JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Wild Dogs by Michael Trant

In the drought-ridden rangelands of Western Australia, Gabe Ahern makes his living trapping wild dogs for local station owners.

Still coming to terms with his wife’s death – and the part he played in it – the old bushman leads a solitary life. Until one morning, when he rescues a young Afghan man, Amin, from certain execution.

Now, with a gang of people smugglers on his tail and the lives of Amin’s family on the line, Gabe is drawn into a ruthless game of cat and mouse. His main opponent is Chase Fowler, a kangaroo hunter with bush skills as wily and sharp as his own.

As the old dogger and roo-shooter go head to head, Gabe will need all his cunning to come out of this alive…

Michael Trant’s Australian outback thriller Wild Dogs centres around an unlikely alliance between a hard-headed dog trapper and an Afghan refugee deep in the drought-ridden rangelands of Western Australia.

Gabe is the kind of man who functions alone. He minds his own business, and doesn’t work to interfere with others. He’s also still processing the death of his wife and his role in the tragedy. When he ventures out one day to lay and check traps for wild animals, he stumbles upon a planned execution of two Afghan refugees. He intervenes, and suddenly finds himself drawn into a dangerous people-smuggling operation secretly operating in Western Australia.

“Gabe watched as the insects crawled in and out of nostrils and open mouths, and felt ill. He was no stranger to death. If it wasn’t trapped or gunned-down dogs, it was the carcasses of emaciated livestock who’d succumbed to the dry, or a kangaroo he’d shot to make baits or for his dinner.”

Trant captures the remote, vast landscape with ease — the small town vibe, and the close-knot relationships that come with living in such an area. Additionally, the premise of the novel feels fresh in this genre. I’ve never come across a novel where the protagonist is tasked with hunting wild dogs, let alone being set in Australian bushland. It also felt different because most regional or rural Aussie novels centre around a mysterious murder, with an investigator as the protagonist, but Wild Dogs centres around the attempted murder of a refugee and the highly skilled local hunter working to keep him alive…

Whilst the circumstances surrounding Gabe and Amin’s paths crossing seemed a little easy, Trant brings a lot of grit, action and speed to his novel — Wild Dogs would work well for reluctant male adult readers, perhaps those looking for a holiday read and need something engaging.

“By the time they reached the abandoned well, the sun was almost below the horizon, casting an orange hue across the sky that faded to deep purple as the first of the many starts materialised.”

Admittedly, there were a few elements to the novel that felt a little too signposted and therefore predictable. The crooked cop for one, and the nurse accidentally being drawn into the story because she wasn’t quite switched on enough to realise there was danger surrounding her. The final few chapters, which is where most of the action happens, did provide a lot of tense interactions with characters and increased suspense, although with such a large cast of characters drawn into the fight, it felt a little convoluted at times. I wonder if Trant could’ve stripped back the number of characters present in those final, chaotic scenes.

This certainly felt like a personal response because I can’t find any other reviews that mention this, but I did wonder if Trant leant a little too heavily into Gabe’s ignorance around race and class. Gabe didn’t need to be so ‘tough’ or unaware of Amin’s cultural history to still be an effective protagonist. At times, Gabe’s dialogue, which may indeed match what men do really say, translated on the page a little forced and awkward.

“Amin paled at this suggestion. Gabe could see him wrestling with his thoughts, and the look of resigned guilt on his face told him that the man was blaming himself.”

High stakes, pacy, and dripping with tension, Wild Dogs is recommended for male readers, and is the perfect gift for father’s day or a father’s birthday. Readership skews 35+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wild Dogs
Michael Trant
February 2022
Penguin Random House Book Publishers

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days. Only I know the truth of her disappearance.

I’m no Hercule Poirot. I’m her husband’s mistress.

Agatha Christie’s world is one of glamorous society parties, country house weekends, and growing literary fame.

Nan O’Dea’s world is something very different. Her attempts to escape a tough London upbringing during the Great War led to a life in Ireland marred by a hidden tragedy.

After fighting her way back to England, she’s set her sights on Agatha. Because Agatha Christie has something Nan wants. And it’s not just her husband.

Despite their differences, the two women will become the most unlikely of allies. And during the mysterious eleven days that Agatha goes missing, they will unravel a dark secret that only Nan holds the key to . . .

Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair is an enjoyable reimagining of the unexplained eleven-day disappearance of famous crime writer Agatha Christie in 1926. This psychological thriller offers a compelling and concocted tale of why Agatha disappeared and what transpired during the days she was gone.

