Safe House

Garry Disher's Sanctuary (2024) is a crime thriller about a woman trying to escape her past. Grace is a thief, skilled at stealing small, expensive items like watches, coins, and stamps. She is smart, and knows what to look for.  But the nature of her work means she is always on edge - constantly scanning her environment, looking for exit paths, and trying to keep track of the lies she needs to tell.

Grace not only needs to make sure she does not get caught, she also needs to avoid people from her past. She swears she saw Adam Garrett at the Brisbane stamp expo, and she does not want to run in to him! 

After a near miss at the expo, Grace goes on the run and ends up in South Australia at a small town in the Adelaide Hills. Here she meets Erin Mandel, the agoraphobic owner of an antique store, Erin offers Grace a job, a home and an opportunity for a normal life.

But it soon becomes apparent that Grace isn't the only one in hiding. Erin also has someone looking for her. They are both being stalked by dangerous men, but neither knows about the other's past. The two women have become important to one another and have started to finally feel safe. Which one will be confronted by their past first? 

Sanctuary is quite different from the other Disher novels I have read and loved which were more like police procedurals.  Here we follow the criminals, rather than the cops. I really liked Grace as a character. She is a loner, desperate for connection. She also has a good heart - helpful to strangers and keen to ensure she is only robbing those who deserve it.  

Initially I found it hard to get into the book as it was not what I expected, but I was quickly sucked in by Disher's excellent storytelling and was eager to find out what would happen to Grace and Erin. This is a fantastic standalone crime novel - although I do hope that Grace appears in a future novel.

My reviews of other novels by Garry Disher are also available on this blog:

• Bitter Wash Road (2013) - Hirschhausen series 1
• Peace (2019) - Hirschhausen series 2
• Consolation (2020) - Hirschhausen series 3
• The Way it is Now (2021) 

Devotion

Helen Garner is one of my favourite writers. I have read so much of her past work - fiction, non-fiction, diaries - that I have often said I would read anything she writes, even her shopping lists! The last time I saw her speak was at the Sydney Writers Festival in 2023 when she was talking about crime and justice and was asked about what she was working on. Garner mentioned then that she was planning to write about AFL as she is a Bulldogs supporter. At the time I wrote 'I am not a fan of sports ball, but Garner can make anything interesting'.

Her latest work The Season (2024) is the book she was referring to. Her youngest grandson Amby plays in his local under-16s team - the Colts. Garner goes to the training and the matches and bonds with her grandson over their shared love of the game. She observes these boys, on the cusp of manhood, as they share the highs and lows of the season. 

This is not really a book about football. Garner writes:

'I'm surprised how many people jump to the conclusion that it's something polemical, a critical study of football culture and its place in society, informative, analytical, statistical. Really I'm trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we are spending together before he turns into a man and I die.' (p92)

This is what I love about Garner. She is forthright and does not shy away from writing about vulnerability - the frailties of aging, battling with Covid, loosing a game. Garner lives in the house next door to her daughter and three grandchildren. The family bonds are lovely as they share meals, watch footy, talk about haircuts. They are devoted to one another and to their love of the sport.

I lost interest when Garner wrote about various Bulldogs players and did not care for the mechanics of the game. But Garner is so good at looking at the human aspects of mateship and team bonding, as she describes the boys tackling one another and rallying to bolster their fellow players. While trying to keep her distance as an observer, Garner becomes quite attached to Amby's team  - Boof, Meth, Angus, Remy, Silas etc - and becomes familiar with the coach and various parents who cheer on from the sidelines. She writes lovingly of these young men and how they support one another on and off the field. And as I read, I cared for them too and was cheering them on from the sidelines as they advance towards the grand final. 

I have only ever been to one AFL match when my friend Susan took me to see the Sydney Swans play about twenty years ago. While I enjoyed the match, and my friend did her best to explain the rules to me, it never took hold of me the way that many of my friends have embraced the sport. 

So, did The Season make me interested in AFL. Nope! But I was interested in Garner's take on the sport, its rituals and fandom. 

Like much of her writing, Garner is ever present. She shares her anxiety about taking on this topic for a book and speaks with candour about her limitations. Now in her eighties, Garner writes about aging and her difficulty seeing and hearing the games played in the low light of winter. She describes not wanting to return a stray ball as it has been seventy years since she last kicked a ball and fears embarrassment.

The Season is not my favourite Garner, but I enjoyed reading it. This is a charming love letter to her grandson and the game she loves. 

My reviews of other works by Garner appear on this blog, including:

• The Spare Room (2008)
• This House of Grief (2014)
• Everywhere I Look (2016)
• Stories - Collected Short Fiction (2017)
• Yellow Notebook - Diaries 1978-1987 (2019)
• Postcards from Sydney - Diaries 1987-1995 (2020)
• How to End a Story - Diaries 1995-1998 (2021) 

Little Fires Everywhere

In March 2024 The Atlantic magazine published a list of great American novels of the past 100 years. There were many books on the list which I have but not got around to reading. Kevin Wilson's Nothing to See Here (2019) was one of these books which has languished unread, despite so many people recommending it to me. On 1 January 2025 I picked it up and was immediately engaged in this wonderfully hilarious story. 

Raised by a single mother, Lillian Breaker grew up poor. She was bright and studied hard to win a scholarship to an elite boarding school where she meets Madison Billings, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy family. The two share a dorm room and become fast friends, despite their differences. An act of poor judgement by Madison results in Lillian leaving the school. Madison continued on her trajectory to attend university and marry well, while Lillian continued on hers. Now 28, working two jobs in retail and living in her mum's attic, Lillian never lived up to her potential and escaped her circumstances. 

