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Hodder Australia, 2005
Reviewed by Kerrie Smith, January 2008
Crime fiction, forensic procedural
Jack McCain is the acting chief scientist in the Criminalistics section of
the Australian Federal Police. As a supervisor, he is supposed to be
delegating more, and certainly not answering calls to crime scenes. And
yet here he is, in the carpark of Canberra's Blackspot Nightclub, where
the body of a former colleague has been found. So begins the first case in
Gabrielle Lord's DIRTY WEEKEND.
Jack McCain, former alcoholic, is now a workaholic who has trouble
building relationships with people because he lets his work rule his life.
He runs from intimacy, from revealing his hopes and fears. His
relationship with Iona, who has moved from Sydney to live with him, is in
danger of collapse because he constantly puts work first. His first
marriage collapsed for the same reason, and his children have become used
to his absence from their lives. But Jack strongly believes in what he is
doing and that makes it nigh impossible for him to work 9 to 5.
Just as Jack is preparing to go home at the end of a long day, the second
case emerges. The head of Canberra's Agricultural Research Station
contacts Jack with a delicate situation involving two of his research
scientists. Their work is straightforward agricultural research on rabbit
control, involving highly infectious materials, supposedly only dangerous
if you are a rabbit. Claire Dimitriou is not to be found although her car
is in the car park, and the door to the secure area appears to be open.
Jack discovers Dimitriou's body on the floor of a lab that has been
meticulously steam-cleaned. That and the fact that her research partner
Peter Yu has gone missing, their research log has gone, and that the lab
no longer houses any of the research rabbits, rings alarm bells. At least
a couple of people witnessed Peter and Claire in the lab arguing
vehemently, she in tears, and he very angry.
DIRTY WEEKEND presents one puzzle after another. Two strands of
investigation become many, including a twenty-year old cold case. The
reader is right with Jack McCain, reading crime scenes, evaluating
evidence, drawing conclusions. Gabrielle Lord's detailed research is
evident both in the development of the novel's main themes, and the
technologies used in the forensic investigations. Jack solves cases with a
mixture of careful forensic investigation, memories of earlier cases, and
intuition.
DIRTY WEEKEND is in many ways a brave novel. Gabrielle Lord determinedly
uses Australian colloquialisms, carefully describes Australian settings,
and places Australian events, and Australian scientific research, in a
world setting. Watch out also for Lord's quirky sense of humour seen in
Faithful Bunnies, Terminator Rabbit, a thief called the "giant chicken",
and even in the book's title.
Thirteen novels in ten years is no mean feat, and in that time Gabrielle
has collected two awards: The Ned Kelly Award for best novel in 2002 for
DEATH DELIGHTS, and a Davitt Award in 2003 for the best Australian crime
novel by an Australian woman. DIRTY WEEKEND is the third in Jack McCain
series: look for DEATH DELIGHTS and LETHAL FACTOR. If you'd like to find
out more about Gabrielle Lord, check her website out at
http://www.gabriellelord.com. Currently she is writing CONSPIRACY 365
-- a twelve-volume YA crime/ thriller/ mystery/ series for Scholastic
Publishing.
Jan 2008
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