Text Publishing, Australia, 2022
Cover design by Imogen Stubbs
Cover images by Frank Tokluoğlu/Pexels and Shutterstock
You need not have read the first in this series, The Night Whistler, to make sense of The Carnival is Over, but if, like me, you have become rather fond of some of Greg’s book people, you will want to check on the back stories and what led them to their current dilemmas.
Set in the early seventies in rural Australia, the book sees Sergeant Mick Goodenough investigating two deaths dressed up as suicides, but clearly suspicious. He comes up against not only powerful moneyed interests in the major industry in town, the meatworks, but also the policing, justice and local government hierarchy. It seems there is corruption at every turn.
He’s also stumbling along with a wholly unsatisfactory (for this reader who wants him to see sense) love life – he’s in love with and having a not so secret affair with Eileen, the wife of the Mayor.
Mick is also mentoring young Hal, a teenager working at the abattoir as an alternative to being incarcerated for some criminal activity previous to this story. Hal is stood over by the town oiks, bullied and ridiculed at the abattoir and generally out on a limb not only because he likes to read, but also because he’s sweet on a young Aboriginal woman, Allie.
What’s more he’s ready to defend her when necessary, putting his body on the line against the violent stand over merchants. She, however, is as strong as they come and a nice foil to Hal’s uncertainties and lapses of courage.
In weaving these stories together, the author examines key social issues of the time in regional Australia – some of the problems are perhaps specific to small towns, but the issues are significant enough to also be applicable to Australian society as a whole.
Racism is a constant in this book; it’s ugly and entrenched. The wielding of power and the perverting of justice are also writ large here. Mick is the salt of the earth policeman, flawed but dogged, a softy to the core but tough on crime and determined to see right prevail. The corruptability versus the independence of the press also gets a run.
Greg Woodland has a background in script-writing and this is apparent in strong dialogue and its use to carry scenes forward. The structuring of plot in scene like episodes is also a feature of this author’s work. It’s very visual, highly filmic.
All this makes for a pacey read, but the galloping plot rhythm doesn’t detract from a polished portrayal of finessed characters and their emotionally complex relationships. We do have a strong good guy/bad guy sense with all the cast but they are pleasingly human and so we don’t always get it right when we try to make judgements.
As the story progresses, our principals do work themselves out or things are worked out for them. They live to see another day and there are some righteous comeuppances.
The book offers something to diverse readers – those who like a good potboiler, those who like rich characters and those who need big issues to underpin any story. It’s good news for lovers of Australian rural crime that a third Mick, Hal and associates book is in the wings.
Thank you to Text Publishing for my review copy and Greg for such a fulsome conversation about rural crime fiction.