In one scene in Margaret Hickey’s latest novel, a young detective gets drunk and does the Cossack dance. The townsfolk don’t really hold it against her even though detectives in small country towns are meant to keep order.
The detective’s youth has got the better of her and she’s gone with the flow.
Her girlfriends have egged her on but a “baddie” takes advantage of the situation and kicks her in the back while she’s staggering out the door.
This act of spontaneity is a giveaway for the novel, a moment of gratuitous joy. Was it planned?
“I didn’t know who the killer was until 60,000 words in,” Hickey told those gathered at Readings last week for the launch of her fourth novel The Creeper nor the identity of the kicker.
Inside information such as this explains how bush noir manages to keep up a good-natured narrative voice as it amasses detail about potential culprits.
Cynical readers might be expecting some knowing asides about genre. Authors often work as lonesome narrators dealing with society’s issues. Not so, the bush noir narrator who can rest assured she is part of a mass movement.
Some say there is a glut of bush noir books and that readers are turning away from dead bodies in the mountains.
But judging by the turn-out at the launch, nothing is further from the truth. There were about 100 fans squeezed into Readings in Hawthorn on Friday 9 August and they weren’t there because the novel is “seen through the lens of landscape”.
Hickey has done a PhD in landscape but most of the joyous crowd were Uni friends from her first degree at Monash, still loyal and there to cheer her on.
“She’s very entertaining,” said one, as Hickey listed names such as Mount Forlorn, Humble Creek and the Razor, evidence of attitudes towards country by settler/invaders.
Bush noir in the hands of Hickey is not so much about dropping hints and creating a thrilling mystery but keeping the bush in a comfort zone for readers.
Her protagonist is Sally White, a 24 year-old detective, who is named after the snow gums in the high country and is re-investigating a case 10 years after it appears to have been solved.
“When you’re 24 you’re so beautiful but you don’t even know it,” Hickey told her readers. “When we’re older we know what’s coming. I’m interested in the perspective of age.”
The author lives in Beechworth and she’s walked the tracks to Hotham and Fall’s Creek. Her skill is in pulling all the tracks together like threads in a warm blanket.
Bush noir as a genre has become an international phenomenon and the Aussie chick, as personified by White, is one who can jump across crevices and put on a brave face when required.
Bush noir, if this novel is anything to go by, is less about violent undercurrents in the bush and more about wrapping human nature up in something warm.
Margaret Hickey’s The Creeper is published by Penguin Books Australia and is available from all leading book retailers including QBD Books.
Image: The Creeper Book Launch at Readings – photo by Rhonda Dredge
Words: Rhonda Dredge