A debut author and new to me the story "Into the River" is filled with a captivating and compelling storyline that grabs your attention and does not let go until the very end.

In sporting terms, this exquisite debut was the equivalent of a rookie cricketer striding out and hitting a century in their very first test match. In his first novel Brandi has delivered a sublime rural mystery, full of emotion and tough issues to go alongside the intrigue. Wonderful storytelling from an ultra-talented writer.

This book wasn't for me. I struggled a little bit with it. I didn't connect with the plot or with the characters. I can understand why some people would enjoy it, but unfortunately, just not for me.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book which was set in Australia in the 1980s - a time that I remember with great fondness. This extremely enjoyable read concerned two boys who were growing up together, their childhood friendship, their loyalty to each other and the effect this had on their later lives.

The story unfolded rather randomly and I remain unsure whether or not I found this appealing.

There were a fair amount of uncomfortable themes throughout INTO THE RIVER though these were never considered in too much detail. The novel explored themes around love, loyalty, friendship, family, race, adolescence and lack of ambition.

Sad, yet powerful, this was a highly accomplished work of literary crime by a début author, Mark Brandi, who is someone to watch out for.

I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel, at my own request, from Legend Press via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

A descriptive story of boyhood friends in Australia.
Well written with good insight into places and times
An ending that was well considered

Thank to netgalley and the author/publisher for the Arc for my honest review.

As other reviews stated, this seems to be set in the 80s. It starts off in Bens mind as a preteen. The first half of the novel
I’s similiar. There is definitely some uncomfortable subject matter and talk. The second half is set as Fab older. It’s not as fluid or likeable. But it’s necessary. It’s hard to give much information without giving away spoilers. So read it. It’s woeth the read. .

Synopsis/blurb......

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DEBUT DAGGER

WINNER OF THE 2018 INDIE DEBUT FICTION AWARD

SHORTLISTED FOR LITERARY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR, ABIA AWARDS 2018

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MATT RICHELL AWARD FOR NEW WRITER OF THE YEAR, ABIA AWARDS 2018

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST FIRST FICTION 2018

Growing up in a small country town, Ben and Fab spend their days playing cricket, wanting a pair of Nike Air Maxes and not talking about how Fab's dad hits him, or how the sudden death of Ben's next-door neighbour unsettled him. Almost teenagers, they already know some things are better left unsaid.

Then a newcomer arrived. Fab reckoned he was a secret agent and he and Ben staked him out. He looked strong. Maybe even stronger than Fab's dad. Neither realised the shadow this man would cast over both their lives.

Twenty years later, Fab is going nowhere but hoping for somewhere better. Then a body is found in the river, and Fab can't ignore the past any more.
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My take......

An extremely enjoyable read concerning two boys growing up together, their childhood friendship, their loyalty to each other and the consequences that has for both later in life.

Fab and Ben are best friends. They are on the threshold of puberty, interested in girls and breasts while fretting about the changes in their own bodies and the size of their parts. But there's an innocence about them, they play cricket together, they fish and they have the same enemies at school. Invariably Ben fights the bullies at school, the ones picking on Fab because of his look, his heritage, his unfashionable clothes and out of date trainers. He gets his lumps at school and more from his father at home.

A death of a teenage girl - a casual friend - a few doors down the road from Ben, troubles them both and brings a stranger to the neighbourhood, Ronnie. Ronnie rents the property after the girl's family moved out. Ronnie befriends Ben's family and soon has him doing odd jobs for pocket money - mowing the grass, tidying the shed.

Time spent in Ronnie's company, reveals to us what an odd-bird he is...... the porn mag he gave to Ben, the invitation to take his top off if he was hot, the hand on the cheek and the shoulder rub, the conversation about the magazine and Ben's reaction to it, the temper of display on a fishing trip .... troubling for this reader with alarm bells ringing loudly, concerning and unsettling for Ben, without him understanding why.

Fast forward a bit....... Ben wearing two hundred dollar trainers, and a bit of distance between the two boys - both physically and emotionally.

