Chloe Hooper: A Child's Book of True Crime

By PHILIPPA JAMIESON

This debut novel by a young Australian has received glowing reviews overseas and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Compelling yet disturbing, A Child's Book of True Crime is definitely an adult read.

The plot has several overlapping strands. The central story is about a 22-year-old teacher, Kate, who has embarked on an affair with Thomas, the father of her brightest student.

Alongside this is the story of Ellie, another young woman who had an affair with a married man, and was brutally murdered.

Apart from the obvious parallel between the two women there is another link: Thomas' wife has written a book about the murder.

Kate dwells on Ellie's death and wonders if she herself may suffer a similar fate. Thomas laughs it off, but some strange events occur - has someone got it in for Kate, or does she merely have an overactive imagination?

The most original device in the book is a bushland gang of animals who act as detectives solving the mystery of Ellie's murder. The crew, including Kitty Koala, Wally Wombat and others, provide some light relief from the occasionally turgid tale.

In the classroom, Kate encourages philosophical thinking in her 9-year-olds, such as what is right and wrong and whether God exists. Her young charges study extinct Australian animals and the animals in turn study humans with an ironic eye.

The author has used the setting of Tasmania to great advantage. There's a wildness and freedom about the remote location but also destruction and control, with a backdrop of genocide, animal extinctions, convict history, and the stifling small-town atmosphere.

Of all the characters, we gain the most insight into Kate's personality, as the story is told from her point of view. A mix of worldly and ingenue, she is caught between youth and adulthood. She has leapt off into the deep end of her sexuality, and is blindly naive about the workings of a closeknit community.

As the story progresses, the facts of Ellie's story blur into Kate's obsessive speculation about it, and her hold on reality appears increasingly tenuous.

Hooper is a skilled writer and this shows in her ability to let us see Kate through her own eyes as well as how she appears to others.

It is a complex, unsettling novel with a clever layering of multiple issues - sex and power, the innocence and knowing of children, murder and insanity - but I didn't feel much sympathy for any of the characters.

Consequently, although it is well crafted and a compulsive read, I found it hard to become fully engrossed. No doubt it will be well received though, and would probably translate well into film.

Vintage

$26.95