The Slipping Place

Joanna Baker

Ventura Press

ISBN: 9781925384581

RRP $29.99

 

Description:

A stunningly compulsive, darkly suspenseful Australian crime novel that asks how far we would go to protect someone we love.

 

Veronica Cruickshank’s youngest child Roland is her idealistic one – a fighter of lost causes, and the one that always needs protecting, particularly from himself.

 

So when she hears he is back in Hobart helping an old school friend, Treen McShane, Veronica tries to track him down – but all she finds are second hand reports, whispers of horrific abuse, stories of a small child being hurt.

 

Then Roland sends Veronica a text message, asking her to go to the Slipping Place, high on Mount Wellington, a picnic spot known only to their family. Here she discovers Treen’s frozen body.

 

Knowing Roland will be suspected of leaving Treen to die, Veronica resolves to find out what really happened. But as long-buried truths slowly surface, she uncovers a secret that brings the violence closer to home than she could have ever imagined…

 

 

My View:

An evocative read that conjures up the illusion of mania, psychosis and paranoia in a disturbing manner that will compel you to keep reading. I willingly followed Baker as she skilfully leads me away from the actual killer and entangles me in a web of deceit and half-truths.

 

The scene that describes the staircase incident is lyrical and gothic – images of floating fabric, the hysteria…no spoilers but this is a very visual scene.

 

A haunting read centering on the many facets, meanings of “family”.

 

PS – love the cover art.