The story unfolds in a non-linear way which I really liked. We open in present day, where a couple of youngsters have discovered something dumped in the river. We then have the tale of Ben and Fab's friendship and life in their small town. We catch up with the pair at a party long after their school days are done and they've gone their separate ways. And we spend time with Fab, in present day, drifting through life, unsettled making plans for a move to the city and hoping that the spark he shares with the local barmaid is strong enough for her to leave her loveless marriage and join him. Our river giving up its secrets may just put his plans on hold.

There's some difficult subject matter in the book, which is uncomfortable though thankfully never explored explicitly. There are some powerful themes throughout - friendship, love, loyalty, family, race, curiosity about the adult world, adolescence, innocence and the loss of it, drift, a lack of ambition and direction, the shadows that the past cast over the present and ultimately an inability to escape that history.

Powerful, sad and affecting.

4.5 from 5

Into the River is Mark Brandi's debut novel which was initially published as Wimmera in Australia a year or two ago. I look forward to hopefully reading his second book - The Rip - when it drops in the UK.

Read in March, 2019
Published - 2019 (previously as Wimmera in 2017)
Page count - 184
Source - Net Galley courtesy of UK published Legend Press
Format - ePub read on laptop

https://col2910.blogspot.com/2019/03/mark-brandi-into-river-2019.html

4.5★
“The car never seemed to go anywhere and the curtains of the house were always shut. Fab reckoned the neighbour was probably doing interrogations inside. He said there was stuff about that in the book, that they’d usually do it in the dark with a bright lamp shining in your eyes.”

Ah, boys and their imaginations, eh? A couple of primary school boys, about 11 years old, are imagining who the new neighbour is and what he might be up to. He’s renting the house next-door to Ben, and they wonder if he knows its dark history, that a 14-year-old girl suicided there recently. Of course, they also wonder about ghosts.

“Ben shielded his eyes from the sun. Ronnie seemed bigger up close, his shoulders wide and the veins in his arms stuck out, blue and green. His hands were enormous, red and knotty. He looked strong. Stronger than his dad. Stronger than Barry Jack, Maybe even stronger than Fab’s dad.”

But before Ben and Fab and Ronnie, the book opens in the present with another pair of boys, tramping through the bush, who discover something that has been thrown “into the river” (as it were) that certainly shouldn’t be there. We know it was probably intended to sink out of sight forever, don’t we? Oops.

Then the story moves to the late 1980s and Ben and Fab’s early friendship in primary school. Brandi sets the time and scene with Ben having dinner with his folks, watching ‘The Wonder Years’ and ‘The A-Team’ on TV. The 1988 World Expo had been on the news, and Ben’s mum is serving up Neapolitan ice cream for dessert, which they never do except on Sundays and special occasions. He wonders what the occasion is as Ben’s mum was eases into the conversation about the girl next-door.

[I remember those days and those favourite TV shows and the Neapolitan ice cream and why the vanilla was always the last one left in the tub. But I digress.]

Fab is the other boy, Italian background, teased mercilessly at school because he’s different and beaten at home because that’s what his dad does (which nobody knows). Ben seems to be his only friend, and they do get up to the usual stuff boys that age do. Yabbying, gossiping.

Ben is a bit more advanced and seems to be fixated on boobs and girls and boobs and bums. There is rather a lot of that, and never having been an 11-year-old boy, I can’t say whether or not it’s realistic that he would be fantasizing quite so much at that age. He is invited for a real Italian spaghetti dinner at Fab’s house and “admires” Mrs. Moressi.

“‘This is really nice, Mrs Morressi.’. . . he snuck a look at her chest as he said it. She had a grey t-shirt on, with a couple of buttons that were open near the collar. Her boobs weren’t huge or anything, but they were a nice round shape.”

