Zane Lovitt had a dream start to his writing career when his debut novel, 2014′s The Midnight Promise, won best first fiction at the Ned Kelly Awards – Australia’s equivalent to our Ngaio Marsh awards – and critics began comparing him to Aussie crime writing legend Peter Temple.
Midnight was a cracking Melbourne-set of linked short stories which leaned on many of the tropes of classic noir but freshened it with a wry Aussie perspective. Its follow-up, Black Teeth, doubled down on the humour but kept many noir elements.
For his third novel, Lovitt changes tack. This is set in the suburbs; in fact, we rarely leave the cosy environs of the seemingly halcyon Carnation Way, a sleepy cul-de-sac community which sports carnations in the gardens and where everyone knows each other’s business.
At the end of Carnation Way sit seven houses “that faced each other like a Mexican stand-off – all built by the same developer and identical, right down to the wrought-iron lacework at the top of the porch columns”.
It’s where newly divorced ex-lawyer Jamie Fawkner now lives. He has moved back in with his elderly ex-school teacher Dad, who’s suffering from early dementia, a diagnosis that hasn’t stopped him dropping Dickens or Shakespeare into the conversation.
When their longtime neighbour, 60-year-old Claire, abruptly leaves her husband and disappears, Jamie recalls the events of 13 years earlier when a boy’s body was found underneath one of Carnation Way’s houses. It is thought he was made to dig his own grave.
Lovitt tells his story via two narrators: Jamie, and through the diary of Claire from 13 years earlier, as she begins dating again after the breakup of her first marriage. Both become amateur sleuths. The older text gives the reader insight into the initial death, while Jamie and an enigmatic new neighbour/love interest begin to make wide-ranging connections that hit a little too close to home.
It’s a well-put-together novel and, refreshingly, one that never takes itself too seriously. Lovitt again includes a good dose of wry humour among the suburban shocks and thrills, plus some sober reflections on love and romance, which, as the past and present mysteries grow, become a fraught subject for the lovelorn Jamie, who is still smarting from that divorce. “Love. The thing every rehashed pop song is about. The nonsense reason women give for going home to the husband who beats them up. The nonsense reason the husband gives for beating them up. The cover we invent for ego, or infatuation, or horniness.”
The novel draws more from the cosy crime school than any of his previous works and will likely appeal to a wider audience. Indeed, it’s a genre that suits Lovitt’s laconic and often reflective style, and one senses this would transfer rather well to the small screen.
Despite an unnecessarily convoluted ending, this is still an entertaining read. Alongside the protracted mysteries and rising body-count, the novel conveys a simple message: “to recognise the small, good things that make up a life and a love”.
The Body Next Door may not please those won over by Lovitt’s grittier works, but there’s no doubt this suburban thriller has its heart in the right place.
The Body Next Door, by Zane Lovitt (Text Publishing, $40), is out now.
