappeared in the eerie red dust that blanketed Sydney from dawn on September 23, 2009.

With no other family left, Snow turns to crime journalist Jack Fawcett, protesting her innocence in a series of defiant letters from prison. Has she been unfairly judged? Or will Jack's own research reveal a story even more shocking than the one Snow wants to tell?

With Sisters of Mercy Caroline Overington once again proves she is one of the most exciting new novelists of recent years.

My Take

I was amazed to find, when I began structuring this review, that I had actually read this book 10 years ago (see my original review here) but I honestly had no recollection of it.

The main story is told by two main narrators. One is Snow Delaney who is in jail for cruelty to disabled children, and is suspected of having somehow disposed of her missing sister. Snow denies knowing anything about that, but in the the light of what we learn about what she has done to children in her foster care, how reliable is she as a narrator? The other narrator is Jack "Tap" Fawcett, a journalist who has been following the disappearance of Agnes Moore, and with whom Snow begins a correspondence when she is in jail. In the letters to Fawcett Snow fills in her back story and tries to convince him of her innocence. Fawcett is unequivocal in his belief that Snow has had something to with her sister's disappearance, but how reliable a narrator is he?

(Date discrepancy

Text in the novel says John Moore went to Oxford in 1930 at age of 20, and that he was picked for the Melbourne Olympics in athletics in 1956. That would make him 46 then. Surely he must have been at Oxford later than that? Something like 1954? 

Agnes Moore met her husband John in Western Australia in 1958 when she was 17, and she was born in 1940. When she disappeared in 2009 she was 69.)

This was an interesting read, particularly the details of how Snow "managed" the "care" of 19 disabled children. It makes you wonder how much based on fact those details are.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.4, SISTERS OF MERCY
4.5, NO PLACE LIKE HOME
4.7, I CAME TO SAY GOODBYE
4.5, CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?
4.5, THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
4.7, THE ONES YOU TRUST

Review: THE STONING, Peter Papathanasiou

• 
  this edition published by Quercus 2021
  
• made available by my local library
• 315 pages
• ISBN 978-1-52941-698-5
• #1 of a new series?

Synopsis (publisher)

A small town in outback Australia wakes to an appalling crime.

A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb’s northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and the local indigenous community, between immigrants and the townies.

Still mourning the recent death of his father, Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate. Within minutes of his arrival, it’s clear that Cobb is not the same place he left. Once it thrived, but now it’s a poor and derelict dusthole, with the local police chief it deserves. And as Manolis negotiates his new colleagues’ antagonism, and the simmering anger of a community destroyed by alcohol and drugs, the ghosts of his past begin to flicker to life.

Vivid, pacy and almost dangerously atmospheric, The Stoning is the first in a new series of outback noir featuring DS Manolis, himself an outsider, and a good man in a world gone to hell.

My Take

8 hours drive from the nearest big city (but which one?), Cobb is a town on the edge of nowhere. Like most small outback towns it is struggling to survive. The detention centre was meant to breathe new life into the town, and certainly it has brought money, extra people, but also a heap of problems. The detention centre is supposedly low security, with a nightly curfew, but in reality the asylum seekers who live there dare not visit the town. Life in the detention centre is little better than living in a jail; it has its own security guards, and the town police have no jurisdiction there.

When a local school teacher is found taped to a tree, stoned to death, a city detective is sent to investigate the case. He suspects he has been sent because he lived in Cobb as a child, his father lived in the previous immigration centre that had been there.

Detective Sergeant George Manolis certainly has his work cut out. The town's police station has 3 staff, supervised by Sergeant Bill Fyfe, and they cut corners where ever they can, and Fyfe is a drunk. Manolis will find that the standards usually enforced in the city do not exist, the services he would expect are not available, and the locals have little respect for the police.

This was a fascinating read that doesn't hesitate to point out the failings of Australia's asylum centre system, as well as tackling the decline that has beset many Australian small outback towns.

Papathanasiou commented: "First and foremost, I wanted to write a compelling crime novel inspired by the vast Australian outback. But I also wrote The Stoning to be more than a whodunit. The plight of asylum seekers in detention is under intense scrutiny worldwide, with many countries considering the hardline Australian model. I feel the voices of Australian writers exploring this subject matter through literature may be especially resonant at this time. As the child of migrants and grandchild of refugees, it is also a topic close to my heart." 

My rating: 4.6

Another review to read: https://damppebbles.com/tag/quercus/

About the author
Peter Papathanasiou was born in northern Greece in 1974 and adopted as a baby to an Australian family. His debut book, a memoir, was published in 2019 as "Son of Mine" by Salt Publishing (UK) and "Little One" by Allen & Unwin (Australia). His debut novel, a work of crime fiction, was published in 2021 as "The Stoning" by MacLehose Press (UK) and Transit Lounge (Australia), and in 2022 by Polar Verlag (Germany). Peter's writing has otherwise been published by The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, The Guardian UK, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Good Weekend, ABC and SBS. He holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from City, University of London; a Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Sciences from The Australian National University (ANU); and a Bachelor of Laws from ANU specialising in criminal law.

