Thicker Than Water: A Kit O'Malley Mystery

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

When I took creative writing classes in college, our professor always said, “Show, don’t tell.” Meaning, let the reader see the story without articulating every detail. Well, Lindy Cameron, author of Thicker Than Water, tells everything through wordy dialogue, detailed facial expressions, and exhaustive character descriptions. However, this same professor also said, “Don’t judge if you didn’t do it.” Since I have never published a novel, much less a successful mystery series, I delved further into the book to see if I could get hooked. I mean, isn’t the point of a mystery novel to sit long into the night under a reading lamp failing to make good on that promise to yourself that you’ll stop at the next chapter?

Thicker Than Water is the third book in Cameron’s series about private detective Kit O’Malley. If The L Word and CSI (any variation of the show works here) had a love child, it would be the Kit O’Malley series. The opening scene has the requisite needlessly gory corpse in an improbably interesting location. Hence the mystery!

Why would anyone dump a male crime syndicate family member in a women’s bar? And who is trying to tarnish the reputation of Melbourne’s lesbian community? No one, not even crime family matriarch Queenie O’Reilly, will take down this tight-knit group of ladies if O’Malley has anything to say about it. One thing is for sure, O’Malley is superior to any ex-stripper, ex-alcoholic, closet-genius female lead CBS could dream up.

Kit O’Malley is an honest, often reckless, and sassy Nancy Drew. On one hand I want to resist her ubiquitously witty dialogue, but then I think back to my childhood obsession with the strawberry blonde teen sleuth. I didn’t love Secret of the Old Clock because it was realistic or intellectual; I loved it because I was drawn in, and believed that I, just like Nancy, could figure anything out.

Sure, you have all the typical mystery elements: crime family, Romeo and Juliet-esque romance, ex-cop, crooked cop, righteous cop, sex, nightclubs, and a serial killer. (I know it sounds like a lot, but this book has 415 dense pages.) There are also a lot of names that, when augmented by Kit’s tendency to call people by varying nicknames, can get confusing. However, if you follow Kit around, you too will be dying to know who Scooter is sleeping with, and why she fled the scene of the crime.

Finally, for all of us non-Aussies, this book is a crash course Australian English. Sure, I knew bugger off, bum, and bloke, but arvo? (It means afternoon.) Cameron paints a very inviting picture of Melbourne, crime syndicates and all. Kit O’Malley could inspire Australia-philes all over the world.

To return to my original question: was I hooked? I would hire Kit O’Malley anytime. Case closed.

Written by: Claire Burrows, December 21st 2009

Risk

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:17:00 +0000

By Elana Dykewomon

Bywater Books

Author Elana Dykewomon has been acclaimed for writing about lesbian lives and realities largely unacknowledged by the mainstream. Her last novel, the Lambda Award-winning Beyond the Pale, vividly portrayed New York’s turn-of-the-century East Side and the challenges facing women loving women at a time and in an environment rife with injustice, anti-Semitism, racism, and tragedies large and small.

In her latest novel, Risk, Dykewomon chooses a different setting altogether in which to explore the lives of lesbians and their struggles to create community and relationships against the backdrop of a wider culture that is homophobic, sexist, and filled with so many other institutionalized inequities. In this book, her characters make their homes the city of Oakland, California and their story unfolds over the course of the 1980s, 1990s, and into the early years of the twenty-first century. While lacking the epic sweep and historical drama of Beyond the Pale, Risk captures the flavor of a particular place and time, giving us the everyday concerns of her characters with an authorial consciousness of the larger canvas on which their lives are being painted.

The book’s main character, Carol Schwartz, is the daughter of a man killed in Vietnam, and his death, when she was still a child, has left a profound mark upon her life. Carol’s mother, on the other hand, remained a solid and influential presence for Carol into her adulthood. Swept up in the feminist movement of the late sixties and early seventies after her husband’s death, Carol’s mother shares many of her daughter’s values. Nevertheless, their different generational experiences create a distance between the two.

When we first encounter Carol—a self-identified femme—she is five years out of UC-Berkeley, underemployed, and single. Within short order, however, her circumstances change when she meets Z.D., the intriguing butch after whom Carol lusts from the moment she sees her. Making her desire for Z.D. clear from the very start is one of the many risks we see Carol take over the course of the book. This risk, unlike some of those others, pays off. Soon, the two are an item.

The rest of the book follows Carol and Z.D., each of them taking risks in the world and with one another. Z.D. engages in some not-so-legal money-making activities. Carol, who has always liked the excitement of gambling, finds herself increasingly challenged after she unexpectedly comes into a large amount of money following a painful loss. The novel follows the characters (and their wide circle of friends) as they navigate challenges that are not necessarily unusual, but nevertheless can strain relationships and personalities to breaking.

Evoking a place and a time just as vividly as Dykewomon’s previous offerings, Risk offers a narrative filled with flawed and extremely human characters trying to create connection on an intimate and a larger level. Everyone is trying to do the right thing, but sometimes intention is not quite enough.

Written by: Elaine Beale, October 24th 2009