Book Review: 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

A longer title for this book could have been “13 Reasons Why My Life Sucks and It’s Completely Your Fault and Not My Fault At All Even Though I Do Nothing to Help Myself”. I don’t doubt that the reasons for suicide are intensely personal and rarely understood by anyone other than the person committing the act but when you’re writing a book about it, the reason needs to be better than a literary equivalent of “wah, wah, wah”.

Yes, I clearly did not enjoy this book but I understand why it made great source material for a TV show and I also understand that the TV show fixed a lot of the problems. Thank God.

Book Review: And Fire Came Down by Emma Viskic

I started reading And Fire Came Down as soon as I finished the first Caleb Zelic book, Resurrection Bay. Not because I enjoyed Resurrection Bay that much, just because I already had it and thought I might as well. This is the book that Resurrection Bay should have been. And Fire Came Down isn’t perfect but it’s one of those rare cases where the sequel is better than the original.

Book Review: Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic

Caleb Zelic is a private investigator and he’s been profoundly deaf since he was a child as a result of illness so he remembers what it was like to be able to hear. He wears hearing aids but they don’t give him perfect hearing and he relies more on lip reading. It’s an imperfect science so he misses a lot. He’s fluent in sign language but hardly anyone else in his life is. It sounds like it would be a problem for a private investigator. It is. He misses a lot. But as his ex-wife points out to him, he seems determined to “pass” for someone who isn’t deaf.

The story opens with Caleb in shock and cradling the body of his dead childhood friend, Gary, who was also a police officer. He’s called the emergency services and requested an ambulance – at least, he thinks he has because he couldn’t tell if anyone was actually on the other end of the line. The paramedics come and confirm Gary is long dead from a cut throat. The police want to know why Caleb was the one who found him. Because he received a text message from Gary saying, “Scott after me. Come my house. Urgent. Don’t talk anyone.” And so begins the mystery we spend the entire book trying to solve: who is Scott and why did he want Gary dead?

Book Review: This House of Grief by Helen Garner

Most Victorians – likely most Australians – would remember this case from the news. A car containing a father and his three boys veered off a highway and ended up in a dam on Fathers’ Day. Only the father escaped; the three boys drowned. Did he do it on purpose or was it a tragic accident as a result of a medical episode?

Book Review: The One Who Got Away by Caroline Overington

Oh, Caroline, no! I read this purely on the basis of all the terrific Caroline Overington books I’ve read in the past but it feels like an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Liane Moriarty’s suburban style of drama and it just fails completely.

Molly Franklin gets a call from her stepfather asking her to come to his house urgently. When she gets there, the police tell her that her older stepsister, Loren, is missing – presumably lost overboard – from the cruise ship she and her husband, David, were having their second honeymoon on. Immediately, both Molly and her father think that David is responsible and insist he be investigated for murder. But there’s some jurisdiction issues because the Netherlands-registered vessel was in international waters and docked in Mexico as soon as the crew realised Loren was missing. And there’s little physical evidence to suggest David did kill her.