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The Last Trace
By Petronella McGovern
Published by Allen & Unwin
ISBN
9781760879259
Blanks in your memory and suspecting that you may have committed a crime, but you can't be sure would be enough for anyone to be concerned, but when Lachy is hailed as a hero he can't remember why.
This masterfully told novel is set in Sydney, a small town near the Snowy Mountains and in the USA.
Thrilling reading it includes the lives of a family fractured by an over zealous, abusive religious patriarch in the USA.
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One of his daughters, Gloria flees the family to live in Sydney with her Australian husband. Like most of her siblings she blindly followed her father's fanatical views and reports her adventurous, funny loving and questioning sister to her father for her sinning, leading to awful consequences and a lifetime of regret.
Gloria and her husband happily married settling in Sydney and had a daughter Sheridan and son Lachy (Lachlan).
Family means everything to Sheridan who is a life coach and is married to Nick with two daughters. Sheridan is older than her brother Lachy and the stronger, sometimes bossy one. Lachy, a water engineer works mostly in Africa and in developing nations and begins to suspect that his friend and colleague Henrik is abusing young girls in Africa and he wants to lodge a report to their employers. He is most concerned about climate change and his relationship with his son Kai who usually lives with his mum and step-father in Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches.
Lachy is home for a while in between overseas postings and living with Kai at the family property for a while. Over Easter the family gather at their property for their traditional family holidays. All except their widowed mum and grandma Gloria who ives in a nursing home suffering with dementia. Life changes dramatically on this Easter weekend as Sheridan and Nick's young daughters suddenly become gravely ill. Could it be those old lollies they found?
The mystery unravels becoming multi-dimensional with many twists and turns with the possibility of dire consequences for Kai and the dangerous risks he has taken.
Lachy knows he isn't coping well and he is worried about these gaps in his memory. His sister doesn't have the full story and she is concerned he may have early onset dementia and wonders how she would cope with her brother and her mother. But then he is asked to submit a sample of his DNA to a woman he met years ago in the US, supposedly for a paternity test. He acts swiftly, but could it be something do with a missing woman, a hit and run? It all seems rather strange, it could be a scam.
Lachy's usual instinct is to run and hide, not to face things head on. Eventually Sheridan persuades her brother to go to Washington DC to confront issues dealing with unfinished accusations at work and to see about this DNA test and visit their cousins who they haven't seen in years.The DNA test turns out to be the best thing he could have done solving five decades of police mysteries - quote an eye opener.
Each chapter is written from the character's perspective, with cliff hangers for each one and wondering who to trust. It is creatively constructed compelling reading. I really enjoyed reading The Last Trace.
The author
Petronella McGovern is fascinated by what makes us tick, the lies we tell, and the secrets we keep. She is the bestselling author of Six Minutes, The Good Teacher and The Liars. Her books have been nominated in the Ned Kelly Awards, the Davitt Awards and the Australian Independent Bookseller Awards. Petronella has a Master of Arts in Creative Writing and tutors in creative writing. She grew up on a farm in central west New South Wales and now lives with her family in Sydney, on Gadigal Country.
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