On the Beach

In the mood for a good crime thriller, I turned to one of my favourite writers in this genre, Garry Disher. I have previously read three of the Australian author's novels in the Hirschhausen series - Bitter Wash Road (2013), Peace (2019) and Consolation (2021), and absolutely loved them for their character development, intriguing story lines, and depiction of small town Australia. I was going to read the last in the series, Day's End (2022), but decided to try one of Disher's standalone novels,  The Way it is Now (2021), instead.

Set in the Mornington Peninsula, a picturesque coastal area of beaches, wineries, and markets about an hour's drive from Melbourne, Charlie Deravin has been suspended from his job as a police officer for a disciplinary matter. He has retreated to his childhood home on Menlo Beach where, after a morning surf, he spends his days investigating a disappearance that occurred twenty years earlier. 

He remembers the day Billy went missing from a school camp. Charlie was a rookie detective then, part of the search team. But that isn't the disappearance on Charlie's mind. That same day, Charlie's mother went missing, her car found abandoned on a roadside. For the past twenty years many people in the community, including Charlie's brother Liam, have presumed that Charlie's father was to blame. 

Charlie wants to find out what happened to his mother and, if possible, to clear his father from suspicion. But twenty years is a long time for a cold case. 

Disher weaves the past into the present, and there are plenty of subplots - a failed jury trial, podcasters, and (as the novel is set in early 2020) news of the COVID pandemic is hitting home. Like any good crime novel, there are a handful of possible suspects lurking around. While the ending felt a bit forced, I really loved the way Disher crafted this story and the realistic way he creates his main character. 

While I definitely preferred the Hirschhausen series, I really enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to anyone seeking a page turning crime novel. I look forward to reading more by this talented writer. Fortunately, fans of Disher don't need to wait too long. His next book, Sanctuary, is being published by Text on 2 April 2024.

Sure Shot

In 2021 I discovered the Simon Serrailler crime novel series by Dame Susan Hill.  I quickly read the first three novels - The Various Haunts of Men (2004), The Pure in Heart (2005), and The Risk of Darkness (2006) in rapid succession. I then thought I would take a short break before reading more, but did not expect that my break would take two years!

Looking for a juicy crime thriller, I picked up the fourth novel in the Serrailler series - The Vows of Silence (2008) and quickly inhaled this story. 

The fictional English town of Lafferton is rocked by a crime wave with a series of shootings that would seem unrelated and random. The only commonality of the victims is that they are all engaged or newlywed women. Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler is leading the Serious Incident Flying Taskforce to track down this killer before he strikes again. With the locals on high alert and the media pressing for answers, Serrailler is also under pressure to keep the community safe at an upcoming society wedding and a community fair.

Serrailler is facing added stress outside of work. His beloved brother-in-law has taken ill, his father is dating again, and an old flame is back in town. His sister Cat is trying to hold the family together, while at the same time grieving the loss of a friend. I have grown fond of the Serrailler family over the course of these novels and enjoy the sibling bonds depicted in this family.

Aside from the main tale, Susan Hill infuses the novel with realistic side stories about people in the local community. Middle-aged widow Helen is a single parent to two teenagers, one of whom has been swept up in evangelism and is now behaving erratically. She has just met Phil through an online dating service and is trying to balance the exciting prospect of a new life with someone and the needs of her children.

Hill has a fascinating way of blending a police procedural with observances of domestic life. Through the vignettes of the Serrailler family and other members of the community, we see people grappling with illness, death, love, isolation and aging. Indeed I probably engage more with these tales than the crime activity as I noticed my rapid page turning was less about finding the killer and more about finding out what was happening with these characters.

Overall I enjoyed this novel and will undoubtedly continue to work my way through this collection. I hope that in future novels we see different types of crimes and potentially another location, lest Lafferton develop a Midsomeresque body count.

My reviews of other novels in the Simon Serrailler series are available on this blog:

• The Various Haunts of Men (2004) - Serrailler #1
•  The Pure in Heart (2005) - Serrailler #2
• The Risk of Darkness (2006) - Serrailler #3

A Room of One's Own

My first book read in 2024 is the delicious novel Forbidden Notebook (2023) by Alba de Cespedes. The Forbidden Notebook was originally published in serial form in 1951 and as a book, Quaderno probito,  in 1952. Recently rediscovered, it has been newly translated by Ann Goldstein and published by Pushkin Press with an introduction by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Valeria Cossati buys a black notebook on a whim. Upon bringing it home she searches for a place to hide it: the linen closet; under a pile of mending; where she stores her cleaning supplies; a disused suitcase. She moves it every few days as she does not want it to be found by her husband of 20+ years, Michele, or by her young adult children Riccardo and Mirella. At night, after the family is asleep, Valeria snatches moments to write - recording her observations and thoughts, anxious that this rebellious act of writing will be discovered and she will be ashamed for having her own thoughts.

