Two debut crime novels about families from opposite ends of the genre spectrum. While Loraine Peck gives us a fast-paced gangland thriller set in the western suburbs of Sydney, Lyn Yeowart offers a more reflective excursion into Australia’s regional heart of darkness. Good news – they are both impressive, althoughThe Second Son
is the troubled history of the Balkans. When Croatian Johnny Novak is woken up in the middle of the night to be informed that his elder brother Ivan has been shot and killed, the go-to assumption is that this is a revenge crime perpetrated by a rival Serbian family. Johnny’s father, the hulking Milan, who keeps a machine gun strapped to the bottom of the kitchen table, definitely thinks so and wants Johnny to revenge them right back.His second son is not convinced.
Lyn Yeowart also begins with a death, only this time it’s an old man in bed. “The moment he dies, the room explodes with life,” his daughter Joy tells us before embarking on her first quest: a hunt for the leather belt with which he routinely beat her and her brother Mark. A godly man and a pillar of the community, George Henderson was a sadistic bully behind closed doors.
Joy sees words as images. Prejudice, for example, is “a winged dragon with black talons and glittering scales”, while the word bubbles manifests as “pink camellias”. There’s a fascination with language woven throughout that does indeed merit the adjective “literary”. Joy’s take on the world is unique – and not without its moments of bliss. But life on the farm is hard, and her hatred of her father such that she is ultimately suspected by the local policeman of killing him on his deathbed. There are other mysteries to solve too, including the disappearance of young Wendy Boscombe from the neighbouring farm back in the ’60s, and whatever happened to Joy’s sister Ruth.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.