In December 1926, Agatha’s husband tells her he wishes to divorce her, so he can marry his mistress Nan O’Dea. After disappearing that night, Agatha resurfaces eleven days later at a luxurious hotel under a false name. In between those two events we come to understand more about Agatha and O’Dea, as their stories interweave and storylines are thrust into the past. A mysterious double murder also weaves its way into the novel — its resolution offering one of the biggest twists in the book.

“My father had grown up on a farm just outside the fishing village of Ballycotton. Since I’d been born he’d gone back to visit once or twice when his brother paid the way. But there’d never been enough money for us all to travel there.The thought of my going at all, let alone for a whole summer, was thrilling.”

Both Agatha and O’Dea are relatable, liked characters. One might start the novel sympathising only with Agatha, but over time, as we come to discover why O’Dea is desperate to marry Agatha’s husband, we learn to empathise with her plight.

Nina weaves different storylines and time periods together with ease, crafting a really great novel. The writing is slick. Observations are stark and dialogue is realistic. She does well to capture setting and atmosphere, transporting us back to the 1920s with this emotionally charged story.

“Once I became her stepmother I’d encourage her to be the sort of person who folded her clothes and put them away, who attended to her own discarded wrappings. But for now it wasn’t my place to say a word.”

There’s an omniscient angle to every chapter, allowing the story to travel beyond just Nan’s first person narration. Whilst sometimes the narration and Nan’s point of view grew confusing — Nan talks about others as if she knows everything, delving into their minds and observations and this can sometimes feel disorientating and like we were shifting POV — Nina was an incredibly complex and well-rounded character, and perhaps my favourite in the book.

In saying that, the storyline I enjoyed the most was Nan’s childhood flashbacks — 19, pregnant and living at the convent. I found her to be a lot more raw in these scenes, because she’s young and naive, and trapped in this lion’s den. I almost wished we spent more time in this setting, or perhaps if these flashbacks came earlier in the novel. It provides more context around Nan’s character, and weaves together the reasons why she’s so determined to end Agatha’s marriage.

“I thought Finbarr wouldn’t mind seeing tears. I’d never known him to mind anything. Still, I smiled dutifully at the camera, sitting on the photographer’s stool, sincere in my happiness as I imagined looking at Finbarr’s cheerful face. Some day later I went on my own to collect it. It was a pretty picture, so much prettier than I was in real life…”

Inventive, clever and engaging, The Christie Affair is recommended for readers of historical fiction. The crime element to this novel is quite small and does not take up much of the book, so this isn’t the book to pick up if you’re just looking for a crime to solve.

Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Christie Affair
Nina de Gramont
February 2022
Pan Macmillan Book Publishers

The Gosling Girl by Jacqueline Roy

Michelle Cameron’s name is associated with the most abhorrent of crimes. A child who lured a younger child away from her parents and to her death, she is known as the black girl who murdered a little white girl; evil incarnate according to the media. As the book opens, she has done her time, and has been released as a young woman with a new identity to start her life again.

When another shocking death occurs, Michelle is the first in the frame. Brought into the police station to answer questions around a suspicious death, it is only a matter of time until the press find out who she is now and where she lives and set about destroying her all over again.

Natalie Tyler is the officer brought in to investigate the murder. A black detective constable, she has been ostracised from her family and often feels she is in the wrong job. But when she meets Michelle, she feels a complicated need to protect her, whatever she might have done.

Jacqueline Roy’s The Gosling Girl is a psychological thriller that explores the after-effects of a crime committed in childhood, and how hard it can be to reintegrate back into society. Additionally, the novel tackles systemic, institutional and internalised racism and how one’s story can be controlled by those around them.

We meet Michelle after she’s been released from prison. She’s known for killing a young girl when she was also just a child, and she’s served her time for the criminal act. But now that she’s out, attempting to find work, lay down roots, and form some sort of life with anonymity, she’s realising that others aren’t going to let her forget what she did anytime soon — there’s her probation officer, who she’s required to see on a regular basis, there’s the media, who are reluctant to leave her out of the press, and there’s writer Zoe, who is so desperate to pen Michelle’s story, she just might blackmail her to get it done.

“Of course she would, even though she knows she’s being bribed, paid for her memories in cake. She’s told to help herself. She chooses a macaroon and a slice of Swiss roll, not the kind you buy at supermarkets, the kind that has real cream and homemade jam.”