Make you uncomfortable? There’s a lot in this story that should make you uncomfortable. Ben sees Fab’s father on the attack once, and avoids going to the house after that. He can’t help noticing bruises, but he’s only a kid. Fab’s dad, as I said, is a scary piece of work. He’s described later as

“. . . a giant, broad and tall for his generation, densely muscular. Big, strong hands and long, sinewy arms – a powerful neck and jutting Roman jaw. He’d exuded a primal strength, as though he’d not sprung from humankind, but something supernatural, almost unholy – something not of this earth. And he’d moved and acted like a man who knew, always, that his prowess exceeded all others.”

As for the new neighbour, Ronnie, he doesn’t seem to be worried about the deadly history of the house he’s renting but he tells Ben he could use a hand with the mowing and cleaning out the shed on the weekend. Ben is understandably nervous about whatever spirit might be lurking. We're a little more worried about the new bloke.

We see Ben and Fab in their childhood and wonder if, and how, they will deal with these men whom we adults can see are a threat to their welfare. Brandi maintains the suspense and reveals just enough to keep us reading and worried for them.

I enjoyed it a lot and am happy to recommend it. It was released earlier in Australia as Wimmera, which is the name of the region in Victoria in which it takes place. It’s a great name, but it won’t mean anything to those overseas, and Into the River makes perfect sense. I'm looking forward to finding the next one from this talented Aussie author, The Rip.

Thanks to NetGalley and Legend Press for the preview copy.
#IntoTheRiver #NetGalley

I’d seen quite a bit of hype around Wimmera / Into The River, the debut novel by Melbourne writer, Mark Brandi whose work has been published in journals, magazines and newspapers in Australia and overseas. In fact, Brandi was awarded the 2016 UK Crime Writers’ Association Dagger for this debut.

I enjoyed this book but wanted to like it more than I did. It is quintessentially Australian and brought back A LOT of memories though I’m older (and was at Uni in 1989) than both Ben and Fab. References to TV shows like The Wonder Years and The A Team (the original obvs), cricketer Dean Jones, The Aussie Post (and its Ettamogah Pub cartoon) along Monkey (Magic) and Pigsy made me smile.

Brandi deals with a difficult topic in this book but does so with a very light touch. In fact, it may be a little too subtle. I know it’s not a palatable subject but the inability of readers to really understand the extent of Ben’s experiences may mean we’re not as sympathetic as we could / should be. Of course I’m not meaning to diminish or downplay what happened to him – or what we believe happened to him, but it felt so vague it didn’t seem particularly real. In fact the first part of the book ended on such a menacing / shocking note I expected it continue in a more confronting manner.

The book is a tad slow in the beginning and felt like it was drawn out excessively; although it does give we readers that laid-back small town summer holiday vibe. I enjoyed meeting young Ben and Fab and I guess it’s interesting then to meet Fab when he’s older and see who he has become (and perhaps why).

Current day Fab isn’t particularly likeable. I suspect he isn’t meant to be though there are sparks of redemption…. But I really didn’t feel like I got to know him enough to care a lot about his destiny.

Brandi leaps about in time a little and it’s an oft-used technique to keep readers guessing (or fill us in on what we need to know at the right time) but for me there were too many leaps. Too many holes. Too many questions. The book felt a little disjointed and didn’t flow in a way which offered up answers. I was left confused rather than frustrated, intrigued or satisfied.

Having said all of that, I think Brandi has real talent and I enjoyed the storytelling elements of this book. Although I was waiting to get to the action / point, I think he did a great job with the two young boys and giving us a sense of their families and their lives. I note the blurb on the publisher’s site talks about Brandi’s experience as an Italian growing up in regional Australia, so he’s certainly writing from experience. The actual plot was interesting and story arc had a lot of potential… but I’m just not quite sure the delivery really did it justice. (But I’d suggest you check it out and see for yourself!)

Australia seems to be home to a wealth of talent recently and Mark Brandi with ‘Into the River’ has firmly cemented himself into that category with this stunning debut novel.

Bringing the 80’s back to life I am sure it will invoke some memories in a lot of you, especially if like me you were a child of the 80’s, dodgy hairstyles, fire hazards clothing and Kyle and Jason’s wedding being just a few!

The story is told from two perspectives, Ben in the former years and Fab in the present day and it all begins with the discovery of a green wheelie bin found in a river.

