Marvelously misleading

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This article was published 08/04/2023 (1268 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive, Scottish poet Walter Scott wrote in 1808. That truth is eternal; secrets make those who are denied knowledge even more curious.

When the curious person is a journalist, then the search for the truth must be satisfied. So it is with Jessica Turner-Bridges, whose media job in pricey London has disappeared with the global downturn in 2018. At her lowest moment, she receives a call she’s been dreading. Her beloved elderly grandmother, Nora, has fallen in her home back in Sydney.

Australian/British writer Kate Morton takes readers on Jess’s journey home in Homecoming, her seventh novel, an extensive whodunit that begins in 1959 when a mother and three of her children are found dead — seemingly sleeping, after a Christmas picnic in the Adelaide Hills. The youngest, a baby, is missing.

The story weaves back and forth in time, during which Morton unspools an incredibly complicated and embellished plot full of red herrings and diversions that confound and mislead — a mystery lover’s delight.

When Nora dies, Jess discovers fragments of information that upend her perception of the kindly grandmother who raised her. Each revelation leads her to another person who’s been hiding information, and then back in time to speculate about the dead woman. It’s assumed the mother was depressed, poisoned the children and then died by suicide, and that the baby was taken by wild dogs. Testimony and gossip from the residents of the tiny rural community of Tambilla form part of the chain of evidence and misdirection.

Jess wonders if she shouldn’t let go of it, since knowing won’t bring anyone back. But she has time on her hands and becomes more determined as the mystery deepens. Whenever it appears that the answer to the deaths (or murders?) has been found, a new clue disproves it.

Morton’s own mother operated an antique store in southern Australia. She took her daughter to innumerable estate sales and flea markets, unwittingly providing Morton with background material for her novels. Morton says she likes to include dusty attics, lost letters, locked gardens and other curios in her stories because of the histories and mysteries behind them.

Homecoming has all of the above. Not surprisingly, Nora’s big mansion sits high on a hill with a lush garden behind, adding a noir tone to the story. The rooms are jammed with stuffed furniture that lead to startling discoveries. Letters fall out of books, hidden panels open old wounds, messages delivered after Nora’s death make Jess’s head turn. Jess thought she explored every inch of the house as a child, but realizes she never really knew what it contained.

While objects hold stories, Morton says secrets haunt those who keep them and alter the course of people’s lives, even generations after. Uncovering the truth helps Jess make sense of painful personal issues, which she struggles to overcome.

As well as a mystery, the novel is a tour of southern Australia. Morton paints fulsome, florid pictures of the plants, trees and climate, tracking the changes in the area over the decades. Copious description slows down the reading, but everything matters. It’s important to pay attention to the details.

Jess (and Morton) are highly literary, so the narrative is infused with references to great British writers and their novels. Morton practices what she counsels against, deception and secrecy, but lovers of this genre will appreciate her skill. At over 500 pages, the resolution is drawn out. But book lovers will find the ending utterly satisfying, because there’s nothing better than a good book, is there?

Harriet Zaidman is a children’s and freelance writer in Winnipeg. Her novel, Second Chances, set in the polio epidemics of the 1950s, won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People in 2022.