3.5~4★ “A whole life earlier, when the twins were aged nine – or perhaps ten; they could never get the seasons straight in their heads – they were crou3.5~4★ “A whole life earlier, when the twins were aged nine – or perhaps ten; they could never get the seasons straight in their heads – they were crouching on a beach, bleeding into the sand. . . . Tiny deep cuts on their shoeless feet from the bladed shells they’d crept over to reach this spot. Trickles of young life snaking from their wounds to stain the white grains crimson.”
The sister and brother Renshaw twins, Iris and Floyd, were raised as handy, small thieves by their English parents, not in Dickensian London, but in Tasmania. As a boy and girl who'd been skylarking and flirting, their parents were transported half a world away for a petty crime. That was then, but now, they're infamous.
“She harboured no doubts about their crimes. They were thieves. They were killers. They were what people said. But that wasn’t how Iris chose to remember them, because the truth of what they had done wasn’t the truth of all that they were. . . . when they were malnourished youths, living on the other side of the world in the old country… Sneaking into the nearby woods to lie on a green bank, dipping their hands into a clear stream, pulling out trout and holding them, fat and wriggling, up to each other’s eyes: an act both small and catastrophic. . . . To be caught by his [the viscount’s] gamekeeper, as her parents were on their way home one sunny afternoon, was to be arrested; to be charged and sentenced without ever appearing in front of a judge or jury; to be locked in the crowded, foetid hold of a creaking ship and dragged in chains to the far corner of the world.”
This young couple are the Renshaws, who then turned to actual crime to make a living, at the same time making a name for themselves as feared criminals. Their twins were given no choice.
Now adults themselves, the sister and brother can’t escape the Renshaw name and are fiercely loyal to each other. Who else would have them, anyway? Floyd has something seriously wrong with his back, and Iris keeps a special ointment she rubs on and unkinks it as best she can. They are quickly alert to each other's needs and anxious when they get separated.
They hear of a bounty offered on a wild puma, called Dusk, who lurks in the hills. It has recently killed a man in a particularly gruesome fashion, and hunters are gathering.
There are several interesting characters, but a couple of them felt more like caricatures. Still, I chose to go along with Arnott's imagination. It becomes quite an adventure story where I had to suspend disbelief more than once - there's his imagination at work, again.
The weather is mostly cold and wet and miserable, but Arnott’s descriptive skill alone is worth the read. Here is how morning light dispels the fears of the night.
“The fully risen sun built a morning of cold colour, of ripped clouds, sharp light washing onto wet wool and frosted fields. It afforded the twins a confidence that they hadn’t felt the previous day. With the sun unshielded, the mist absent, the land was robbed of menace. The river was no longer haunting but placid; the twisted trees appeared graceful and stoic in their contortions; the listless shepherds now seemed merely apathetic, rather than mysterious or threatening.”
I’m always happy to read the work of this talented Tasmanian....more
5★ “But some children never feel at home in the family they were born to, and I was one of such. I found more solace in the unnameable openness of the 5★ “But some children never feel at home in the family they were born to, and I was one of such. I found more solace in the unnameable openness of the sea, on the little beach on the island that Endo-san would one day make his home.”
Philip Hutton is telling this story. An elderly Japanese woman has told Philip she knew his friend Endo-san when they were young and has only recently received a letter from him, written to her decades earlier, and she wants to know what happened to him during the war.
“ ‘Tell me about your life. Tell me about the life you and Endo-san led. The joys you experienced and the sorrow that you encountered. I would like to know everything.’
The moment I had been waiting for. Fifty years I had waited to tell my tale, as long as the time Endo-san’s letter took to reach Michiko.”
Philip’s narrative about the past is interspersed with conversations and tours of Penang with Michiko.
As a boy, he often didn’t fit in anywhere. He was born in Penang to a prominent English businessman and his father’s young, much-loved, second wife, whose Chinese family had come to Malaya to escape the poverty and politics of China. The first wife had died, leaving Noel with three English children.
