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Resurrection Bay Emma Viskic
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Caleb Zelic can't hear you. But he sees everything... Caleb Zelic is on the hunt for his friend's killer... His childhood friend has been brutally murdered - fingers broken, throat slit - at his home in Melbourne. Tortured by guilt, Caleb vows to track down the killer. But he's profoundly deaf; missed words and misread lips can lead to confusion, and trouble. He never forgets a face... Fortunately, Caleb knows how to read people; a sideways glance, an unconvincing smile, speaks volumes. When his friend Frankie, a former cop, offers to help, they soon discover the killer is on their tail. It might just save his life... Sensing that his ex-wife may also be in danger, Caleb insists they return to their hometown of Resurrection Bay. But here he learns that everyone - including his murdered friend - is hiding something. And the deeper he digs, the darker the secrets. The prizewinning debut thriller from the new name in crime: Shortlisted
for The CWA Gold Dagger Award 'A stunning debut... original and splendidly plotted with a superb cast of main characters.'
The Times
'This outstanding debut from Australian author Viskic is fast-paced with gut wrenching twists and an engaging protagonist.'
Daily Express
'Outstanding... gripping and violent... a hero who is original and appealing.' Guardian
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| Reader Reviews | |
Review by Ben Macnair (211120) Rating (7/10) Review
by Ben Macnair Caleb is profoundly deaf, reliant on lip-reading and sign language to get by in his daily life, and trying to solve the murder of his good friend Gary, who has seemingly got in the with wrong crowd doesn’t help matters. A police force that sees his involvement as a nuisance, and the involvement of Frankie, his girlfriend and a former police officer means that this is not a straightforward case to be solved. We as readers are placed right in the middle of the action, with Caleb finding Gary’s body, and the ambulance arriving taking up the first page. As Caleb digs deeper into his Friend’s murder, and the people that made up his life, we realise that not only will Caleb not give up his dogged search, but the villains won’t stop until Caleb is silenced, permanently. Finding refuge in his past, in Resurrection Bay, his life becomes even more complicated, uncomfortable reunion with his former wife and mother in Law, and the tension of his brother’s complicated life means that Caleb has only escaped into a more treacherous situation than the one he left behind. The twist and turns in the book come at quite a pace, with Caleb’s deafness adding an extra sense of danger to the set pieces, it is a book about crime, and solving crime, but it is also a novel that examines the complexities of life, and love, both romantic, and family, and how the past is always there, no matter where we go in life. The novel also looks at addiction, with Frankie’s problems with alcohol adding both pathos, and a sense of gritty reality to proceedings. There are moments of real danger in the book, with the sense that at any one time, it could be curtains for any one of the main characters. This is a novel that is pacy, unusual, and with enough sympathetic characterisation, and scene setting to place it well above the ordinary thriller and crime fiction story.  |
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7/10