A character driven plot with a wonderful attention to detail in the scene setting capturing the feel of that era growing up in a small town. This is a story about friendship, tragedy and coming of age and how the past impacts on future lives, showing the dark side of human nature as well as the good.

It does get quite dark in places but it is still utterly compelling, and although the plot twist probably won’t come as a surprise to many people and you know where it is headed, it doesn’t take anything away from the hard-hitting effect this book has.

It did bring to mind Stephen King’s Stand By Me but darker!

Not the easiest of read’s I have to say, but nonetheless, an utterly compelling, powerful read.

A fantastic debut from an author to watch out for.
https://debbiesbookreviews.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/into-the-river-by-mark-brandi/

Into The River is one of those books that haunts you after you finish it. My brain was filling in detail long after I'd put down my Kindle, characters returning, stories unwinding, emotions clicking into place. Brandi plays with the narrative, giving a little, then wrenching us away in a jolt, allowing us just enough detail for our minds to build, build, and slowly, horrifyingly, make connections. The subject matter is hard-hitting and not an easy read - dealing with grooming, child sexual abuse, physical abuse and suicide, and at times is incredibly graphic.In Part 1, we follow Ben and Fab, two pre-teen boys, on a journey through hot, dry Australian summers, camp outs, cricket games, sexual awakenings and school bullying. The writing is urgent, brutal, coarse; as many things are at that age - however, I felt this was intended. The story isn't comfortable. The writing isn't comfortable. But it makes it all the more evocative as Brandi begins to build the tension against a dry, sweltering backdrop.I found myself pulled along on an uneasy current, knowing something was coming. When his former neighbours move away after their daughter Daisy dies from suicide, a new neighbour, Ronnie, moves in. The story focuses on the friendship between Fab and Ben to begin with, showcasing a strong bond between them - Ben sticking up for Fab when he is subjected to racist bullying at school, the tension between Fab and his father, who is a violent man. Through trips 'yannying' to camping out, we see the importance of each boy to the other at a time of uncertainty, sexual awakening and adventure. It is this bond that we see begin to loosen, as Ben is asked by his neighbour Ronnie to help out with some odd jobs to earn some spare money. Innocuous enough to begin with, soon we feel that something is hammering at our realisation, just out of sight. Something is wrong. We feel it. And in the narrative, Fab feels it too.-Ronnie gives Ben a pornographic magazine, but he and Fab soon realise the content is more violent and bizarre than the mainstream. A little hint like this set alarm bells ringing - soon we find ourselves watching helplessly as Ronnie begins the process of grooming Ben, and we, and Fab, slowly begin to lose him.The final straw is when Ronnie takes Ben and Fab on a trip, then refuses to drop Ben back home. We can see that Fab knows what is wrong, trying his best to get Ben to come with him - and we see Ben's justification for staying with Ronnie, the naive belief that he will be dropped home next, the discomfort when Ronnie instead takes him to an abandoned shack miles from their home town on the pretense of picking up some tools. But here, we are left, our minds spinning with anger and helplessness.Brandi deals with this process not by giving us tons of detail, but instead becoming more sparse in the story, conjuring gaps in the description where Ben should have been. We see him bragging about expensive new trainers he has been given. We see a conversation between him and Fab, where Ben tells Fab he's now going to a different school in the future. We know what's happening, but it's up to us to fill in the detail. As Ronnie's grooming of Ben progresses, he is now increasingly removed from the storyline, as he increasingly retreats from his friends and life.- Years in the future, Fab is working at a supermarket, generally dissatisfied with life. His father has passed away and he find himself drinking to excess and taking drugs. We know nothing of the intervening period, there is no mention of Ben, save for one memory of a party in their late teens, where they stumble upon one another. At the party they had got on well, until Fab mentioned Ronnie. The scene ends with Ben punching Fab and leaving him. Back in the present, Fab is in love with a local barmaid, but still doesn't seem to have any future plans. Soon, Fab's workmate Afriki offers him a new job, a fresh start. Fab deliberates and decides to take the job. But before he leaves, a police officer arrives at his door, and we begin to learn a little more of the intervening years as Fab is taken in for questioning. Through the interview, we discover what happened to Ben, all those years ago. I felt the anger of Ben and Fab, as the story was retold through Fab's eyes - although the murder of Ronnie and his subsequent dismemberment was still shocking. We see the scene through a surreal lens of the culmination of years of abuse and anger. Fab has discovered some photos in Ronnie's shack, and although we never learn what they depicted, we can take a good guess.Now, years later, Ben and Fab admit to what they did to Ronnie. We leave the story after hearing their court verdicts, wondering if the punishment is justified, what it must have been like to live that reality, and what hope there is for their futures. I loved this book - the dark material was dealt with in a novel way - the sparseness reflecting the withdrawal from life contrasting with the rich detail in emotionally charged moments. The language was raw, crude, and I think meant to jar, especially the moments where Ben first looks at the porn magazine and his thoughts about the women he is attracted to. Whether this is typical of an 11-year old, I'm unsure, but the graphic description lends to the atmosphere of the story - the abhorrent grooming of a young boy, the language of paedophilia, the pure shock and disgust we are meant to feel. Despite this, Into The River is one of my favourite books for a long time - uncomfortable reading, but so important.

