The Visitor
by Rebecca Starford (Allen & Unwin, $36)
Laura is living in the UK when her parents inexplicably drive to a remote area in the Australian Outback and die. They have never been known to have any interest in the Outback. There are mysterious maps and photographs of the Outback – waterholes, gorges, billabongs – covering the walls of their Brisbane house which Laura and her teenage daughter Tilly have moved into in preparation for its sale. Tilly thinks, “It was like stumbling across a murder chart from one of those ITV shows her dad liked.” The pictures provoked a rare sensation in Tilly: “both narcotic and transfixing, the energy swirling around her dark at the edges, blurry.” This might be a premonition. The house is haunted, by the blurry absence of the parents and by the mysteriousness of the circumstances of their deaths.
Then there are the neighbours. Anita is somebody Laura was friends with when they were young. It was a one-sided arrangement: Anita prescribed the boundaries of the relationship. She was demanding and a bit mad, which was her attraction. Anita’s mother, she says, has died. So who is the other shadowy figure Laura thinks she occasionally glimpses? Anita says she had befriended Laura’s parents and seems to believe this familiarity entitles her to invite herself into the crumbling old house whenever she wants. There is something slightly menacing about her despite relentless cheerfulness on the surface. And over-friendliness. She is still demanding.
Strange things, like hauntings perhaps, begin happening. Laura might be going a bit mad. Her current circumstances are certainly a bit mad.
This is an entirely convincing thriller both “narcotic and transfixing”, its energy swirling around at the edges, blurry.
Stillwater
by Tanya Scott (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
This is a gangster novel that resolutely attempts to be much more than a gangster novel. There are gangsters aplenty though. The lead gangster, Gus, is a trigger- and fist-happy caricature of a villain, who goes far beyond the call of duty when it comes to violence. Luke Harris is in hiding from Gus. As a teenager, Luke (who’s changed his name since then) got involved in working for Gus. Big mistake. He fled to Queensland, made a new life for himself, adopted his new identity. He returns to his, and Gus’s, hometown of Melbourne. Idiotic mistake. He now works as a private carer for needy people. He is also studying commerce and accounting. That is one way of forging a life so boring that a crime boss is unlikely to find him, isn’t it? Crime bosses don’t use accountants. They use standover tactics to balance their books.
Luke temporarily takes on Phil, who is in his mid-20s but intellectually still a child. Phil has a horrible, rich father, Jonathan, who lives in a fancy house and has oodles of money and is the most miserable bastard you’re ever likely to come across. There is also a daughter, Emma. She’s an aspiring actor. She hates her father (who wouldn’t?), oh, and she’s hot. When Luke meets her she’s wearing faded denim shorts and a T-shirt that ends above her navel. Luke suspects “she could get away with wearing a potato sack, à la Marilyn Monroe”. That’s fairly yuck. Where do you think this is going to go? You might also guess Jonathan won’t want some bum who lives in a dump and drives a dodgy Subaru having anything to do with his daughter.
Of course Gus finds Luke. And of course he demands that Luke get back to work for him. Threats of violence, or death, will usually get you what you want. Now, Luke has to figure out a way to get back out.
This is a debut novel and it shows. The writing’s a bit creaky. And the plot, while admirably controlled, resorts to a few tricks and twists too many. If it was a roller-coaster, and the aim is too obviously for something that is lazily called a roller-coaster ride, I wanted to get off before it came to an end. l
