Dead Man Switch

Set in Sydney after the Second World War, Tara Moss' The War Widow (2019) is a gripping mystery novel featuring a compelling heroine. Billie Walker is smart, brave, loyal, resilient and determined. She has recently returned home from Europe where she was a war correspondent, and is carrying a lot of emotional baggage. Her husband Jack has gone missing, feared dead, and she has recently lost her beloved father.

Walker has taken over her late father's Private Inquiry business. It is a tough gig, but she finds female clients often prefer to seek her out. She makes ends meet with cases she detests - finding dirt for divorcing couples.  But every now and then a case comes along that uses her talents to the fullest. 

Mrs Brown engages Walker to find her missing son. The teenaged Adin was last seen a few days ago and so Walker and her trusty assistant Sam start their investigations. Their inquiries lead them to a night club, an auction house and beyond. Along the way, they realise that there are other forces at play which seek to derail their search for the boy. 

Meanwhile, Walker has also promised Shyla, a young Aboriginal woman who often acts as an informant, that she will investigate some missing girls. Shyla has provided a handful of small clues, but will they be enough to go on?

Walker faces sexism at every turn, as a woman in a 'man's job', failing to vacate her position for the men returning from war. She has to support herself and is determined to earn her way in the world. With her flare for fashion and her Fighting Red lipstick, Walker is a trailblazer ready to stand up to anyone who gets in her way. Moss addresses the issues of class, race and gender that Walker confronts, in a manner that feels natural within the setting of the novel. 

I absolutely loved this novel and was gripped from beginning to end! It feels very much like a throwback to an earlier time, reminding me very much of noir detective fiction from the period. Moss has done her research and authentically depicts the immediate post-war period in Australia, with people still reeling from the trauma of WW2 and trying to come to terms with its aftermath. Every day people are faced with wounded returned service men. The petrol rations, restrictions on imports, and the fear of foreigners feels very real. Set in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, I found myself reminiscing about many of the places she describes and craving a high tea at the Hydro Majestic! 

I have admired Tara Moss for her feminist non-fiction work (Fictional Woman and Speaking Out) and have heard her speak a number of times about her work in this space. I have never read any of Moss' fiction until picking up this novel so it is exciting to know she has many more novels to explore while I await the next Billie Walker mystery. 

The War Widow has been published in some counties as Dead Man Switch.

Blind Justice

Investigative journalist Louise Milligan has spent a lot of time in court covering high profile sexual assault and child sex abuse cases. During her investigations, she became increasingly concerned about the treatment of witnesses and the retraumatising of victims of crime through the court system. In Witness (2020), Milligan explores the vexed issue of balancing the fundamental principles of criminal justice and respect for victims, and makes recommendations for reform of the judicial system.

The book begins with a shocking rape case which lead to a protracted series of court cases. Eighteen year old Saxon Mullins, on a night out with friends, was raped by a man she had only just met. Mullins bravely reported her rape and agreed to testify against the perpetrator. Despite being the complainant, Mullins' voice in the case was diminished. 

Later, Milligan shares the story of Paris Street, a Melbourne schoolboy groomed by his athletic coach. St Kevin's school rallied around the perpetrator, betraying their duty of care to their students. Street had to testify at age 15 and was retraumatised by his cross-examination, and let down by those entrusted with his care.

Milligan herself was a witness in the Cardinal George Pell case, spending a day being drilled by Robert Richter QC. His needling, disrespectful, patriarchal style is designed to intimidate witnesses. Milligan describes the mental and emotional toll of this experience, and how important it was for her to have her own lawyer to advocate on her behalf. 

In Witness, Milligan interviews barristers, judges, legal support services, victims, victims' rights advocates, and more to gain deep insight into the criminal justice system. Complainants expect justice but are often ill-prepared for the brutal realities of the system. Victims are sidelined; their role reduced to a witness to the acts against them.

Innocence until proven guilty and the burden of proof are foundations of the criminal justice system. Can a barrister do their job of vigorously defending their client without eviscerating the alleged victim of the crime? Can they be respectful and empathetic in cross-examination and still do right by their client? What can be done to better prepare witnesses for the rigours of the process and support them after?

Milligan makes several recommendations for change, including actively using protections that already exist within the Evidence Act requiring the court to prevent improper questioning. She challenges the legal profession to become more trauma-informed, to let go of outdated and debunked myths about victims, and to diversify their ranks by encouraging more women and minorities to have more influence in the profession.

As I read Witness, I reflected on my own experiences with the legal system - as a law student, a juror, a witness. I also thought a lot about Bri Lee's excellent book Eggshell Skull (2018) on her experience as a lawyer and a complainant. My sincere hope is that as more voices are heard, and the dinosaurs in the legal profession become extinct, the judicial system will get the shake up in needs and bring about reform.