A stunning debut novel.

Australia has been producing some real top quality fiction lately. After becoming a Jane Harper's fan, I've discovered Mark Brandi, a new talented Australian writer.

Into the River came as a literary thriller and yes, there is no doubts about it. With his emotional and compelling debut novel set Mark Brandi the bar very high. I can't wait for his next book!

Into the River tells the story of two boy friends, Ben and Fab, who grew in a small Australian town. The first part of the book set at the end of the 1980s, the second part in nowadays. What strikes me in the most YA novels that are told from the perspective of a teenager - they are not always feel like it is a voice of a teen boy/girl, but a voice of a middle-age author who desperately tries to be his/her younger protagonist. It is not the case here. I didn't have a single moment of doubt, reading the first part of the book, that the protagonists were 11-year-old boys.

Mark Brandi created very real characters whose fates got right under my skin. There is also a very strong sense of place, an atmosphere and a dark feeling of inevitability. Very lyrical and beautifully written piece of prose about friendship, growing up and how fragile our life can be. An extremely intense reading experience.

Highly recommended!

What is it with Aussie crime writers' ability to articulate and create suspense so well; they always seem to get the balance between plot and characters correct too, and this stunning debut is no exception. Multiple award-winning author Mark Brandi joins favourites such as Jane Harper and Chris Hammer, to name a few. First published under the name Wimmera in Australia in Summer 2017, now we UK readers are given the opportunity to read this unforgettable novel. It's actually relatively short in length, but what it packs into those 272 pages is nothing short of mesmerising. It explores some very dark and disturbing issues, and I found myself getting quite emotional in parts. This is a hybrid of coming-of-age and thriller genres and held my attention from start to finish.

It's a masterclass in how to ensure your audience is held captive by your every word; that's how I felt anyway. This is much more profound than your usual run-of-the-mill crime fiction, but it won't be for everyone. As with other Aussie writers, the setting is almost a character in itself. and you really get a sense of just how beloved the country is to Brandi. If you enjoy the nostalgia associated with CJ Tudor's writing then there's a good chance you'll enjoy this too. A compassionate tale that highlights both the best and worst humanity has to offer, and the menacing undertone that runs for the duration creates quite an oppressive atmosphere. This is literary crime at its most accomplished.

Many thanks to Legend Press for an ARC.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Legend Press for an advance copy of Into the River, a stand alone set in small town Australia.

When two young boys find a wheelie bin with the lid screwed down among some tree roots the novel looks back eleven years to the lives of two other young boys, Ben Carver and Fab Morressi.

