Great Reads for Great Readers

 

Lucky Thing, by Tom Baragwanath.

 

            Well, the reader is the Lucky Thing to be enjoying another Kiwi-As thriller from Tom Baragwanath – who lives and writes in Paris, but has forgotten nothing of his origins in the Wairarapa town of Masterton on the North Island’s East Coast.  Once again, we meet Lorraine Henry, ostensibly a filing clerk in the local police station, but her photographic memory and acquaintance/friendship with most of the town’s denizens gives her an advantage on the town grapevine that no-one else has;  consequently, she is always brought in as an ‘observer’, taking notes for the police chief as required, but filling him in on her opinions later.

            And there is much to talk about and charges pending if they can only establish  what happened to  Jessica Mowbrie, a young local girl from the wrong end of town ( Lorraine’s end of town), who had won a place against  the local debating team of Langsford’s an exclusive private boy’s college:  now she is in intensive care in the local hospital after being found deep in the Tararua Ranges by a couple of  Finnish trampers.  Jessica is in an induced coma as she been given such a good hiding that her skull is fractured, and her family is looking for answers – and vengeance, a classic case of privilege against poverty, for it transpires that Jessica and her cousin Michaela were invited to a teen party at a woolshed belonging to one of the rich farmers of the district;  their drinks were spiked, Michaela was driven home semi-conscious, but Jessica disappeared.  The last person to see her was Stuart, eldest son of the farmer.  Which shows him in a very suspicious light, especially when he and his parents visit the police station all lawyered-up before they were asked:  the plot is thickening alarmingly.

            And more tragedy is on its way.  No-one is exempt, rich or poor. There are a raft of minor characters waiting in the wings to add to a seemingly insoluble mystery, and no-one comes away unscathed:  Lorraine’s life is threatened more than once on a single night and she is starting to wonder if being a filing clerk could be a dead-end job (sorry) before the cavalry turns up in the shape of Constable Dion, saving the day but not every life.

            Tom Baragwanath has proved to be no One Hit Wonder:  his second foray into small-town crime in rural Aotearoa New Zealand is just as meticulous and atmospheric as his first, and Lorraine, who lost so much in ‘Paper Cage’ is well and truly cemented into her role as so much more than just a paper shuffler. Good on you, girl!   FIVE STARS.