Author(s): Alexander Thorpe

Crime

Set in 1927, the story takes all the classic elements of an interwar murder mystery and gives it a distinctive Australian flavour. A nameless friar turns up at Halfwell Station, at the same time that Ana, the adopted daughter of the station owners, discovers a body in the desert nearby when she goes for a midnight walk. But when she returns to look for it, the body is gone. Death Leaves the Stationwas written for fans of classic mystery and crime fiction.

CONSTANT READER STAFF REVIEW: CAELLI

If Agatha Christie was alive and well and writing murder mysteries set in Western Australia in the 1920s, this is absolutely the book she would be writing. Death Leaves the Station is a whimsical whodunit that starts with a disappearing body, middles with a train chase across Western Australia and ends with the Poirot-esque soliloquy of an uber-observant travelling friar.

The language is esoteric to the point of playful, and as a reader I could tell just how much fun the author had while writing this book. It’s very much about the mystery rather than the murder – why did the body disappear? Who is the travelling salesman mixed up in the murder? And how does an old romance novel hold the answers to the case?

I thoroughly enjoyed the almost smug self-composure of the friar, the youthful thirst for adventure of the witness Mariana, and frustration of the stern constable with the irrepressible pair of them, and I fervently hope he writes a sequel!