THE GOSLING GIRL BY JACQUELINE ROY

It would be inaccurate to say I enjoyed this book. It’s a bleak story that is at once challenging and thought-provoking and for both those reasons and so many more, really important. Rather, I was astounded by this book, it’s themes, plot and the way the story moves along – so much so – I couldn’t put it down.

It tells the tale of Michelle Cameron, the “Gosling Girl” of the title, a young black woman who, when the book opens, is just released back into the community after serving time for having committed a heinous crime (killing a little white child) when she was 10 years old. Given a new identity, the reader follows Michelle as she takes her first tentative steps into “normality”, only, as Michelle quickly discovers, “normality” is a relative term.

When an old friend of Michelle’s is murdered and she’s linked to the crime, she is immediately suspected. Worse, the life she’d slowly started to build for herself swiftly unravels as the police, media, public and others target Michelle, assuming guilt long before anything is proven.

A young black detective assigned to the case, Natalie Tyler, observes what’s happening to Michelle and, against her professional judgement, finds herself drawn in. Is Michelle innocent of the crimes past and present? Is she as much a victim as the those she’s accused of killing and deserving of protection from the terrible forces mounting against her, or is she as evil as she’s been painted and thus the endless punishment others seek to mete out is warranted?

When is one considered to have “served their time”? Is it possible to be redeemed or start again when society, the media, and those who have something to gain from keeping the crime in the social memory, persist in reminding everyone of your offense?

Raw, powerful, yet beautifully understated in tone and writing, this book cleverly and yet with surgical precision, dissects institutional, systemic, overt, and casual racism and those who deny it and are complicit in upholding and feeding the structures maintaining it. It examines how those marginalised by colour, class, wealth and sex are either disregarded or excused, and how the disenfranchised are exploited by those with even a small amount of power.

Beautifully written in that you often aren’t aware of just how shocking and/or pervasive something is until after a scene has finished and you consider the repercussions, this is a moving account of how justice is not served but is contingent on a range of factors outside the alleged perpetrators and sometimes the victims’ control.

It’s not an easy read, but it’s one that is so worthwhile and ultimately so  rewarding.

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The Other Wife by Michael Robotham

The latest book in the Joseph O’Loughlin series, The Other Wife is a cracker of a read that I dare you to be able to put down once you start. I forced myself only so I could savour the joy of a great story with characters I’ve grown to know and love and who are embroiled in a plot both dark and, for Joe at least, deeply, personal.

The book opens with Joe relocated to London with youngest daughter Emma, contemplating life after the death of his wife, when he receives the call adult children both dread and half anticipate: his eminent surgeon father has been admitted to hospital and is on life support.

Racing to be by his father’s side, Joe reflects upon this cold, distant and judgemental man he barely knew and yet whose approval he endlessly sought. When he arrives at ICU, his father is not alone. A younger, lovely woman is sitting by his side, clutching his father’s inert hand. But it’s when she tells Joe who she is, that his world is turned upside down and inside out.

Everything Joe thought he knew is now unstable and with each new piece of information, he seems to lurch from one discovery and response to another. Not even the grounding presence and help of Vincent Ruiz, retired cop and now a corporate investigator, provides the stability Joe needs.

The more Joe delves into his own and other’s histories, the more suspicious he becomes about what really happened to his father and why, but when the truth is finally revealed, not even Joe is prepared for the consequences.

Superbly written, tight, fast-paced and emotionally fraught yet always true, this is a magnificent book that puts family and personal histories under the microscope and doesn’t hold back. It’s explores the assumptions we make – about those we think we know and those we don’t. How unfair and self-righteous these sometimes are and the terrible outcomes that can occur when we’re swift to judge.

No-one is more honest or raw in his judgements than Joe – especially about himself. I think that’s what makes his character rich, real and so appealing. Flawed, vulnerable and yet with a strength he isn’t always aware of, this book really has him centre stage, placed in an oft-cruel spotlight under which he still manages to star.

