Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
Robotham’s small town crime novel is striated with menacing claustrophobia, where the truth is purposefully camouflaged from view and eroded by the passage of time. Despite the emotional heft of the book, the pages slip by so rapidly that the reader is forced to grip the cover until the knuckles turn white.
It’s 2001 and Arlo Hackett is released [on parole] after serving twelve years of a fifteen year sentence. He returns to his hometown Yulara, to visit his Mother Mary Hackett [nee Tierney] who has been placed in a nursing home. Yulara is in a South Australian backwater; founded during the antipodean ‘gold-rush’.
The residents of Yulara are hostile toward Arlo’s return. His younger brother Luke was involved in the rape and murder of a local girl Saxon Winacott [Nee Tully]. It was this horrific incident that landed Arlo in the penitentiary [for obstructing the course of justice]. Arlo never believed his brother was capable of rape, though he may have caused Saxon Winacott’s death by accident. The only member of Yulara’s insular community that has any sympathy [and time] for Arlo is Helen Churcher, who is the manager of Eltham Court, the nursing home that cares for Mary Hackett.
Robotham’s novel has a split time-line, with life in Yulara in the 1980s, when Helen Churcher had a crush on Arlo during their school days. The crush would develop into a relationship, following Arlo’s military service. Though the relationship would come to an end following the incident that placed Arlo Hackett behind bars with the fifteen year sentence for aiding his brother Luke's attempt to evade justice. Helen Churcher would conscientiously write letters to Arlo while he was incarcerated despite his instance she forget him. Arlo never opened the letters.
Ostensibly a murder mystery set in small-town Australia, it is also a coming-of-age tale, laced with a melancholic view of childhood’s end that blends regret to hidden evil[s] camouflaged by time and secrets.
There many secondary characters, that traverse the narrative like glittering gems viewed through a kaleidoscope, coming into and out of focus – at times sharp and then diffuse, like smoke in a Brownian Motion tube. It is the supporting characters that help make Robotham’s narrative so utterly compelling.
The murdered girl Saxon Winacott had fled her boarding school but refused to return to her family home. It appears her stepfather, Frank a second generation politician is a violent bully. Saxon escapes to the Hackett household, where she is allowed to stay in the spare-room, under the condition that she attend the local state school with Arlo and Luke and play the organ each Sunday at Catholic Mass - as ordered by Mary Hackett.
The church priests Father Martell and Father Corday see their congregation blossom as Saxon’s savant-like keyboard skills attract more and more attendees. Saxon also becomes popular at the local school, despite being a wealthy former privately-schooled pupil. She befriends Elizabeth [‘Betsy’] Nagel, who once bullied her, but soon they become inseparable. There is tension in the Hackett household as Saxon has a [unreciprocated] crush on Arlo, though it is the younger brother Luke that appears smitten by their guest. Saxon’s Mother Cathy and Stepfather Frank Winacott are less than happy with their daughter attending state-school and residing in the poor side of town with Mary Hackett and her two older sons.
Other characters slide in-and-out of the narrative as tragedy erupts, such as Lawyer Otto Gutterson and his niece Camille, as well as local businessman and soon to be Mayor of Yulara Devlin Fraser and his timid wife Jenny. The recollections of Arlo’s childhood are painted evocatively, especially his memories of his late stepfather Angus Hackett which are detailed with compassion and an understanding that forces the reader into deep contemplation about their own lives.
This paragraph written from the perspective of Arlo Hackett is the novel in a microcosm –
“Years ago, before I went to prison, I remember a TV commercial showing a tough-looking skinhead sprinting along a city street, charging at a middle-aged man who turns and holds up his briefcase to fend off the attack. Then the camera showed a different angle. A sling breaks and rocks and debris come crashing to the ground a split second after the skinhead pushes the man to safety. The message was clear – until you see the whole picture, you only see part of the story.”
Like tilting the angle of a prism so that the truth can be diffracted from the rest of the image. The acknowledgements help explain why this novel has the combined enthusiasm of a debut work - suffused with the polish of writer at the peak of their literary ability.
