Shallow Water
Author: Stuart Black
Publisher: Sid Harta Publishers
Price: $24.95 (paperback)
Character-driven crime
Shallow Water is the first offering from Australian author Stuart Black and is a gritty and compelling crime thriller that divides its time between London and Australia.
Aussie
builder Brad West is married to the gorgeous Jemma Beckford, a descendent
of London aristocracy who dulls the pain of an unhappy past with chardonnay
and cocaine. Brad doesn’t really gel with the pampas London high
society and only tolerates it because of his love for Jemma. When Jemma’s
father dies and leaves the family fortune to her sister Rose life begins
to get interesting for Brad West. To escape London and a city full of
memories, Jemma organises a family holiday to the Australia. During a
day out on the Great Barrier Reef, Rose is murdered and the finger pointing
begins.
Prior to leaving for Australia, Brad discovers a dead body by the side of the road on his way to work one morning in Notting Hill. Over the course of the novel the two parallel stories begin to converge to unearth the secrets of the Beckford family whose power and money is enough to turn people to hate enough to murder.
It is not difficult to ascertain who the perpetrator of the crime is, but it is difficult to know whether this is really the point of this novel. Shallow Water uses the characters as the key focus rather than the crime itself. As the story progresses the more interesting elements side step the crime and instead focus on fractured relationships, the havoc excessive wealth and greed can create and how an absence of love and trust can break people. This is where the heart of this novel lies.
The plot is simple and Black writes easily and without pretence allowing the reader to develop a relationship with each character, to care for some and not for others - the sign of a talented writer.
Shallow Water is a great holiday read which proves the old adage that money can’t buy happiness. It delivers up a story of death in a very non-confrontational manner which readers who prefer less gore and more character-based stories will undoubtedly appreciate.
Lisa O'Donnell