My only disappointment (as always happens with Robotham) is that I now have to bloody well wait for his next book. Please don’t leave me waiting too long. This was stunning.

 

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Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

Recommended to me by a dear friend with whom I share a love of reading, Girl in Snow, a first-time book from Danya Kukafka, is a sublime, beautifully written murder-mystery that rather than focussing on the forensics of the investigation into the death of a young girl, Lucinda Hayes, instead chooses to explore the impact her death and her life have on the people around her.

Told from three points of view: a cop with a deep secret named Russ, the strange, interior Cameron who though he has trouble socially, not only perceives the world around him in the most fascinating and imaginative way, can produce wonderful art. Much of his work is centred on Lucinda. Preferring to lurk in the shadows, when his work and manner draw attention to him and the secrets he keeps, he becomes a likely suspect. Then there is Jade: cynical and wise beyond her years, she too harbours desires and dark resentments, observing, alienating and loathing the townsfolk. The one thing she doesn’t keep to herself is her burning hatred for Lucinda and everything she represents.

Not only are the stories of these three characters interconnected, but so too is the relationships they have with Lucinda, their families and the neighbours and school friends who think they know them.

In order to solve Lucinda’s murder and bring her killer to justice, they must all face the past and, more importantly, the parts of themselves they’ve refused to acknowledge.

The thing that strikes you most about this book, apart from the tight plotting and totally credible resolution, is the gorgeous language. The prose is exquisite, the descriptions offered for mundane objects, for feelings almost impossible to express are all there on the page like poetry. Not only did I marvel at some of the descriptions, but became lost in the moment, saying the sentences over and over in my head like a litany.

Already I am looking forward to Kukafka’s next novel, because this debut is a doozy.

 

 

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Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil by Melina Marchetta

23566896 Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil by Melina Marchetta is quite simple a brilliant, moving and thought-provoking book that deals with so many familiar, contemporary and ideologically thorny and relevant issues in a sensitive and meaningful way.

The title is a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, a king who was greatly misunderstood and is often cast by history and, indeed, his contemporaries, as a murderer of the worst kind. For his entire reign, he dealt with suspicion, distrust, gossip and attempts to assassinate his character and his actual person. It’s not surprising then that the novel also deals with someone, actually, a family, accused of murder most foul: terrorism and the brutal slaying of 23 people when a home-made bomb is detonated in a local supermarket, destroying lives, families and cultural relations. Just like Henry IV, the family and the community deal with the fallout, gossip, and everything and anything else the media and suspicious, racist minds can generate.

Fast forward 13 years, and the scene is set for another bomb to explode – this time in France on a bus containing British kids on tour. The novel then follows the inevitable fallout that occurs when it’s discovered that the daughter of one of the original terrorists, a young women named Violette, was a passenger on the destroyed bus. Worse, she’s disappeared and taken a young boy with her. Suspended DI, Bish Ortley, whose daughter, Bee, survives the carnage, commences an investigation into the tragedy. Crossing continents, counties, encountering co-operative parents, scared and hostile ones, cultural and racial conflict, as well as his own personal demons, Bish is determined to find Violette and the boy and protect them. But there are others, including a rapacious and unforgiving media who have other ideas.

Set across mainly two countries, England and France, it nevertheless draws other countries (including Australia), cultures and faiths and the people that represent these into its narrative. Avoiding stereotypes, Marchetta constructs real people who you engage with, believe in and champion with every breath, every word. The demonisation of Otherness, the way misunderstandings are formed, and cultural appropriation manipulated, is charted and exposed in all its callus cruelty as is the ease at which we’re prepared to accept the worst of people before the best; the way in which we allow fear to govern our responses even when our hearts and heads tell us differently. It’s also a story about families, about young people, trust, loyalty and the bonds that both tie and divide us.

A timely, superb book and beautifully and powerfully written, that will have you thinking well beyond the last page.

 

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