Written in third person, Jacqueline does well to craft an unreliable narrator in Michelle — she hides more from us than she reveals, and the only time we really feel like we understand her history or her emotions is when she’s in a session with Zoe for the book.

And on that note, I found Zoe to be the most interesting character in the novel. The cagey, slightly odd writer who wants to pen a book about Michelle’s side of the story. She’s questionable the entire way through, and to be honest I was expecting something major to happen with Zoe’s character — a big revelation, or a significant betrayal of Michelle. But everything that happened felt a little lacklustre. To be honest, I’m not sure I ever grasped Zoe’s desperation for doing the book — she acted like she was on a timer, and the book had to be done as quickly as possible. Why? Why is Zoe so chaotic in her home life, and why does she seem to be so financially strapped? There were definitely a few missing elements to her character that I hoped would be fleshed out some more.

“Tyler lets herself out and walks down to the car. She realizes she’s been holding her breath since leaving the house, keeping herself reined in. She leans against the side of the vehicle, trying to stay calm. She pictures Julie gouging pieces out of herself because the physical pain is so much easier to bear than the loneliness of grief.”

Despite devouring this novel in a short span of time, there were elements of the novel I’m still working to process. Michelle’s characterisation felt flat and underdeveloped to me, like the writer was trying to keep her so unreliable and withdrawn that she actually felt too thin on the page. Is she a violent person? Capable of change? I don’t even know, because the original crime isn’t ever really tackled and Michelle seems quite placid for most of the novel.

The second crime that is hinted in the blurb resolves itself rather quickly, and Michelle isn’t even a suspect for long. In fact, she’s never a suspect. She’s merely questioned. So I never felt that concern or worry for Michelle because I know that her past conviction wasn’t going to mean a false conviction this time around (which is what I suspected after reading the blurb).

“It makes a change, having someone to be with on a day when she isn’t at work. She can’t believe her luck, bumping into Lucy after all this time.”

Recommended for fans of psychological thrillers. Readership skews female, 25+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Gosling Girl
Jacqueline Roy
February 2022
Simon & Schuster Book Publishers

The Islands by Emily Brugman

In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure.

Drawn here by tragedy, Onni Saari is soon hooked by the stark beauty of the landscape and the slivers of jutting coral onto which the crayfishers build their precarious huts. Could these reefs, teeming with the elusive and lucrative cray, hold the key to a good life?

The Islands is the sweeping story of the Saari family: Onni, an industrious and ambitious young man, grappling with the loss of a loved one; his wife Alva, quiet but stoic, seeking a sense of belonging between the ramshackle camps of the islands and the dusty suburban lots of the mainland; and their pensive daughter Hilda, who dreams of becoming the skipper of her own boat. As the Saari’s try to build their future in Australia, their lives entwine with those of the fishing families of Little Rat, in myriad and unexpected ways.

A stunning, insightful story of a search for home.

Emily Brugman’s debut novel The Islands is a multi-generational literary tale that documents Finnish migration to the Abrolhos Islands off the coast of Western Australia.

Although this is a fictional tale, The Islands is heavily influenced by the stories of Emily’s ancestors from 1959 – 1972, as well as extensive research into these islands and cray fishermen from the mid-20th century. The Islands is set across many decades and moves back and forth between different members of the family. Over the course of the novel, we observe each character during pivotal moments in their lives.

“A year for the Saaris was now lived in two parts: on-season and off-season. Their first season on Little Rat had been a moderate success, from an economic standpoint, and the couple looked ahead with a suspicious and careful optimism characteristic of their people.”

At its core, The Islands is about the pursuit of a sustainable and secure life. But it’s also about resilience — both physical and emotional — and perseverance. We witness what that can encapsulate whether you’re 40, 60 or 14. In this isolated and secluded setting, we meet women experiencing loneliness, experiencing childbirth for the first time. We read as their children then mature into teenagers within this barren but plentiful landscape — we follow them as they discover impulses and sexual desire. We come across men working to earn for their families, having arrived with the hope of a land that provides.

“They carried him to camp and laid him down on his side, covering him with a blanket. Hilda stood watching from a corner. Helvi was crying and so was Aiti, although she was trying not to. Hilda wanted to cry too, but she didn’t think that would be right after what she’d done. So she just stood there. And Lauri didn’t move.”

