Shock Waves
By Fleur McDonald
Allen & Unwin
The tension builds in the first chapter as three people, who seemed to be unlikely partners in crime but aligned in their goals, blow up the shire offices in the small country town of Kallygarn. “Slivers of fire flew skyward with trails of sparks and debris, outlines by the light from the fire burning in the building below.”
Luckily nobody was injured as it was the middle of the night. Detective Dave Burrows and his partner in the Stock Squad, Detective Bob Holden, were passing through the town and end up getting thrown into a full-on investigation involving arson and bomb squads.
Fans of Fleur McDonald’s rural crime dramas have been there as Dave Burrows began his career with the Stock Squad being mentored by Bob. They were with him as his marriage to Melinda ended because of his job and the struggle to see his two girls began.
Now Dave has remarried and he is still trying to get access his girls. Dave also has his hand full looking after Bob and taking him to familiar places on their route because his former mentor is weakened by the treatment he is having for stage four melanoma – something many people working on the land would be familiar with.
Fleur McDonald, who has lived and worked on farms most of her life, writes about problems that make life on the land incredibly hard, and it is the personal struggles that are at the centre of the narrative rather than the hunt for criminals. Though it is interesting to find out why people would blow up the council offices.
Some of these struggles are not unique to country areas, but the isolation of remote farms and small communities sometimes exacerbates the problems. I never thought that a farmer clearing a plot of land on his property to build a house would be the cause of so many traumas.
Lezly Herbert
