Too many modern novels seem too earnest, too gloomy or trying too hard to be literary and they make my brain hurt.
On the other hand, those that are lighter in tone are often weak in structure and plot, with thin characterisations. So thank goodness for Sue Williams' debut thriller-murder mystery.
Williams is an Australian with a wonderful tongue-in-cheek style, a mix of subtle and laugh-out-loud humour, individual characters, and a crazy plot that keeps you turning the pages.
Cass Tuplin is a widow running one of the last two retail outlets in the dry and dusty township of Rusty Bore (near Muddy Soak, and Hustle).
Vern, up the road, sells everything except the takeaways Cass does so well, when she has customers. Vern wants a merger (read takeover), but Cass isn't willing to sell. Meanwhile a young stranger turns up, bleeding enough to be noticeable, and looking for somewhere to stay.
Cass offers him her friend Ernie's abandoned place, an isolated spot out in the country. This unwise move brings Cass a lot of trouble, involvement with a murder that no-one else believes has happened (including her older son, a cynical and know-it-all policeman), meetings with some very dodgy characters, and enough knockings around to put her in the same class as one of Dick Francis' resilient heroes. She also has to deal with her other son, Brad, a bit of a loser-cum-sponger-cum-environmental activist, his girlfriend and her half-dozen ferrets, his pregnant friend, and her own potential boyfriend who may be one of the goodies ... or one of the baddies.
The story is told by Cass herself in a wonderful freewheeling style that continually undercuts itself, throws ironies around by the mile, and in general offers us a character we love from page one, even when she's driving her family and several other people crazy.
- Mike Crowl is a Dunedin writer.
