Crime Writer Margot Kinberg

When people think of the state of Victoria, they often think of Melbourne. But there’s actually a lot more to Victoria than just the one city. There are beautiful coastal towns, excellent food, vineyards, world-class sport, and… crime. That’s right, even lovely Victoria isn’t crime-free, well at least not if you read crime fiction. There’s plenty of fictional crime in Melbourne, but that’s a topic for another post. The rest of the state has its share, too.

For instance, Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock features students and teachers at Mrs. Appleyard’s College for Young Ladies, an exclusive boarding school in Victoria. One day, the students go on a picnic to Hanging Rock, accompanied by two of the teachers. During the day, three of the students and one of the teachers go missing. One of the students is later found, but she is in a daze and can’t remember much of anything. A major search of the area yields no clues, either. Then, some other strange things begin to happen. Parents of the students find out what’s going on and start pulling their daughters out of the school, and the story ends tragically for the school. Interestingly, this story doesn’t give readers explanations for what happened; rather, readers are invited to come to their own conclusions.

In Kerry Greenwood’s Murder on the Ballarat Train, Phryne Fisher and her companion Dot Williams board a train bound for Ballarat. Late one night, all of the passengers are overcome with chloroform. Phryne manages to break a window so that the chloroform dissipates, and people begin to recover. Then, fellow passenger Anne Henderson goes missing. Her body is later discovered near the tracks, and it becomes clear that she was thrown from the train. The other passengers were drugged to keep them from interfering. Anne’s daughter Eunice asks Phryne to find out who the killer is and what the motive was, but it’s not going to be an easy case.

Geoffrey McGeachin’s The Diggers Rest Hotel begins in 1947 as police detective Charlie Berlin returns to Victoria after service (and a time in a prison camp) during WW II. His supervisor seconds him from Melbourne, where he’s based, to Wodonga to help the local police. It seems that a motorcycle gang has been committing robberies in the area and Charlie is tasked with catching the group. It’s a tough task, and the pressure only increases when one of the robberies ends up causing an injury. Charlie’s working with the local police on that case when the body of fifteen-year-old Jenny Lee is discovered in an alley. At first, it looks as though her death might be linked to the motorcycle gang, but Charlie learns that the gang had nothing to do with the murder. Now, he has to divide his time between finding a murderer and stopping a motorcycle gang’s robberies.

Helen Fitzgerald’s The Cry is the story of Joanna Lindsay and her partner Alistair Robinson. Joanna is Scottish, but Alistair is from Victoria. He wants to build a relationship with his daughter Chloe, who lives in Victoria with her mother. So, he persuades Joanna to move from Scotland to Victoria. It’s a very long trip, and it doesn’t make things any easier that Joanna and Alistair have brought their nine-week-old son, Noah, with them. When the flight finally lands, the family is only too happy to get into their rented car and head towards Alistair’s hometown. Along the way, the couple’s worst nightmare comes true when baby Noah goes missing. A massive search, including the police and the media, gets underway and thousands of people are soon looking for Noah. When he isn’t found, gossip starts that perhaps Joanna and Alistair might have had something to do with the baby’s disappearance. Little by little, those whispers become louder, and before long, the police look carefully at the couple. Among other things, this is an interesting look at the way the public often pitches in when there’s a missing child, and the way social media can whip up public sentiment.

In Ilsa Evans’ Nefarious Doings, we are introduced to newspaper columnist Nell Forrest, who lives with two of her five daughters in the town of Majic, Victoria (yes, that’s the name of the town; even Nell makes fun of it). One day, Nell gets a visit from two police constables who tell her that there’s been a fire at her mother Lillian’s house. Nell gets there as quickly as possible and finds that the garage is been badly burned, but her mother is alright and the house, while damaged, can be repaired. To everyone’s shock, the body of Dustin Craig, who lives next door, has been found in the garage. Now, there’s a murder investigation. And Lillian is a person of interest. Not only was the victim found in her garage, but they’d had a loud argument the night before the fire. Lillian says she is innocent (why would she leave a body in her own garage if she were guilty?). But she and Nell both know that officially, she’s a suspect. So, Nell, her mother, and her daughters get to work trying to find out who the killer really is.

See what I mean? Even peaceful, beautiful Victoria isn’t immune to murder. Just check crime fiction and you’ll find examples – more than I have space for in this one post.

ps. Thanks, Australia.com for the lovely photo!

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from the theme song for the Victoria Blind Cricket Association (VBCA). The tune’s from an old Scottish song, A Wee Deoch and Doris, but it seems to be unknown who wrote the lyrics. If you know, do fill me in!