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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Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason

Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason is the third book in the Reykjavik11807693 mysteries I’ve read and proves what a consistently strong series and masterful writer Indridason is.

The book opens with the city in the grip of a bleak and icy winter. Winds are blowing from the north, ravaging the landscape and making outdoors decidedly unpleasant. When a young Thai immigrant is found dead not far from his home, his little body stuck to the ice and anorak torn, Detective Inspector Erlendur and his team suspect a racially motivated crime.

As they delve further into the child’s tragic death, and get to know the nuclear family of which he was a part, they come to understand what it means to leave one’s motherland, family and culture to start afresh on the other side of the world and the commitment and desire that drives such a relocation. They also unleash a nest of bigots who make the immigrants’ life a misery and who rail against what they perceive as a threat to Icelandic traditions and culture and language.

Is the desire to maintain a status quo motivation for murder? The closer Erlendur gets the truth, the more tragic this tale of xenophobia, desperation to preserve Icelandic history and culture becomes.

This novel resonated so strongly with the current political and cultural climate, not just in Australia, but in many other countries around the world who have experienced waves of immigration and those who harden their hearts and close their minds to both the plight of refugees and Otherness and the positive experiences that can be had by welcoming them.

Erlendur and his team are dogged and loyal; the questions they ask of suspects and themselves are real and probing and while the book is about a crime, perhaps the greatest is the lack of humanity we show to those with whom, in the end, we have far more in common with than any differences.

Another great, thought-provoking read.

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