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ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- A bright and breezy novel with a very entertaining bunch of misfits, and a likeable protagonist who is street smart, a good judge of character (as long as she isn't romantically involved with them) and who has the enduring mystery of her own origins. Brick (named for the lane she was abandoned in as a baby) tries to help her ex-footballer ex-session muso Uncle Baz and their beloved but battered Brunswick St pub, by taking a job with the local council - for which she is eminently unsuitable for and unsuited to. She soon finds herself faced with a few dilemmas, starting with the stinking corpse of the local mayor in the locked archives of the council building and winding up with murderous businessmen and corrupt politicians - via a possible romantic entanglement with an irritating journalist, the clandestine activities of a paranoid record shop owner and an assortment of fabulous characters who offer help of varying usefulness (the ASIO/parking-ticket inspector/drag-queen was one of my favourites!) Full of local colour and inner Melbourne settings, this is a great romp, thoroughly enjoyable with delightful cast of eccentric characters. I hope to see more of Brick! Lindy
Winner of the inaugural ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize. The twists keep piling up in this fun and distinctively Australian debut mystery, perfect for readers of The Thursday Murder Club and Janet Evanovich.
Sally Bothroyd lives in Darwin with her partner and daughter. She's currently the director of the Northern Territory Writers' Centre, but before that worked for many years as a journalist - both in broadcast and in print. Sally grew up in Victoria and lived in Melbourne in the 1990s. She returned there for a period in the 2000s to study filmmaking at the Victoria College of the Arts. She has made several short films which have appeared at film festivals around Australia and overseas. She's a longtime fan of crime fiction and had a short story shortlisted for the 2020 Scarlet Stiletto Awards, run by Sisters in Crime. Photograph Credit: Nichole Taylor
ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- A bright and breezy novel with a very entertaining bunch of misfits, and a likeable protagonist who is street smart, a good judge of character (as long as she isn't romantically involved with them) and who has the enduring mystery of her own origins. Brick (named for the lane she was abandoned in as a baby) tries to help her ex-footballer ex-session muso Uncle Baz and their beloved but battered Brunswick St pub, by taking a job with the local council - for which she is eminently unsuitable for and unsuited to. She soon finds herself faced with a few dilemmas, starting with the stinking corpse of the local mayor in the locked archives of the council building and winding up with murderous businessmen and corrupt politicians - via a possible romantic entanglement with an irritating journalist, the clandestine activities of a paranoid record shop owner and an assortment of fabulous characters who offer help of varying usefulness (the ASIO/parking-ticket inspector/drag-queen was one of my favourites!) Full of local colour and inner Melbourne settings, this is a great romp, thoroughly enjoyable with delightful cast of eccentric characters. I hope to see more of Brick! Lindy
