By Nicole Crowe
Publisher: Hardie Grant
Reviewer: Karin Kos
Beautiful beaches and the ‘dense’ tropical terrain of Magnetic Island pose paradoxical emotions of allure and hesitance in Nicole Crowe’s debut crime thriller The Washup. When confronted by another family accident that seems all too coincidental, protagonist Eve questions the motives of those around her, when both her beloved sister Tilly and best friend Jack fall to their deaths in a tragic skydiving incident. The heartbreak felt by many in the tight knit small island community exasperates Eve further, as she is still attempting to heal after the car accident that had claimed her parents lives a few years earlier. Hence, Eve becomes even more unhinged and is further challenged when the highly specialised investigative team from CASA call the skydiving incident simply an accident; expecting all affected to move on with their lives. Here Crowe asks her reader to truly imagine how an individual could bear so much pain.
Looking for answers to these two deaths, Eve turns to blaming the people who organised the skydiving jump, desperately needing her grief to find a target. Leaving the reader to ponder whether this is an accurate source for Eve’s anger or whether her emotional capitulation is indicative of the frailty experienced in early stages of grief that can paralyse a person’s reasoning. Questioning the experts “but the whole thing’s far too suspicious to discount” enables Crowe to take her reader on a quest to determine whether the authorities always learn all the facts. Hence, Eve embraces her grief and investigates the accident long after the police dismiss it as an equipment malfunction; unwittingly uncovering far more about the ones she loved and lost than she ever anticipated.
To complicate the truth further, through the clouds that plague her grief, Eve projects her anger and emotional volatility upon her greatest supporters, leading her further into an unstable place of personal vulnerability. Crowe poses multiple red herrings and leads her reader to question why the people who should be the most distressed are behaving in ways that perpetuate their guilt. With Eve growing more cynical as days turn into weeks and she is left thinking that “it’s the people who were doing the right thing that are dead”. But are they? Were they all doing the right thing? And what if the people that you think you know so well, challenge what you truly knew about them? Can an island paradise become something darker when sinister behaviour implies that not everyone is who you thought they were. Creating a scenario where Eve uncovers far more than she should have and places herself in danger when pursuing the truth.
Whilst the start of the novel can seem a little frenetic, readers soon realise this early pacing is a reflection of the inner turmoil of the protagonist, being articulated to address the protagonist Eve as someone needing to find meaning in all things. Allowing readers to connect with the characters and be surprised when realising that the characters are not always how we may perceive them. Thus, enabling readers to question their own sense of fairness and whether they are too quick to judge people they meet, based on acquiring very little knowledge of who people really are. As the characters developed by Crowe are quite varied and play into multiple archetypes, yet remain distinctly individual in their development, right to the end of the story. With tension riding consistently high and creating the desire to want to know if Eve’s assumptions are accurate or simply social judgements, we all fall prey to making.
Crowe’s depiction of Magnetic Island in not only terrain, but also in social dynamics, provides insight to island life and the problems associated with a tropical setting that almost becomes a character of its own. This landscape enables Crowe to craft a story that balances fiction with real life knowledge derived from her experiences living in this remote setting, that poses a fascination for all readers; whether you are familiar with far north Queensland islands or simply wanting to imagine the beauty and majesty of this place. The Washup will keep you drawn to the steamy environs long after you finish reading the novel.
Publishers blurb
A tragic accident in paradise … or a calculated crime?
After her parents’ death in a car crash two years ago, Eve is back in the tumbledown family house on Magnetic Island, surrounded by nosy neighbours, an over-friendly possum and a cast of eccentric locals.
All Eve has left is her sister Tilly – not that she’s seen much of her lately, between Tilly’s history of disastrous relationships and her tendency to drink too much. And when Eve is introduced to her new boyfriend Matt, a sky-diving instructor and dead ringer for a young Richard Gere, she senses trouble.
Shortly after, a skydive goes wrong and Eve is left with a mountain of unanswered questions. Matt is the prime suspect as far as she is concerned, but proving it is another matter … especially after the cops rule it an accident. It doesn’t help when Eve’s ill-advised sleepover with Shane, the local cop, goes catastrophically wrong.
In trying to solve one mystery, Eve will uncover a far deeper secret hidden in the rocky outcrops of Magnetic Island – and put her own life on the line.