Philip’s mother also died when he was very young, so Philip was raised in an English family, all of whom loved him, but he knew he looked different. People obviously thought he seemed to be neither one thing nor the other. Even the ancient soothsayer’s prophecy could be interpreted two ways.
“ ‘You were born with the gift of rain. Your life will be abundant with wealth and success. But life will test you greatly. Remember – the rain also brings the flood.’”
As a young man, he found peace on ‘his’ island.
“There was a small island owned by my family about a mile out, thick with trees. It was accessible only from the beach that faced out to the open sea. I spent a lot of my afternoons there imagining I was a castaway, alone in the world. . . . Early in 1939, when I was sixteen, my father leased out the little island and warned us not to set foot on it as it was now occupied. It frustrated me that my personal retreat had been taken from me.”
Philip was home alone (except for servants of course) while the family was in London for several months, when a man with an unusual accent came to the house and asked to rent a boat. He introduced himself as Hayato Endo, pointed to the island, and said he lived there, but his boat had broken. Philip wasn’t happy, of course.
“I got up from the wicker chair and asked him to accompany me to our boathouse. But he stood, unmoving, staring out to the sea and the overcast sky. ‘The sea can break one’s heart, neh?’
This was the first time I heard someone describe what I felt. I stopped, uncertain what to say. Just a few simple words had encapsulated my feelings for the sea. It was heartbreakingly beautiful.”
This was the beginning of Philip’s hero-worship. Endo-san was older and took Philip under his wing offering to teach him martial arts and how to focus his mind.
“I felt no connection with China, or with England. I was a child born between two worlds, belonging to neither. From the very beginning I treated Endo-san not as a Japanese, not as a member of a hated race, but as a man, and that was why we forged an instant bond.
I began my lessons in ‘aikijutsu’ the following morning, entering into a ritual of learning that would continue largely unbroken for nearly three years.”
While his family was still away, he met the son of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.
“ There were the usual speculative glances when I entered – ‘here comes the half-caste, ‘ I thought wryly.” . . . I knew people called him Kon, which I now did. He looked at me with a curiosity I found disconcerting. He radiated a sense of confidence for someone so youthful. . . . We talked for a long time on the beach that night; although we did not know it then, it would be the start of a strong friendship. It was only when Uncle Lim was driving me home that I realised Kon had not asked me a single question, that he had seemed to know all about me and perhaps even about Endo-san.”
This is a story about men – Philip and the men he reveres. The closeness between him and Endo-san is never spelled out as love, but there are scenes and incidents that hint at something more than comradeship.
Kon is more of a best pal. Thus, this English-Chinese boy became very close to his Japanese ‘sensei’ and to an up-and-coming leader of the Chinese community, representing the two countries already at war in China.
The British seemed oblivious to the danger the Japanese posed to Malaya, and when the invasion began, it was shocking and brutal, just as it was on the Thai-Burma Railway and in Changi prison, and everywhere else I’ve happened to read about WWII atrocities.
“When would I find a sense of my self, integrated, whole, without this constant pulling from all sides, each wanting my complete devotion and loyalty? “
Philip had to make terrible choices, trying to save his family and friends. Through it all, are the lessons he absorbed in his training. Endo-san had once told him that the sword is always the last option.
“‘We use swords in training,’ I pointed out.
‘What am I teaching you?’
‘To fight,’ I said.
‘No. That is the last thing I am teaching you. What I wish to show you is how not to fight. You must never, ever use what has been taught to you, unless your life is in danger. And even then, if you can avoid it, so much the better.’
He made me promise him that I would always remember that.”
This is a story, rich with history, that is brought to life through a boy growing up, caught between cultures and loved by both sides of his family, facing a world war.
Something that stood out to me was how many people spoke so many different languages. There are dialects within cultures, of course, and I lost track of who spoke what, although the author often pointed it out. Philip could use it to advantage because people often didn't expect him to understand them.
It is not all ‘plot’. The setting, the sights, the foods, the many cultural influences are all celebrated.
