Stillwater
by Tanya Scott
Allen & Unwin
After years away, disability support worker Luke Harris is back in his hometown of Melbourne and is determined to build a quiet life, starting with a steady job. He is also studying commerce with an accounting major to help with buying a house and settling down.
Luke considers helping people with disabilities as a way to balance the bad karma he had left behind when he escaped Melbourne as a teenager, but it doesn’t take long for his past to intrude on his present and threaten to undo all the hard work he had put in to become Luke Harris.
Brutal criminal underworld big-shot Gus Alberici managed to see past the new name and haircut and recognised the tell-tale scar on his on his chin. Jack Quinlan was not buried as deep as Luke hoped, and Gus didn’t take long before he began calling in favours.
Luke always had the lingering fear that he would never escape the violence that had surrounded him after his mother died when he was seven years of age, and his father yo-yoed between criminal misadventures and prison. He had escaped once, but he didn’t know if he would be able to do it again.
Flashbacks are inserted into the emotionally-charged narrative. The pivotal memories, triggered by events unfolding in the present, show what a survivor Luke was as a troubled youth and allows the reader insights into his motivations.
Into the mix, the guy from the wrong side of the tracks who is trying to make good meets the poor little rich girl when he is hired to care for her brother Phil. Still living at home under her father Jonathan’s vigilant protection, Emma is certainly a damsel in distress. She even has a scumbag ex-boyfriend for Luke to defend her from.
Debut crime writer Tanya Scott brings a deep understanding of the human psyche from her years of working as a doctor in mental health care and listening to patients’ stories. She maintains that she has learnt more from her patients than any medical text book – “not just about physical and mental health, but about humanity, resilience and the absurdity of life”.
What makes this edgy thriller interesting is that those who are identified as being bad actually have moments of being good, and those identified as being upstanding citizens have ventured into the very behaviours that mark the evil characters.
Lezly Herbert
