Caroline de Costa

The second in the Cass Diamond series MISSING PIECES is set in far North Queensland, with Cass Diamond investigating connected cold case disappearances. In 1992, toddler Yasmin Munoz went missing from a picnic spot near Cairns. In 2012 local businessman and former mayor Andrew Todd dies, leaving directions in his will to search for the missing child, by now a young woman if she's still alive. Yasmin is the daughter of Todd and a local mixed race woman, who has since died. Once Diamond starts digging around she discovers there's another mysterious disappearance in the Todd family - the fiancée of Todd's son vanished on the night of their engagement party, and no trace of her has ever been found either.

Setting something like this in a small community has provided de Costa with a real opportunity for a closed room styled mystery, enhanced by the interwoven thread lines in a single family. As is always the way with these sorts of disappearances, the rumour mill in small towns provides heaps of possible scenarios, and much finger pointing - from the implications of poor mothering, question marks over the girl's father, the weird coincidence of the missing fiancée and a heap of possible motives. The official line on Yasmin's disappearance was that she was washed away when sudden rain flooded the picnic ground she was playing in, but the complication has always been that her mother left her supposedly supervised by an unknown person for a while, whilst helping with an injured boy. The lack of a body has never helped that conclusion, although it's Cairns, Queensland and there are always crocodiles to blame. Either way, Diamond finds herself digging around in both disappearances when the terms of Todd's will become well known and higher-ups in the Police get a bit nervous about the PR implications.

An interesting idea for a cold case investigation then, unfortunately not best served by the structure of the novel overall. The author here has a lot of worthwhile stuff to say about stereotypes of Indigenous Australians, on environmental issues, heavy-handed policing and a bunch of other social issues. The problem is that many chapters in the novel come across as mini-lectures on individual subjects, or are so heavily infested with foreshadowing that it's difficult to stay with it too frequently. There's also too many times when the side-alleys of lecture and points to be made simply overwhelm advancement of the plot and it's hard to come away from MISSING PIECES without wondering if there was a lot more novel here than actual story.

There's plenty of potential in Cass Diamond as a central character, so having really liked this idea of the intersecting cold cases as a plot device, here's hoping the third outing in this series achieves a better balance.

https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/missing-pieces-caroline-de-costa… (altro)

Debut crime novel featuring single mother, indigenous background detective, Cass Diamond. it opens with the victim’s body being found, by accident, in a secluded part of the north Queensland rainforest, by a doctor and his wife who are driving home the scenic way. It is set in 2011, just after category-5 Cyclone Yasi hit northern Queensland. Writer da Costa is a doctor, and the crime hinges on a condition called "Folie-à-deux" or "share psychosis". An intriguing first novel. For my full review, please read https://whisperinggums.com/2015/11/15/caroline-de-costa-double-madness-review/… (altro)

The author of DOUBLE MADNESS, Caroline de Costa is a professor at the School of Medicine at James Cook University in Cairns, and the book is set amongst the medical profession, in Cairns. Writing obviously about a couple of worlds that she knows well, this debut novel combines a strong sense of the place, and the climate, with a well-delivered intricate plot.

The body of Odile Janvier is found deep in the rainforest outside Cairns by sheer chance when local doctor Tim Ingram and his wife take a very unlikely shortcut, a little known back track which is a dodgy proposition after Cyclone Yasi. After their car gets trapped, on the walk out, they discover her body, tied to a tree with a number of expensive Hermès scarves. Investigations quickly discover that her husband has also been missing since before the cyclone, but with both of them are estranged from their sons - one in Tasmania, one in jail - and oddly in a small place like Cairns, nobody knowing much about the pair, their disappearance was not noticed. Once the investigation kicks off, it's not long before some disturbing connections between Janvier and members of the local medical community start to emerge. All the while her husband remains missing, and no matter how hard Cass Diamond digs, it's hard to work out the complex web of blackmail, money around this strange couple.

The central character of Cass Diamond stands up really well to the focus of that position. An Aboriginal woman with a teenage son, she's a great balance of personal and professional, with details of her background pulled into the narrative in a way that's engaging, without being overwhelming. Strong and sometimes funny she's very real and somebody that readers would be happy to spend time with.

There's a good balance of medical information versus the need to keep up the pace of a thriller, although the psychological dynamic between the victim and her husband is particularly interesting, and well fleshed out. The combination of a smaller city setting and the insular and inter-connected world of the medical profession therein, provides some nice complications - and plenty of potential suspects, once a possible motive is established. There's also some depressingly creepy behaviour outed amongst those that we'd all prefer to think of as above the tacky, although these days it's so easy to believe it should give pause for thought.

Within the plot there are a few red herrings, and a reasonable amount of confusion in why or even how this woman died, particularly in the beginning, all of which provides readers with opportunities to draw some conclusions, or at least have a stab at solving the crime along with Diamond.

A promising debut DOUBLE MADNESS has got a lot going for it. Some psychological insights into relationships, and the power of the sex drive, to say nothing of some decidedly revolting behaviour on the part of people that you'd think would know better, built around a great new protagonist in Cass Diamond. Another one that you'd hope will turn into a series.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-double-madness-caroline-de-costa… (altro)