 

Review: SLAUGHTER PARK, Barry Maitland

• This edition made available through Libby by my local library
  
• First published: October 2016 Text Publishing, Australia
• Slaughter Park is the third and final book of the Belltree Trilogy.
• Length: 368pp
• ISBN: 9781925498905

Synopsis (author website)

Harry Belltree’s obsessive pursuit of justice has cost him everything – his job in homicide, his marriage and his newborn child. He has nothing left to lose, or so he thinks. Then his estranged wife disappears, leaving their baby daughter behind. The police think she has murdered a man. Harry thinks she’s in danger.

When severed limbs are found dangling from the branches of trees in a suburban park, Harry’s former colleagues are pulled off Jenny’s case. It’s up to Harry to track his missing wife down on his own.

And to lay bare, at last, the extraordinary conspiracy that led to his parents’ murder.

Slaughter Park is the third and final book of the Belltree Trilogy.

My Take

SLAUGHTER PARK takes up where ASH ISLAND left off.

Harry's wife has regained her sight and given birth to a baby daughter and when he visits her in hospital Jenny tells him he must go, leave them. She is frightened that the forces that have been following them will continue to pursue them and destroy them all. Harry takes Jenny at her word and he disappears and she hears nothing of him.

However when Jenny disappears nearly a year later, her sister uses the journalist Kelly Pool to find him and he comes back to Sydney to find her. Bodies have turned up in Slater Park, nicknamed Slaughter Park by the media, and the police are looking for Jenny, believing she has murdered a man.

Once again this is a novel about police corruption, political corruption, the domination of one family, and the death, years before, of Harry's parents. The threads that began with CRUCIFIXION CREEK are eventually resolved, some of them in a surprising twist.

I recommend the series to you. 

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

BRIGHT AIR
mini reviews

• 4.7, ALL MY ENEMIES  -#3 Brock & Kolla
• 5.0, NO TRACE - #8
• 4.7, SPIDER TRAP  - #9

4.7, DARK MIRROR - #10
4.8, CHELSEA MANSIONS - #11
4.7, THE RAVEN'S EYE -  #12
4.7, CRUCIFIXION CREEK

4.6, CRUCIFIXION CREEK
5.0, THE PROMISED LAND 

4.6, ASH ISLAND

Review: WATER'S EDGE, G. R. Jordan

• 
  A Highlands and Islands Detective Thriller (Highlands & Islands Detective Book 1)
  
• This edition on Kindle (Amazon)
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07ZXMK347
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Carpetless Publishing (December 1, 2019)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 167 pages 

Synopsis (Amazon)

A body discovered by the rocks. A broken detective returns to a scene of past tragedy. Will the pain of the past prevent him from seeing the present?

Detective Inspector Macleod returns to his island home twenty years after the painful loss of his wife. With a disposition forged in strong religious conservatism, he must bond with his new partner, the free spirited and upcoming female star of the force, to seek the killer of a young woman and shine a light on the evil beneath the surface. To do so, he must once again stand in the place where he lost everything. Only at the water’s edge, will everything be made new.

The rising tide brings all things to the surface. 

My take

This is the first novel in a Kindle boxed set of 5. Inspector Seoras Macleod's usual partner is unavailable and he has been assigned a young woman, Hope McGrath, as his sergeant. Macleod is unused to working with women, and he secretly believes Homicide is no job for a woman. He find Hope brash and unconventional; he thinks she flaunts her body a bit; but comes to admire other qualities.

The case takes them to Stornaway and there are many aspects of the case that makes him uncomfortable. He struggles to come to terms with his new partner and particularly with the fact that she is a woman who can take physical punishment almost better than he does. Stornaway was once home for Macleod and it was where his wife died twenty years before. Much about McGrath reminds him of his wife and what he lost when she died.

An interesting plot full of challenging ideas. I enjoyed it enough to read the second in the set.

My rating: 4.5

About the author

GR Jordan is a self-published author who finally decided at forty that in order to have an enjoyable lifestyle, his creative beast within would have to be unleashed. His books mirror that conflict in life where acts of decency contend with self-promotion, goodness stares in horror at evil and kindness blind-sides us when we are at our worst. Corrupting our world with his parade of wondrous and horrific characters, he highlights everyday tensions with fresh eyes whilst taking his methodical, intelligent mainstays on a roller-coaster ride of dilemmas, all the while suffering the banter of their provocative sidekicks.

A graduate of Loughborough University where he masqueraded as a chemical engineer but ultimately played American football, GR Jordan worked at changing the shape of cereal flakes and pulled a pallet truck for a living. Watching vegetables freeze at -40'C was another career highlight and he was also one of the Scottish Highlands' "blind" air traffic controllers. Having flirted with most places in the UK, he is now based in the Isle of Lewis in Scotland where his free time is spent between raising a young family with his wife, writing, figuring out how to work a loom and caring for a small flock of chickens. Luckily his writing is influenced by his varied work and life experience as the chickens have not been the poetical inspiration he had hoped for!