“Instead of going through miles of jungle, my father decided to drive around the island, heading to its westernmost tip before turning south.The road rose up on the shoulders of low hills and faithfully followed the curves of the coastline. Below us the thick green of the trees was stitched to the blue of the sea by a seam of white, endless surf. Light splattered like careless paint through the trees above us and the wind through our open windows smelled clean and unblemished, tasting of wet earth, damp leaves and always, always the sea.”
The Gift of Rain was longlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. I’m currently reading some award-winners and nominees that sound interesting, and this certainly deserved a spot. ...more
3.5★ “Some detectives, perhaps, solve crimes like fireworks: one lit fuse exploding everything at once. I solve crimes like a ten-car rear-ender on a b3.5★ “Some detectives, perhaps, solve crimes like fireworks: one lit fuse exploding everything at once. I solve crimes like a ten-car rear-ender on a bumper-to-bumper freeway: one car slams into another, and another and another, all the way up the line.”
Yep – that’s Ernest Cunningham for you - amateur sleuth and author/storyteller who speaks directly to the reader. His first book, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, introduced us to his rules for writing mysteries (what is or is not allowed – no 'deus ex machina' or surprise villain we never met), and his second, Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect, follows the same pattern.
This one adds some rules for a holiday story, and while he makes a point of sticking to the rules, he is adept at skirting them a little here and there just to trick us. But on to the story.
Since the first book, his now ex-wife Erin, has suffered from PTSD from murders and bodies and has moved on with a new partner, Lyle Pearse. She has called Ern in desperation because she’s just been arrested for the extremely bloody murder of Lyle, whose body was found on the kitchen floor, and blood has been trailed up or down the staircase.
Oh, yes. And she woke up covered in blood, even in her hair! Ern tells his fiancée, Juliet, he has to go to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains (hills west of Sydney) to see a band. This is only a few days before Christmas, but he must go. He tries to make up a story.
“‘Ernest,’ she said, and it was all over. I am cellophane around Juliette; she sees right through me. I have no idea how people have affairs.”
She knows his ex-wife lives up there, but he gets away (for now) with his ridiculous explanation. The bit about the band is true, but it’s not only a band – there’s a big magic act, which is what Lyle was involved with.
There are a fair number of characters to keep track of, including twins. Normally, he says, the rules don’t allow twins, but since he introduces them early and promises they won’t switch places, it’s okay. It takes a few people to keep a magic show like Rylan Blaze’s working smoothly. There are props and equipment, so most of these people are working offstage.
He starts interviewing and collecting information, but the heat (Christmas is hot in Australia), his nervousness for Erin, and his lousy accommodation are getting to him. He often foreshadows what is coming – sort of.
“I wish I could lean into my own narrative here and tell myself that I do indeed solve the crime, a feat that will be accompanied by both being shot in the chest and witnessing another death. I’d tell myself that I will, eventually, be writing it all out with shortbread in one hand and a pen in the other. But motel-me, dawn-hours-of-22-December-me, doesn’t yet know the solution to two impossible murders.”
He's tried finding information on Lyle’s computer, but no luck.
“The screen shuddered in denial. One of the rules of murder mysteries is that the detective cannot succeed by virtue of luck or coincidence. My amateur hacking doesn’t cut the mustard.”
There is another murder, a particularly gruesome one, and obviously Erin couldn’t have done that, locked up as she is. Her relief at hearing she’s off the hook for that is short-lived when Ern explains she’s still the obvious culprit for the first murder. She is seriously distressed.
“It would be a cliché to say she looked thinner, as a more accurate description would be that there was less of her. It wasn’t so much a physical loss. It was the glassiness in her eyes. She took up less space in the room.”
I enjoyed this in both print and audio, but I like having the text to refer to so I can remember characters and select quotations. I found this one pretty far-fetched, and I had to suspend a fair bit of disbelief about some of the explanations, but for a quirky holiday read, it’s entertaining.
Each of these mysteries is a standalone, but I liked meeting Ernest and his family in the first one and then taking The Ghan in the second.