The two friends kept in touch, writing letters to one another. Madison's latest letter comes with an opportunity for work if Lillian is prepared to relocate to Tennessee. With nothing to lose, Lillian goes to Memphis and finds her friend living in a mansion with her Senator husband and their young son Timothy. The job offer is highly unusual. The Senator was married previously and has ten-year old twins, Roland and Bessie. Their mother has died and now they need to come and live with him. Would Lillian be a governess to the two children and ease their transition into the family?

Lillian has no skills in child-rearing and has no desire to be a parent. But she is kind of intrigued by one fascinating aspect - the twins have a rare condition which causes them to spontaneously combust. When they burst into flames they are unharmed, but all around them catch fire.  Lillian agrees to meet the children and realises that she may just be able to put her own childhood trauma to good use and make a difference in their lives. Over the summer Lillian throws herself into caring for these feral twins and does all she can to make sure they don't burn everything to the ground.

Nothing to See Here was such a fun novel to read. Lillian is such a quirky character and I absolutely loved her! She is a red hot mess, but is such a delightful narrator.  I enjoyed seeing how her relationship with the children unfurled. The premise of the story is utterly ridiculous but so well written and laugh out loud funny. Amongst the frivolity, Wilson has some serious messages about class and inequality. A really enjoyable novel to start off my reading year.

High Achiever

Dervla McTiernan's Cormac Reilly crime series began with The Ruin (2018) in which readers were introduced to the Detective Sergeant who had recently moved to Galway with his girlfriend Emma.  In The Scholar (2019), Reilly is back and this time he has personal reasons for wanting to resolve a case. 

Reilly is a decent, hard working cop who doesn't want to participate in office politics or put up with slackers. After a year of working in Galway, he still hasn't found his footing and has been relegated to working on cold cases. Meanwhile his colleague DS O'Halloran is swamped in cases and struggling to find a balance between work and her family. She needs to offload some work to Reilly, and he is keen to take on active cases.

One night Reilly's partner Emma stumbles across a body in a parking lot at the pharmaceutical lab where she works. A young woman has been killed in a hit-and-run. Despite the potential conflict of interest, Reilly takes on the investigation. The case becomes highly sensitive when a connection is found to Carline Darcy, the granddaughter of the wealthy businessman who owns the lab. Can Reilly solve this case without involving Emma? 

This was a great crime novel - fast-paced and easy to read. I figured out whodunnit quite early, but it was interesting to see how the story would unfurl and there were still quite a few surprises. I really like McTiernan's writing style and her characterisation of all the cops at the station. In each novel she adds more layers of information, which make me want to continue with the series and see how Reilly evolves. Fortunately, I have the third book, The Good Turn (2020), and the fourth novel, The Unquiet Grave, is due out in May 2025 so there is plenty to look forward to.

My review of other DS Reilly novels can be found on this blog here:

• The Ruin (2018)  (Reilly #1)

Planning for 2025

2025 marks my 15th year of book blogging!

My reading year begins with a review of the stack of books on my 'To Be Read' pile to see which ones need to be prioritised and which can be shelved a little longer. Remaining on my list include:

• Helen Garner - The Season
  
• Evie Wyld - The Echoes
• Emily Maguire - The Rapture
• Hayley Scrivenor - Girl Falling
• Devla McTiernan - The Scholar
• Kevin Wilson - Nothing to See Here
• Garry Disher - Sanctuary 
• Cher - Memoir (Part 1)

I am looking forward to a number of new books due to be published in 2025, including:

• Bernhard Schlink - The Granddaughter (January)
• Constanza Casati - Babylonia (January)
• Sue Williams - The Governor, His Wife and His Mistress (January)
• Anne Tyler - Three Days in June (February)
• Curtis Sittenfeld - Show Don't Tell (February)
• Geraldine Brooks - Memorial Days (February)
• Emma Donoghue - The Paris Express (March)
  
• Graydon Carter - When the Going was Good (March)
• Julian Barnes - Changing my Mind (March)
• Dervla McTiernan - The Unquiet Grave (April) - fourth book in her Cormac Reilly series
• Kevin Wilson - Run for the Hills (May)
• Jacinda Ardern - Memoir (June)
• Taylor Jenkins Reid - Atmosphere (June)
• Irvine Welsh - Men in Love (July)
• Lionel Richie - Memoir (August)
• Zadie Smith - Dead and Alive (October)
• Tara Moss - Next Billie Walker book 
• Philip Pullman - third instalment of the Book of Dust trilogy

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

I have renewed my Quarterly Essay subscription and am looking forward to coming issues by Jess Hill, Hugh White and others. I have also renewed my Audible subscription so will be able to explore audiobooks to enhance my reading.

I am travelling to Canada in 2025 so will add some Canadian content to my reading list. I have blogged previously about my love of Robertson Davies, Margaret Atwood, Lawrence Hill, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Emily St John Mandel, and more. Recommendations from friends are welcome!

For the past few years I have consistently been able to read at least 30 books a year. This year I will push myself by setting a higher goal, aiming for 35 books! I will continue to explore new authors, genres and subject matters. I may even join an online book challenge (#DollopeofTrollope ?) if I can find one that suits me.  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.

Happy reading everyone!