I have long admired Louise Milligan for her coverage of crimes against the most vulnerable members of our community. She always treats victims and their families with the utmost respect and empathy, yet is always fair and balanced in her reporting. Through her work, Milligan proves that you can do your job thoroughly and professionally, respectfully questioning a subject to get to the truth of a matter. Some barristers could learn a lot from Louise Milligan!

The Talented Ms Highsmith

The nineteenth of January 2021 marks the centenary of author Patricia Highsmith's birth. During her fifty year career she wrote 22 novels and numerous collections of short stories. Best known for her 'Ripliad' - the five psychological thrillers featuring her compelling protagonist Tom Ripley - and her debut novel Strangers on a Train, Highsmith's work have been adapted many times, increasing her popularity.   

As a person, Highsmith was a miserable, depressive, alcoholic, eccentric. She hated most people, including herself. She was openly racist, misogynist and homophobic. Unwanted and abandoned as a child, Highsmith preferred animals to people, and engaged in multiple affairs with married women, often ending due to her infidelity. 

Perhaps it was this well of darkness within her that enabled Highsmith to create such captivating noir stories about unlikable people in desperate situations. In his forward to Highsmith's short story collection Eleven, author Graham Greene writes: 

Miss Highsmith is a poet of apprehension rather than fear. Fear after a time, as we all learned in the blitz, is narcotic, it can lull one by fatigue into sleep, but apprehension nags at the nerves gently and inescapably. We have to learn to live with it.

Greene absolutely nails Highsmith's abilities. She lures readers in to an uncomfortable place with characters who make morally ambiguous choices. Her writing is tight and simple, yet the stories are often complex and multilayered. Her novels creep up on you and you cannot put them down. 

To commemorate the centenary of Highsmith's birth a new collection of short stories has been published. Under a Dark Angel's Eye (2021) features an introduction by author Carmen Maria Machado in which she describes her as a 'genius, a bonafide eccentric' and 'famous for her wit and wicked sense of humour'. Machado notes that readers have to grapple with Highsmith's darkness, and asks 'what does it mean to love the work of Patricia Highsmith'? She answers:

Perhaps they recognise that you don't come to Patricia Highsmith for goodness or light or comfort. You come to her for uncanny observations about human depravity; you come to her because you've forgotten the sour taste of fear.

My reviews of several Highsmith books can be found on this blog, including:

• Deep Water (1957)
• The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)
• The Tremor of Forgery (1969)
• The Two Faces of January (1964)
• This Sweet Sickness (1960)

If you haven't already had the pleasure of being lured into a Highsmith novel or short story, I encourage you to explore her work. 

Planning for 2021

It is the first of January 2021 and as the new year begins I spend time reflecting on my past reading habits, and forward planning for the year ahead. 

As someone who always plans ahead, I even develop a plan for my reading. But if I learned anything from 2020 it is how agile one needs to be to respond to whatever happens on a daily basis. While I have pre-ordered some new releases from the library (like Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates), and have acquired a bunch of new books I am keen to sink my teeth in, my plan is not to plan and just see where my moods and interests take me.

I seem to consistently be able to read 30 books each year, but given the uncertainty this pandemic brings, I do not want to increase the volume. Instead I will continue to explore new authors, genres and subject matters. To diversify my reading and to challenge myself to read more fiction, I have created a new Bingo board to add some fun to the challenge.

B	I	N	G	O
Set during Wartime	Retelling of  another story*	Novel in  Translation*	Poetry  Collection	Women's Prize  Longlister
Lesser known book  by a Famous Author	Essay Collection	Set in the Future	Booker Prize  Longlister	About a non-Western  world leader*
Debut  Novel*	19th Century Classic	Published in 2021	Biography  or Memoir	Set in Space or at Sea
Short Story Collection	Australian Literary Prize Longlister	Current Affairs / Politics	Protagonist  is over 50*	Coming of  Age Story*
Pre-19th Century Classic	First Novel in a Series	Book on the 1001 List	Fiction Based on a True Story	Written by a  male author*

Bingo rules: Books can only be used once, even if they fall into multiple categories. 

Bingo can be achieved horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

*New categories 2021

My cousin Graham and I have been joking about how I only read books by women in 2020. He suggested that 2021 could be my year of reading books by men. That ain't gonna happen, but to overcome the gender bias in my reading, I have added a new category this year: Written by a male author. I do have a few books that I have put aside for 2021 so will just have to decide which one it will be - perhaps Richard Flanagan's Living Sea of Waking Dreams, Philip Pullman's The Secret Commonwealth, Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain or Barack Obama's A Promised Land. 

Happy reading everyone!