Rhonda Bartle: The Lie of the Land

Winner of the 2003 Richard Webster Popular Fiction Award, this is Rhonda Bartle's second novel. First impressions are good. The cover looks promising, with a textured painting of feathers and hills. The story cracks open with news of a death, and beckons the reader on.

Cass, married with two teenagers, is in real estate and lives in Auckland. Her life has the gloss of success, money and his and hers red BMWs.

A phonecall out of the blue announces the death of an erstwhile boyfriend, who would have been all but forgotten had Cass not become pregnant to him. It's been 20 years since Cass saw her son Leo, but now she takes off on a mission to find him, to let him know of his father's death, to reconnect with him and lay to rest the painful events of the past.

Without a word to her family about where she is going, off she zooms, following a lead that Leo is in wild, isolated Palliser Bay around the coast from Wellington. Palliser Bay is a great setting. Its ruggedness makes Cass drop her city slickness and face up to the past, which is gradually revealed to the reader. It's a good place for a mid-life crisis.

There's drama in the storyline and the backdrop, and the pace chugs along, but too much is spelt out, leaving little work for the reader's imagination. It's a busy novel, with new people to meet and information to absorb right at the end, providing an unneeded distraction from the resolution.

The characters needed more development to make them believable. I felt sympathy for Cass, but wasn't particularly moved by her plight and felt annoyed by her lack of communication.

The dialogue is sometimes stilted and unrealistic, such as these pearls of wisdom from Cass' seemingly boring but reliable husband: "Bring Leo with you but only if he wants to come. You cannot assume anything, Cassie, not yet. Take your time. Ask questions. Listen to his answers. Do not fill in any of his spaces yourself."

Readable, but underwhelming.


* Hazard Press, $29.99
* Philippa Jamieson is a Dunedin reviewer