4★ “The man talked too much. . . . The man laughed, dropping the small nugget into a black plastic film canister and pocketing it. ‘Plenty out there, if4★ “The man talked too much. . . . The man laughed, dropping the small nugget into a black plastic film canister and pocketing it. ‘Plenty out there, if you have the patience to go look.’ . . . …the two men still sitting silently in the corner. Their eyes were firmly fixed on the man with gold in his pocket. He was on his phone now…”
Outback Western Australia’s goldfields still attract prospectors and tourists. This fellow is so excited with his find, that he has attracted exactly the wrong kind of attention. When he doesn’t show up at his daughter’s as expected, she contacts police and then Gabe Ahern.
Why Gabe? He was an old dogger (dingo-trapper) whom she’d met when he was tracking people smugglers who’d set up a slave trade in the outback. Courtney is a RAN (Remote Area Nurse) and had helped him save the refugees. She’s aware that Gabe probably knows the Cue area better than the police because he grew up there.
Gabe collects his refugee friend, Amin Tahir (one of the people Courtney helped), and they drive north from Perth to Cue. At the police station, where the SES (rescue service) and other volunteers have gathered, they meet Gabe’s old friend, Antonio Vargis, a Macedonian immigrant (from 30 years ago) who still speaks with such a thick “Mediterranean accent” that the Cue locals refer to it as “Antonese”.
I enjoy Trant’s characters and his descriptions. I can ‘see’ these people. Here are two.
“Antonio Vargis was a short, white-haired man with a deeply tanned and jovial face, though most of it was hidden behind a thick moustache and close-cropped beard. It was no surprise the grocery store owner was called upon to play Santa at the community Christmas tree each year – and each year the kids went home with an expanded vocabulary to complement their new toys.” . . . ‘Long way between here and Jake’s,’ drawled the jackaroo-looking man. He was sprawled in his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him. Gabe got the impression he was one of those fellas so laid-back you had to line them up with a post to make sure they were moving.”
It turns out the jackaroo-looking man is the young pilot who’s been doing searches for other missing people and is now available to help hunt for Terry Drage, Courtney’s dad. All they have to go on is that Terry told his daughter he’d prospect some more around Cue and then let her know when he was leaving for the Jakob’s River community (“Jake’s”), where she works, in time for her birthday.
Since then, no word. Gabe, Amin, and Antonio make a great team. They split up in different ways, depending on where they’re needed, and talk to the locals. It seems there are other prospectors who’ve gone missing and never found, and a few who’ve been found dead, supposedly accidentally (falling down a mine shaft) or heart attack. All were known to have found and sold gold.
This is not the Outback familiar to readers. It is wet, muddy, unbelievably slippery, and it makes driving next to impossible on any dirt roads. So Gabe has hidden his ute in a safe spot and walked through the bush to spy on a campsite of people he suspects.
“Gabe glanced down at his boots, heavy with mud. Sh*t. There was no way to cover his tracks. He could see the flash of a torch rounding the van. His only option was to keep moving, doing his best not to slip. He struggled through the undergrowth, wincing at every rustling branch and each twinge of his hip. Branches snagged at his jacket like long bony fingers, scraping against the leather. They tore at his beanie and raked against his face, and the clumps of lush wanderrie grass threatened to trip him up every step of the way. He pushed onwards, the long green strands soaking his jeans with moisture.
‘Got footprints! Someone’s been here!”
There are plenty of heart-in-the-mouth moments, and with Trant, we can’t be sure our favourite people will survive. Those who haven’t survived from Gabe’s previous exploits are remembered fondly in occasional intervening chapters titled “Before”. Not only do they explain some of the background, they also remind fans of what haunts and/or drives him.
I can’t not mention Ric Herbert’s narration. I think the author covers it perfectly in his acknowledgments, where he gives thanks to, among others,
“Ric Herbert, the voice of Gabe, and who I now hear in my head when writing these stories: thank you for bringing him to life, and for swearing so beautifully. “
I hear Ric’s voice too, not only for Gabe, but for the many other distinctive voices and accents of Trant’s people – Antonio (thick, gruff Macedonian), Amir (Afghan - Pashtun Afghan, please!), snivelling cowards, tough barmaids, Heidi (his girlfriend), and the various cops and miners. He is not just a narrator, he is a voice actor, and by golly he’s good! You can listen to a preview in libraries or on Amazon, etc.
