Holly Throsby

I enjoyed this book very much, but it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I think I came across it in a review of new mystery/crime novels, and although there is a mystery (what happened to Ginny?) and it is resolved at the end, the book is really more about the characters living in the houses around Ginny's. I loved all the characters and have rarely encountered a better-written four-year old than Joe. I particularly enjoyed his stuffed animals Rabbit, More Rabbit, and Another One Rabbit.

Although many things were either resolved or moving towards resolution by the end, there is the one big connection between Leonie and Barney that they are not yet aware of, and I felt that hanging ominously in the air at the conclusion.… (mehr)

This is Throsby's third book, and, I think, the ... not weakest, but least complicated, in terms of story. It's also probably the most accessible in terms of vernacular; a few things were purely Aussie, but understandable in context. I didn't need my handy-dandy MT-dictionary to decipher cultural references or some of the more obscure slang.

Unlike in the previous books, that where the stories were more centred on the community, Clarke focuses on two people, neighbours but strangers, both of whom are deeply damaged people after suffering significant tragedies. When the police show up to Barney's newly rented home with a warrant to search for the body of a missing woman who lived there 6 years previous, Barney is forced out of his shell, and he begins to interact with his neighbours Leonie.

Throsby weaves the memories of each of their tragedies throughout the narrative, so that the real stories behind each unfurl every so slowly, as the search for Ginny Lawson's body continues on. It's a bit maddening, but worthwhile at the end as she brings everything together. It's not a story with a happy ending, but it at least ends on a hopeful note. Throsby does something a little different, too, as she leaves the reader with more information than the characters have, and I think it works.

The tag line on the cover isn't really good marketing; this really isn't a mystery. But it is a very good story, that just happens to center on the search for a body.… (mehr)