I found Into the River to be a mixed bag in terms of what I thought I was getting and what I actually got. As the novel is listed under crime I thought that it would be if not a police procedural an investigation into the contents of the bin but it’s not that at all. After the first mention of it there is no further mention until near the end of the novel. Instead the first half of the novel concentrates on a few months of Ben and Fab’s life when they were about 12. The second half concentrates on Fab in the present with more flashbacks to this time. Throughout there are hints of something bad coming, which as the novel progresses is not difficult to guess. This knowing and wondering how it will turn out give the novel a sense of malevolent tension.

The novel is more literary than my taste enjoys as I like a more traditional whodunnit. I really have no interest in the doings of prepubescent boys, no matter how well they are described and Mr Brandi does an excellent job of getting into their mindset. As a result of this the novel really didn’t hold my attention in parts I and II although I really enjoyed part III when the reckoning comes. This in particular provides much food for thought and I’m sure will provide more than enough discussion points for book groups. I’m glad I made it to the end although it was only the quality of the writing that kept me going. The prose sparkles with its short, concise sentences and descriptions.

Into the River is not really my kind of novel but I can appreciate its many qualities and think that it will appeal to many readers.

This was a man absolutely terrific novel. Very well written and accurately correct. As an 80’s child I could relate to a great deal of this book and I really loved that factor. Was an incredible story of friendship, family and loyalty. I loved it

This is a very dark, disturbing and difficult novel but a truly excellent one. In spare and understated writing the author tells a truly horrifying story of two young boys growing up in a small Australian town whose lives are changed forever with the arrival of a neighbour, Ronnie, a single man and an obviously sinister figure whom the reader instantly suspects. Because so much in this novel is left unsaid, somehow that makes the narrative even more tense and unsettling. There’s no graphic detail, which is to be applauded (and how I wish other authors would take a leaf out of Brandi’s book here, sometimes less really is more) and no sensationalism, but just an underlying air of menace throughout as the story moves to its tragic conclusion. It’s an evocative and atmospheric portrayal of small town life and of a deep, if unarticulated, friendship between two young boys as they grow to manhood, a tale of a stolen childhood and the nature of evil. The harsh landscape and the pervasive heat provide an appropriate background to this well-paced, insightful and compassionate novel and I found the book a haunting and unforgettable read.

An excellent debut, fully deserving of the awards it has so far won. Recent years have seen a growth in the easy availability in the UK market of Outback Noir by the likes of Jane Harper & Chris Hammer and if you like them this is for you. The novel opens with the discovery of a body and you are in suspense for most of the book as to which character it is. A coming of age thriller, you can feel the frustrations of lives led in a small town where it appears that everyone knows all about you but seem blind to the things that need acknowledgement and help. The heat is tangible and characters well observed. Thank you to Netgalley and Legend Press for providing me with a free ARC and absorbing read.

This coming-of-age crime drama will stay with me for a long time.

1989 – Stawell: a small mining town in Victoria, Australia. 11 year old, Ben Carver is spending a carefree summer holiday, fishing for yabbies (crayfish), camping, playing cricket, and most exciting of all, experiencing it all with his best friend Fab. Their enjoyment is somewhat marred by the suicide of a girl their age, and Fab’s abusive father, but they try not to let these things get them down.

Then, Ronnie Bellamy moves into the neighbourhood, and both boys lives are irrevocably altered forever.

2006 – Two different boys head to the river to fish for yabbies. They discover a wheelie bin, bolted shut. What’s inside, will lead to the horrific truth of what began all those years ago, that fateful summer of ’89.

I had never heard of this book until a few weeks ago, but the synopsis immediately brought to mind an Australian C.J. Tudor, and having now finished, it definitely reminds me of her work. So if you love Tudor’s dark style of writing, and 80’s nostalgia, then I highly recommend ‘Into the River’. Powerful, emotional, and upsetting, this was a pretty heavy read. I felt the author did an excellent job of contrasting the best and worst of human nature. Showed the ugly, deplorable side of human nature, as well as the caring, enduring bond of friendship that existed between two innocence schoolboys. I think, like me, most of you will guess where the plot is heading, but the author still managed to surprise me, and some of the things I predicted turned out to be completely wrong.