What I read in February 2022

 I continue to read at good pace so far this year with 10 books read in February.

1. 4.4, A GHOSTLY SHADOW, H. L. Marsay
2. 4.6, WILD PLACE, Christian White  - Australian writer
   
3. 4.5, THE INVITATION, Lucy Foley
4. 4.4, THE NIGHT BIRD, Brian Freeman
5. 4.6, TRANSIENT DESIRES, Donna Leon  
6. 4.4, A ROMAN SHADOW, H.L. Marsay
7. 4.5, CROOKED HOUSE, Agatha Christie
8. 4.6, CROCODILE TEARS, Alan Carter   - Australian writer
9. 4.5, CANTICLE CREEK, Adrian Hyland   - Australian writer
10. 4.4, REMEMBER ME, Liz Byrski - Australian writer

Review: ASH ISLAND, Barry Maitland

• 
   this edition made available on Libby through SA Libraries
• Text publication date: 3 October 2016
• ISBN: 9781925355444
• #2 Belltree Trilogy

Synopsis (publisher)

Detective Sergeant Harry Belltree has a new posting. Away from Sydney, where he was nearly killed by a corrupt colleague and is now an embarrassment. Off to a quiet life in Newcastle.

Or maybe not so quiet. A body’s been dug up on Ash Island. It may not be the only one.

Harry’s got unfinished business in the area, too. The car crash that killed his parents and blinded his wife Jenny happened not far from Newcastle – and Harry knows it was no accident.

But the other unfinished business is Jenny’s longed-for pregnancy. Which means that now, when Harry’s investigation starts to get dangerous, the stakes are higher than ever.

My Take

It took some time for Harry to recover from the injuries he received at the end of  CRUCIFIXION CREEK and now there is unfinished business. The other person who has taken some time to recover is Kelly Pool, the journalist now working at the Times.  

Harry has been posted to Newcastle doing ordinary police work rather than Homicide. But his reputation has preceded him and the underworld from Sydney knows where he has gone. Also Newcastle Police suspect Harry has been sent there to see if they handled the death of his parents properly, and treat him cautiously.

And so in many ways the action of ASH ISLAND connects seamlessly with the earlier novel, and Harry finds himself investigating some of the same people as before. There are new people and new cases too as well as the connecting threads. That is why you, dear reader, need to read these novels in order.

And at the end of this novel, there is a hook to get you into the third in the trilogy.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

BRIGHT AIR
mini reviews

• 4.7, ALL MY ENEMIES  -#3 Brock & Kolla
• 5.0, NO TRACE - #8
• 4.7, SPIDER TRAP  - #9

4.7, DARK MIRROR - #10
4.8, CHELSEA MANSIONS - #11
4.7, THE RAVEN'S EYE -  #12
4.7, CRUCIFIXION CREEK

4.6, CRUCIFIXION CREEK
5.0, THE PROMISED LAND 

 

Review: CRUCIFIXION CREEK, Barry Maitland

• 
   this edition on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00LZ1U6IY
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Text Publishing; UK ed. edition (September 23, 2015)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 260 pages 
• #1 in the Belltree trilogy

Synopsis (Amazon)

Homicide detective Harry Belltree wouldn't usually be looking too hard at an elderly couple's suicide pact. Especially now, when his brother-in-law Greg has just been stabbed to death. But it seems Greg and the old couple had ties to the same man, a bent moneylender with friends in high places - and low.

Harry can't get officially involved in Greg's murder, but he suspects a link with two other mysterious deaths: his parents'. And when he goes off-grid to investigate, that's when things start to get dangerous

Set in Sydney, this dark, morally ambiguous and adrenaline-charged new series is a triumphant change of direction for Barry Maitland.

My Take

My main reason for re-reading this title is that I have decided to read the two remaining novels in the trilogy, and couldn't trust my memory of the first novel.

The author says in his Afterword that "Harry Belltree is an entirely fictitious character and his activities in no way represent the real behaviors of the New South Wales police." However it does show corruption and self-serving among police, politicians, and bikie gangs. There is a horrendous level of violence, and Harry Belltree, ex-soldier who served in Afghanistan, is really a loose cannon. His wife, blinded in the car crash that killed his parents, has become an IT expert who can break into security systems, wipe CCTV records, and disable alarm systems. 

A good novel that fairly gallops along.

My rating: 4.6

My earlier review

I've also read

BRIGHT AIR
mini reviews

• 4.7, ALL MY ENEMIES  -#3 Brock & Kolla
• 5.0, NO TRACE - #8
• 4.7, SPIDER TRAP  - #9

4.7, DARK MIRROR - #10
4.8, CHELSEA MANSIONS - #11
4.7, THE RAVEN'S EYE -  #12
4.7, CRUCIFIXION CREEK
5.0, THE PROMISED LAND