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Lou Galloway has given up his Hollywood dream and taken off for Mexico – where he falls into a whirlwind adventure, acting out the role of a lifetime. With a magic realism start, a Narcos middle, and a [no spoilers] ending, El Flamingo is a joyous ride.

From a deserted beachside bar in “Playa del something-or-other” to the jungles outside of Cali, Colombia, El Flamingo keeps the reader in what will be, for many, territory familiar from American movies and TV shows. And Lou’s lines in part coming from scripts makes the reader even more at home.

“Who would’ve thought acting was a superpower?” This book is a tribute to the noble profession of acting, of getting into a role and effectively selling yourself – in Lou’s case as El Flamingo, an enigmatic hitman. As you read El Flamingo you question whether everyone around Lou is also just playing a role – and whose side each is on: “Had I shaken hands with God? Or done a deal with the Devil?”

There is a nice meta level to Lou’s narration advising the reader at one point that they are reading “A mystery, a thriller, and now, a romance. At least for tonight”. But due to Lou not being sure what’s happening, the reader keeps guessing what the next twist will be – and this reader at least was continually surprised by the plot twists.

References to Don Quixote abound – was Quixote a fool or a hero? And which is Lou? “Somehow, I’d become an utterly unreadable man, all down to the fact that no one was more confused about the whole thing than me.” This self-deprecation is what keeps the reader engaged, and also rooting for Lou in his newfound mission to decidedly be a hero – yet concerned about his confidence to follow through – “As it always does, the coffee began to raise my over-all level of intelligence.”

There are some fabulous scenes in the novel, a novel that would make a great movie – there is the dance in a salsa bar in a rainforest, Maria-Carla singing in the El Jaguar Cantante, the demonstration of what can be done with a single playing card or a bottle of expensive bubbles, and that surreal moment early in the piece when Lou enters a lavish party out in the middle of nowhere – “a gringo idiot in a cheap Hawaiian shirt.”

The plotting of El Flamingo is superb apart from one major coincidence the plot hinges on, requiring a regular influx of failed actors into Mexico. Aside from this, all is neatly explained, and after all “Sometimes, even in Mexico, an extra sombrero is too much to ask”. I just loved reading this book!

Dif is a rough sleeper, for good reasons he is lying low, keeping clear of the law. However, when he witnesses a woman’s body being dumped in a quarry, he knows he must do something to get justice for the victim – but that he also must keep himself safe. He gathers scraps of evidence from the body before the next day’s quarry work obliterates it, and he tries for long-distance communication with his foster sister, NSW Park Ranger Cal Nyx, leaving her clues to follow.

Cal is taking a break from her job, trying, but failing, to face the death of her Aunt Zin. Zin took Cal in when she was at school and her life fell apart in Aotearoa / New Zealand, and soon after Dif joined the family. When Cal gets the first text message from Dif, she plunges into helping him, in part to distract herself from Zin’s death, in part through feeling bad for Dif, who “was a kind of magnet for shite at times”.

Cal takes off on a crazy trip up and down the NSW coast, north and south of Sydney – up and down so many times, she started to “feel like a frickin yo-yo”. At the same time, Dif is doing what he can to find out what sequence of events led to the incident at the quarry, and Cal is “sending messages into the ether and hoping Dif was at the other end”. Cal calls on her network to help with her investigating – she knows the best people for the job would be the cops, but also knows that could end up with the worst outcome for Dif.

Cal includes her friend/partner Detective Inspector Liz Scobie in her efforts, along with hackers, car mechanics, performers – all gifted women she knows. Things are tricky for Scobie for two reasons, there is Dif’s reticence to have anything to do with the police, and the fact that an ex-lover of hers is in command of the probably bent cop who is causing most of Dif’s grief. The reader picks up the different threads of the case from the various investigations.

Cal keeps racing around, sleeping in her car, wondering about life, getting pissed-off, and generally being a great character. She mucks up relationships, feels guilty about not being with Zin when she died, wonders what to do about a squatter who seems to have moved into her aunt’s house, worries about her injured dog, Banjo – and one time, after a cramped night sleeping in the car, she stretched her muscles on playground equipment: “To her surprise she found it exhilarating and fun.”

