Wild Place

Wild Place is an engrossing and twisty mystery-thriller, set in the deceptively idyllic world of 1980s Australian middle-class suburbia. It's the run-up to Christmas 1989 and 17-year-old Tracie Reed has gone missing from her home in the (fictional) suburb of Camp Hill, on the Mornington Peninsula in greater Melbourne. Initially, local police are dismissive, treating Tracie's case as that of a teenage runaway. She'd taken a backpack of clothes, after all, and had been affected by the recent breakdown of her parents' marriage. Tracie's mum, Nancy is adamant that Tracie wouldn't just disappear and not make contact, and tells the police that Tracie had felt that she was being watched in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. Christmas comes and goes, and there's still no sign of Tracie. The lead detective goes on holidays, and the case is temporarily transferred to Detective Sharon Guffey, who grew up in the area. Meanwhile, local resident Tom Witter, who had been Tracie's high school English teacher, attends his local neighbourhood watch meeting. Tom's family home is located on Keel Street, backing onto the same area of urban bushland reserve, known as "Wild Place", as Tracie's home in nearby Bright Street. For readers who may be unfamiliar, the proximity of areas of bushland is relatively common in suburban areas surrounding Australia's largest cities. Tom is deputed to distribute "Missing Person" posters around the neighbourhood, and becomes preoccupied with Tracie's disappearance. His involvement leads him into contact with the police, and it transpires that he and Detective Sharon Guffey were close friends during their own school days at the high school where Tom now teaches. Both Sharon and Tom's wife, Connie, caution him against intruding any further into the investigation of Tracie's disappearance, but Tom is a little like a dog with the proverbial bone, and starts hypothesising about potential suspects. After the spectre of satanic ritual is raised as a possibility (I remember well the hysteria around this subject that flared now again during the 1980s and 1990s in Australia), his suspicions fall on local "goth" teenager, Sean Fryman. What follows is rather horrifying sequence of violence and xenophobia, during which the layers of this suburban paradise are gradually peeled back, revealing the fear, guilt, blame and jealousies that skulk beneath. Having enjoyed Christian White's previous two releases, The Nowhere Child and The Wife and the Widow, I launched into Wild Place anticipating another multi-layered mystery plot with plenty of twists and surprises. And I wasn't disappointed - this was an engrossing read with a strong sense of setting in time and place. While a couple of aspects of the "big reveal" had occurred to me as possibilities while reading, the conclusion came as a shocking, but fitting, surprise. Christian White has created a cast of complex characters, ranging from the somewhat comic caricatures of the members of the Keel Street Neighbourhood Watch committee to Sean's teenage angst and isolation, to the family relationships within the Witter family unit, to Tom's own intricate knot of motivations and insecurities. While the reader doesn't necessarily support the decisions the characters make (sometimes feeling like yelling at the page; "NO! Don't do that!"), we can't help but understand their motives of self-protection, retribution or bystander curiosity. I'd recommend Wild Place to any reader who enjoys high quality contemporary Australian crime fiction (albeit with a recent historical setting) featuring complex protagonists, multi-layered plot and plenty of twists.

Wild Place is the third novel by best-selling Australian screen-writer and author, Christian White. When seventeen-year-old Tracie Reed disappears, in early December, 1989, from her Camp Hill home on the Mornington Peninsula, the police soon conclude she’s another runaway. But even though her parents are in the throes of divorce, neither is convinced of this, and both are frustrated at police inaction. Nancy Reed says that her daughter reported feeling watched, and she had changed her appearance in an effort to thwart this. Nancy is religious in maintaining her daily contact with the police, and vigilant of unusual activity in the area, but three weeks later, there is still no progress. At the Keel Street Neighbourhood Watch meeting, local high school English teacher Tom Witter is tasked with posting fliers about the missing girl: he checks with his sons, who claim only vague knowledge of Tracie. Summer vacation allows him time to take a good look at Wild Place, the community forest backing onto his home, and that of the Reeds, something that brings him to the attention of Detective Sharon Guffey, a former girlfriend, with whom he shares what he has found. When Tom learns of an item found in Tracie’s bedroom, he becomes suspicious of a local youth. An extraordinary Neighbourhood Watch meeting, with Tracie’s father, Owen Reed in attendance, quickly evolves into a witch hunt, and an unwise visit results in accusations and drastic actions that cannot be undone. If this novel is at first a bit of a slow burn, once the action starts it does not let up. White’s plot has a generous helping of secrets and lies, twists and surprises leading up to the climax and, while many readers will reject Tom’s suspicions, even the most astute are unlikely to pick the perpetrator much before the reveal. Most Australian readers of a certain vintage will agree that White’s depiction of both the setting and era are faultless: his use of topical news items, TV, movies, foods, songs, toys and cars firmly cements the story in the late eighties; he easily conveys the accepted attitudes and community mindsets common at the time, and the characters that populate his suburbia are wholly credible. Another Christian White winner. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Affirm Press.

loved this book! kept me on my toes! I went from thinking it was one person to the next to the next to the OMGOODNESS ITS!!!! Christian White done yet another amazing job! WELL DONE 👏 KEEP THEM COMING ❤️