Scattered throughout the novel are Finnish verses, then translated into English. By embedding Finnish language into the novel, readers are further immersed in culture, community and these characters’ historical journey.

There is a strong sense of song and music throughout the book, and the Finnish verses also allow the characters to have a stronger connection to their heritage because it feels like knowledge is being passed between generations.

“Towards the close of his first season, Onni woke to find Little Rat covered in dead shearwaters, their dishevelled bodies in oily black heaps on the coral ground. Those shaggy mutton birds, as the Aussies called them. They flew thousands of miles every year, across open ocean, through torrents of rain and wind. They didn’t always make it, and every so often they’d wash up on shorelines in their hundreds. A wreck. That was what they called it, when they washed up like that.”

Evocative and emotional, Emily Brugman’s The Islands is recommended for literary readers, and fans of grand familial sagas steeped in wild, forbidding settings like a Hannah Kent novel. Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Islands
Emily Brugman
February 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

The Fields by Erin Young

It starts with a body — a young woman found dead in an Iowa cornfield, on one of the few family farms still managing to compete with the giants of Big Agriculture.

For Sergeant Riley Fisher, newly promoted to head of investigations at the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office, an already horrific crime takes on a personal edge when she discovers the victim is an old friend, from a dark past she thought she’d left behind.

Rumour travels fast in small towns, while sweltering heat and state-wide elections only add to the pressure-cooker atmosphere. When another body is found, Riley is in danger of being engulfed by the fear and the frenzy. Something deeply disturbing is out there – and it reaches far beyond Black Hawk County.

Erin Young’s The Fields centres around a series of unexplained murders in a small Iowa town, and the local police sergeant in charge of solving the mystery.

The Fields falls neatly into the rural crime genre, set in a small American town with resemblance of tropes easily registered in this genre — close-knit communities, a closed-off, guarded police detective with past trauma and a chaotic family life, multiple unexplained murders that aren’t easily connected, and there’s even a moment in the novel where the protagonist is suspended from her job and must continue on regardless.

“As she crossed to the house, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had come. Before she reached the porch, Riley heard something down near the creek. A soft rustle of grass. She peered into the darkness but saw nothing. Maybe a woodchuck?”

Erin Young establishes pacing and setting immediately — from the first chapter, we’re thrust into the hot, desolate Black Hawk County. And before long, another body is discovered. Additionally, Erin has crafted a complex, layered protagonist with Riley. She’s still holding onto trauma from an event years earlier, and the discovery that one of her high school friends has been murdered brings back a lot of memories from that time in her life. I don’t feel that any of this is resolved by the end of this novel, but I believe more books featuring Riley are planned.

Through its plotting and ultimate resolution, The Fields provides commentary on America’s agricultural industry and genetic engineering, and the price that organisations will pay to maintain their stake in the system. Whilst the book doesn’t come across preach-y, the ending is quite convoluted and at times hard to follow. Perhaps a little overstuffed.

“It wasn’t long before she smelled it — the rot-sweet stink of death. A few yards later, she heard the bleep of a camera. Flies buzzed her face. Ahead, she picked out Bob Nolan’s bulk. The crime scene investigator was crouched among the roots.”

Whilst the premise of the novel and subsequent mysteries were enough to keep me engaged, I did feel like there were two elements in this book that were working against each other — is this a thriller novel? Or is this a book trying to take a stand on America’s agricultural industry and how big corporations are bulldozing small businesses into extinction? I’m not sure, and that’s what I struggled with.

The ending was so chaotic and convoluted, and I found it hard to keep track of all the side characters. Additionally, the chapters move between POV (mostly it’s Riley, but it does shift to other secondary characters), which I can see is required to give readers greater understanding of the complex plot, but it does slow down the novel and pull the reader away from the primary investigation.

“Twilight brought the bugs, followed by reporters from The Courier and a local news crew, hovering at the edges of the tape, cajoling the officers they knew for information. Things like this didn’t happen in Black Hawk County, where stores still closed on Sundays and strangers were noticed.”

Whilst this is marketed as a debut novel, it is actually a crime debut from an already established author writing under a pseudonym. Grisly and gritty, The Fields is recommended for readers of crime, thriller and mystery. Readership skews 25+. Note: there’s a lot of graphic detail in this book. It didn’t bother me, but if you prefer to shy away from detailed murder victims, maybe this isn’t the book for you.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Fields
Erin Young
January 2022
Hachette Book Publishers