The Quarry is a great depiction of how people on the margins live dangerous lives, how hard it is to participate in society once society decides you don’t fit. Dif, is a transgender male, he has more than the usual fear of the cops, and of going to jail. Whenever he has tried to do good, his actions have been misunderstood, he is frail and frightened. He is terrified in the bush to see torchlight: “He’s come for me” – only to realise he is looking at the moon.

It is when Cal and Dif finally get to spend time together that the reader sees the young petrol heads who used to love hanging out together. The writing of The Quarry is atmospheric and moving, as well as pacey with plenty of action – Cal putting herself, or in one case flinging herself, into great danger on numerous occasions. The Quarry is the second Cal Nyx Mystery and I loved reading it. I look forward to reading more of Cal, her circle of friends, and their exploits.

Four teenage boys accused of sexual offending, three teenage girls under the spotlight of public opinion and speculation. We read their stories through trial testimonies, memories, and from the point of view of the twelve jurors tasked with judging the boys.

Dice is not just the story of the young people, the trial, and the jurors; it is the story of how widespread and intractable sexual predation is. For this reason, I advise that the novel is graphic and disturbing, and anyone who has been the victim of sexual coercion needs to be aware of this before reading.

Allowing us to get to know the jurors is a great literary device; the reader becomes very aware of how thoroughly human, damaged, and distracted the jurors are while trying to pass judgement on others. It makes the reader a bit numbed by the judicial system. How so many bad actions don’t end up in court, and how many societal prejudices do.

The jury is comprised of a cross section of society, a range of socio-economic situations, ages, and levels of confidence. The youngest is also Māori, so he is often asked his opinion – not as his opinion, but as that of all young men, or of all Māori. There are automatic alliances of like people. There are superficial friendships. There are snap judgements of others. And there are the white men assuming they are the only ones who ‘get it’.

The boys have devised a game of dice to determine their actions regarding the girls. There is reference made to The Dice Man; the 1970s novel where a man’s daily actions are determined by dice roll. This ‘abandoning of autonomy’ is just the sanctioning of bad acts, as the players determine the parameters of the game. And there is a parallel with society, where the privileged get to make the rules – and then behave badly.

Throughout Dice is the wearying, endless, infuriating, disregard of women. The effect of the jury’s judgements on the boys’ futures is deemed important, the effect on the girls’ lives of the judgements, or a mistrial, is deemed not relevant to their decisions. The boys’ ‘lesser’ actions are deemed “Boys mucking around”, “Boys being boys”, with no regard to that ‘play’ embedding in the boys a culture of disrespecting women being acceptable. Some of the men even fail to grasp the seriousness of some of the boys’ ‘more serious’ actions.

Dice gives us lots of information about the lives of the jurors – their back stories, their current challenges. Cleverly we read at the beginning of the book about one specific incident in the life of one male juror. He then almost becomes a background character – the reader knowing the questions he would be asking himself as the trial progresses.

Dice is a heartbreaking read. It’s not just the horrible triviality of the Dice Game; it all becomes a game – the performative nature of the court, the anxiety some jurors feel in not understanding the rules, the bargaining and compromising in the jury room. Baylis ends the novel in a harrowing way, clearly showing how far from justice and management of harm the whole process is.

Dice is a stunning debut novel. It is not an enjoyable read, but it is one that really makes you consider how things could be done better. How women’s voices might be heard and not dismissed as hailing from “the MeToo bandwagon”, how as well as young women being told not to behave in certain ways, boys should be required not to abuse young women!

Jane might finally be making headway with a twenty-year-old case, when an accident sends her spinning into a strange world. Three months after the accident, she is surrounded by “strangers who somehow feel familiar” – are they familiar because she knows them, or just because she has recently got used to them? Are they friends, carers, guards, or gaolers? Is she really ‘Jane’?

The things that usually give us certainty, photographs and mirrors, are treacherous to Jane, and from amongst the characters around her who can she trust? Surely not “Doctor Two-Bob Each Way, Doctor Spin the Wheel and Bet on Red, Doctor Don’t Ask Me – I’m a Neurosurgeon”. And then there are the trips to the spaceship. Disorienting and scary. For Jane, spaces keep changing, getting around is not just a physical but a mental challenge.

I don’t want to say who or what Jane is – the intrigue is in finding out alongside her, and in piecing together the various mysteries she is trying to solve, both professionally and personally. The reader is given clues and guesses some of the answers, but the mystery/thriller angle wasn’t really the focus for me, it was the pleasure of reading about the complexities of the central character, at once damaged and vulnerable and staunch and smart.