Given the subject matter this read won’t be for everyone, but the content is handled sensitively and non-graphically. I should also mention that there are quite a few sex references – dirty magazines, masturbation, as well as objectifying women as sexual objects, and I admit, given these were 11 year-old boys, it did make me uncomfortable. I had to keep reminding myself that it’s perfectly normal for boys these age to think about such things, and talk about them among themselves, and not only that, it was relevant to the plot.

Divided into three parts, events occur mainly in 1989, largely from Ben’s POV, but also Fab in 2006, flashing back to his childhood. The 1980’s pop culture references, both Australian and American, brought back a lot of memories, and I thoroughly relished the trip down memory lane. At first I couldn’t work out when this was set, and it bothered me, as I like to know when my books take place. I had it narrowed down to the late 80’s, but when the 1988 Queensland World Expo was mentioned I pinpointed the date to January 1989, which was eventually confirmed in Part 3.

This was Mark Brandi’s debut novel, and have to say I was blown away by the high quality of writing. I hope he intends to write more in this vein as he did a masterful job.

I’d like to thank Netgalley, Legend Press, and Mark Brandi for the e-ARC.

Release Date: 1st March, 2019.
Previously published in Australia in 2017 under the title: Wimmera.

Review posted to Goodreads and Instagram, and on Amazon US under the title Wimmera.

First, the cover work of this book is lovely, just wanted to say that. The book was good although, I felt like we could have gone a little deeper with the characters and a dark read but still a good read.

There really are some terrific Aussie writers out there, and award winning Mark Brandi is a welcome addition, with this, his debut novel, short in length but big in its impact. Its a book of light and shadows, tuning into the lives of two best friends at specific times in their lives. 11 year olds Ben and Fab, are living in a small town in Victoria in 1989, we then catch up with Fab's life decades later after the momentous events that happened when he was a young, still stuck in the same town whilst Ben left. It begins in the present with the discovery of a well secured green wheelie bin in the river, the contents of which is to unavoidably raise the spectre of the past for Fab and Ben. The narrative is delivered from the perspective of Ben in the early years and then Fab in the later years that culminate in the trial.

Brandi atmospherically evokes the period of the late 1980s beautifully, charting the culture, the TV shows of the time, and the prevalent attitudes of that time, like the perception of women and girls. Ben is disturbed when a 14 year old girl, Daisy Wolfe, a neighbour, hangs herself on the clothes washing line. Daisy had been a good friend to him, although rumours and banter about her abound that make him distinctly uncomfortable. It is a time when parents allowed their children to run free and wild, especially in the summer, and the boys are obsessed by sex and hankering after unobtainable women and girls, excited by girlie mags, whilst camping and yabbying. It is far from a idyllic childhood with its bullying, racism, and brutality in the home. A new neighbour arrives on the scene, taking over and renting the Wolfe's home. The new man, Ronnie, attracts the boys attention, as they weave imagined tales of who he is, a spy perhaps. The tone gets progressively more chilling and menacing as Ben finds himself encouraged by his parents to do paid work in and around Ronnie's home, something he is less than comfortable with. The circumstances around the events that occur are left opaque, but we are left in no doubt about the gravity of the abuse that takes place, and the repercussions on the lives of Ben and Fab.

This is not your ordinary crime novel, Brandi is far more interested in character, capturing a particular historical era, the minutae of small town life, the gossip, the judgements, what happens behind closed doors, the limited horizons, and the lack of parental awareness about what could be happening to their kids, it just would not cross their minds that they might be endangered in any way. The rampant and blatant sexism is hard to stomach, particularly when it is applied to young girls, as is the everyday normalisation of the racism of the time. The characterisation of the young boys is done with skill in this coming of age story, their friendship is depicted beautifully in the trials and tribulations each of them face, their loyalty to each other is a thing to behold, despite coming from different backgrounds. This would have been a 5 star read for me, but for the dissatisfaction I felt over the trial and how it progresses. This is a bleakly disturbing piece of crime fiction but I found it never less than compelling. Many thanks to Legend Press for an ARC.