Through her diary entries we learn that Valeria married Michele at age 21, moved into a small apartment in Rome and had two children. Now at forty-three years old, she questions the life she has been living, obeying conservative gender norms, and worries that she is getting old before her time.  She reflects on the early days with Michele, their courtship, their correspondence while he was off at war, and contrasts this with the present day where they coexist but have lost that spark of early love.  Since the children were born, Michele has called her 'Mamma', but she longs to be called by her name and be seen as a woman not just a mother. 

The diary is written from December 1950 to May 1951 when Italy is recovering from World War II and the oppression of the Mussolini years. It is a period of change, and through her daughter Mirella she tries to reconcile her conservative upbringing and the new social mores that her daughter subscribes to - going out at night with an older man, taking up a job in his law firm. She also sees the scorn of their poverty, when her daughter longs for beautiful things her parents cannot afford. She records in the diary her feelings toward her son - once the apple of her eye, now determined to run off to Buenos Aires with a girl Valeria feels is not worthy of him. Through her children's actions, she questions the choices she has made.

Valeria links the disquiet in her mind to when she began writing in the notebook. She writes:

'I am increasingly convinced that this anxiety took possession of me starting the day I bought the notebook: an evil spirit, the devil seems hidden in it. So I try to neglect it, leave it in the suitcase of the closet, but that is not enough. And in fact the more tightly bound I am to my duties, the more limited my time, the more urgent the desire to write becomes.' (p 124) 

But the notebook is a necessary vehicle for Valeria to process her thoughts. Even in her own house, she has no place of her own. While the children can each escape to their rooms, and Michele can withdraw to the chair where he reads the papers and listens to the radio, Valeria has nothing of her own. Gradually she begins to understand that she needs the notebook as she has no other confidante. She writes:

'It's strange: our inner life is what counts most for each of us and yet we have to pretend to live as if we paid no attention to it, with inhuman security.' (p 199)

Through her notebook, readers are transported to a different time and place, where women's place in domestic life is narrowly defined. The transgressive act of writing this diary, doing something for herself, opens Valeria's world to new possibilities and different choices, the potential to free herself from the role she has been given.

I am so pleased to have read this book, finding it in the City of Sydney Library.  I became interested in this book in December 2023 when I read an article in the New York Times about it and was intrigued by this photo of the author, Cuban-Italian writer Alba de Cespedes. She worked as a journalist and was jailed in 1935 for anti-fascist activities. Two of her novels were banned and moved to Paris after World War II. I hope that more of her writing is translated and reaches a wider audience, as de Cespedes deserves to be read. 

Planning for 2024

 I start the year with a stack of books on my 'To Be Read' Pile including:

• 
  Alba De Cespedes - The Forbidden Notebook
  
• Paddy Manning - The Successor 
• George Saunders - A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
• Richard Flanagan - Question 7
• Sandra Newman - Julia 
• Zadie Smith - The Fraud
• Patrick Stewart - Making it So
• Julia Baird - Bright Shining

I always promise I won't buy any more books until I have read the ones I already have... but that promise never lasts long! I am hoping to make a dent in this pile though, as I am looking forward to each one, and I want to get a start on my reading before award longlists are announced from March.

I am looking forward to a number of new books due to be published in 2024, including:

• Michael Cunningham - Day (January)
• Percival Everett - James (March)
• 
  Tana French - The Hunter (March)
• Michael Ondaatje - A Year of Last Things (Poems) (March)
  
• Judith Butler - Who's Afraid of Gender? (March)
• Ru Paul Charles - The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir (March)
• Bri Lee - The Work (March)
• Louise Milligan - Pheasants Nest (March)
• Salman Rushdie - Knife: Meditations after an attempted murder (April)
• Colm Tobin - Long Island (a sequel to Brooklyn!) (May)
• Evie Wyld - The Echoes (August)
• Tara Moss - Next Billie Walker book 
• Clare Wright - third instalment of her democracy trilogy
• Helen Garner - new non-fiction

While I won't get to all of them this year, I have preordered many from my library.

For the past few years I have consistently been able to read at least 30 books a year. While I could push myself by setting a higher goal, I like my 30 book plan. However I will continue to explore new authors, genres and subject matters. To diversify my reading and to challenge myself to read more broadly, I have updated my annual checklist to add some fun to my reading.

Last year I focussed mainly on fiction. This year I want to add more non-fiction to my list, but also get back to the classics and tick off some of the books on my Fifty/Five list. I created that list to read some long desired classics over the next five years. Will 2024 be the year I tackle Proust? 

Happy reading everyone!