I read Resurrection not knowing the Jane Halifax TV series or having read the first book in the series, Resurrection is #2. I am glad that’s how I got to know Jane – with her story for a long time hopping around like her confused mind. It is at once sad, “Lonely. Desolate would be a better description …”, and intriguing, “But how can you tell when a liar is telling the truth?”

Once the murk begins to clear, Jane starts recognising herself, but also recognising that she is no longer the person she thinks she might  have been before the accident. The various mysteries are solved: Why was she always thinking of a 20-year-old TV show? Why did she have recurring vivid memories that made no sense? What where the files she was collecting before the accident, and why was she revisiting that old case? Jane picks up more challenges as she struggles with her lingering amnesia, trusting only her instincts to judge who she should help and who she should remain wary of.

There are real threats to Jane’s safety and some tense moments in Resurrection, and the various mysteries are resolved in an interesting, messy, not black-and-white psychological way. There are lots of good solid characters, and Jane adds humour amidst her trauma: “Well, it’s easy for her to say; she hasn’t lost touch with herself.” She gives people great nicknames in retaliation for them calling her by someone else’s name. She summarises herself: “The transgressive mind is my addiction.” Resurrection is a great and unusual read.

Frank Winter is a grumpy cynical ex-sheriff who has been working as a cleaner for the last fifteen years. He likes his drink and he “looks like Johnny Cash on a three-day drunk”. Detective Nunzio Arabito is a twenty-nine-year-old strategic analyst for the Boston Police Department, moonlighting one night a week as an Italian chef. He is responsible for the Prevention First programme and is idealistic about minimising crime and preventing recidivism.

Frank and Nunzio come into each other’s lives when, after twenty years, Barry Krupke is paroled from prison. Krupke has been serving time for the murder of one woman and the abduction of another; he was found not guilty of the murder of a third woman. Nunzio is keeping an eye on Krupke, making sure he stays out of trouble. He is also keeping an eye on Frank, because one of the likely sources of trouble for Krupke is Frank, the third woman being his daughter, Evie. When the verdict was passed, Frank was filmed on national TV, in his police uniform, waving a firearm and saying he’d gun down Krupke if he ever got out of prison.

Needless to say, that incident put Frank on the road to becoming a humble cleaner – although he says the booze was sending him that way anyway. But when he hears Krupke is out, and when he loses his cleaning job over an altercation about his suddenly non-existent pension fund, Frank has free time to consider whether to act on his historic threat or not. And Nunzio is savvy enough to guess where those considerations might lead.

Frank is racist – would never buy a Japanese car because of the war, assumes a black man would steal a camera. He is sexist, grumping that women wouldn’t do as they were told, using language such as “titty bar” and “two-bit street whore”. He is homophobic, feeling uncomfortable around gay men. But he loves his dog to bits, is relaxed with a transexual woman, and as we learn his back story, his behaviour towards his estranged wife Mary is tender and moving.

Frank becomes quite protective of Nunzio: “He should be a social worker – he certainly wasn’t cut out to be a cop.” Nunzio is a delightful character. He is humble, putting up with the banter coming his way at the station, and with being treated like a dogsbody. But he is persistent and very smart. He is also self-deprecating, recognising that he was being brave at one point because “the fear of being ridiculed overcame his fear of sudden death.” Despite his bravado he knows he looks “about as intimidating as Tintin”.

Krupke studied while in prison, stopped drinking, took a course on empathy, and worked out to peak fitness. He also started an online business: “Just like Amway, but with guns”, and is making good money. He’s clean, sober, and knows he can’t be tried again for the events of twenty years ago. But then he discovers Frank is still holding a grudge – and things start going seriously awry. Krupke has one thing in common with Frank – both “always had a tendency to rush in a little heavy handed”.

The plotting of Double jeopardy is great, leading up to a thrilling denouement, that makes Frank have second thoughts about at least some of his prejudices, and about his fitness. All three main protagonists develop through the book, some courage seeping from Frank to Nunzio, and optimism flowing the other way. Krupke realising the difference between the performative radicalism of his United Militias of America, and the messy reality of the field. And there are great secondary characters, and indications that some of them will return if Frank and Nunzio ever get together again, which would be a very good thing.