text publishing, Melbourne 2013

Finally, Stefanie Plum/Janet Evanovic  has found a worthy companion, albeit in distant Australia.

This is the first novel by Sue Williams, journalist, accountant and owner of a PhD in marine biology. Her forty something heroine Cass Tuplin, widow, mother of two sons, Dean, the police officer, Brad, a fierce environmentalist, runs the only takeaway in Rusty Bore, a rundown, dying community in the middle of nowhere near Mildura. Muddy Soak in the neighborhood, on the other hand, is a thriving town, quite in contrast to its name.

Cass is a nosy busybody, stumbling into murder and conspiracy where nobody else suspects any evil, lest of all her police son. But nobody can stop Cass, when she is on the roll, helped by her neigbor Vern, the only other shopkeeper in Rusty Bore, who would like to merge their shops and their bodily fluids. Then there is octogenarian Ernie, resident of the only old people´s home.

Full of lively, if not realistic, imagination and bursting with energy Cass follows every trail she discovers, ending up in one of the gigantic silos in town, together with Brad and the bad guy. But all´s well that ends well.

A hilarious read! “Maybe the weather was getting to Brad. It was headache weather, oppressive, like it wants to rain but can´t remember how.” (p. 105)