I sometimes listen while I’m reading or alternate between book and audio. I will add that you don’t need to have read the first two books to enjoy this one. Trant fills in any necessary blanks., but of course I recommend the first two.
4★ “Like so many people, he had come to the conclusion that the odd man in front of him was a bumbling, disorganised eccentric. Big mistake.”
Indeed it 4★ “Like so many people, he had come to the conclusion that the odd man in front of him was a bumbling, disorganised eccentric. Big mistake.”
Indeed it was. This is no rumpled Columbo they’re dealing with. DS Cross doesn’t bumble but does organise. He is certainly eccentric, being outside the centre of general behaviour, but it’s a mistake to assume that this means he is somehow less-than.
Over the years, Cross has learned what it is about himself that people find hard to understand, and when it suits him (or when he thinks of it) to modify his behaviour to make someone feel more comfortable, he makes the effort. That effort is the trouble. Where others use the social niceties to help us rub along together, Cross often needs prompting.
His reluctant partner is DS Ottey. She keeps asking not to be partnered with him, because he’s so difficult, but each time, she’s told that she is the one who ‘manages’ him best. She has to admit, he is certainly successful.
They are investigating the recent murder of a man whose wife was also murdered, several years ago and for which someone was found guilty and jailed. Cross insists that they check the old case, and he’s assigned some jobs to the new recruit, Mackenzie.
Mackenzie is brand new, keen, earnest and anxious to do a good job, if only someone would tell her what her job is. Finally, she is delighted that Cross has given her an assignment to research dates and times, sift through data, and narrow the results down to a list.
When Mackenzie brings the list in early in the morning, DS Ottey notices she looks exhausted, which is when Mackenzie says she had been up all night working on it. She begins to explain what she’s done, how she did it, and how many possibilities there still are to be checked. The list is several pages long.
“She held the list out to Cross, but he didn't take it, leaving her hanging there like she'd just had a fist bump unreciprocated. He looked straight through her. She thought she'd done something wrong, but he was simply processing what she had said.”
Cross instructs her to narrow the list again for all the names that contain certain initials, but then decides it’s quicker to do it himself, whizzes through, highlights the names in an instant, leaving Mackenzie gobsmacked.
“She just stood there, not moving. Ottey stepped in with the words this young staff officer was expecting – needing, in fact. ‘That's great. Thanks Alice, you can go,’ she said.
Mackenzie stood there for a moment, as if unsure who she should obey, then left. ‘Okay.’
Ottey looked back at Cross, who was oblivious to this.
‘ “Well done”, “good work”...’ said Ottey.
‘I don't understand.’
He looked at her, but she wasn't giving him any more help on this one. He knew he'd done something wrong, just not what it was. But she wasn't upset, which meant someone else was. He then looked at Mackenzie, who had gone back to her desk. She'd been up all night, she said, doing this list. He thought for a minute, played the conversation back in his mind. He'd been business-like, not rude; he was fairly sure about that. Then he got it. He hadn't said ‘thank you’. She needed reassurance and gratitude. Noted.
Mind you, they shouldn't need all this molly-coddling.”
Noted. That’s important. He does make a mental note of these things and sometimes manages appropriate responses, which he finds particularly useful when interviewing people. Rather than showing off how clever he actually is, he leads people to believe he’s not only odd but perhaps a little slow, so they go out of their way to explain things – which is when lies trip us up of course.
I liked the back story about his dad (a creative hoarder who repurposes stuff), and his hobbies (church organs) and personal life (cyclist) as well. I started off feeling as if this was going to be a lesson in autism/aspergers/whatever, but the author managed to work it into the story pretty comfortably, and before long I was truly hooked.
Cross is reminiscent of Dr Gregory House from the TV series “House”, but he isn’t grumpy or angry. He’s just a perfectionist whose skills in noticing clues – things out of place – make him an excellent detective.
I ended up enjoying it and also enjoying the audio, part of which I listened to as well as reading the text. There are four more in the series and a new one to come I believe. ...more
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